band headed to the city’s main commercial district, where they smashed crates and barrels and looted at least one shop; still unsatisfied, they headed to the Battery (at the southern tip of the city), where they broke the windows of several of the city’s wealthiest residences and tried to remove the ironfence that surrounded Battery Park; finally they headed back to Broadway for a second visit. This time a group of hired watchmen were waiting for the callithumpians; but the band stood down the watch force, and, in the words of a local newspaper, “the multitude passed noisily and triumphantly up Broadway.” 17
What are we to make of scenes like these? Once again, E. P. Thompson makes a convincing case that it would be misleading to interpret them either as wholly conscious political protest
or
as mere revelry that got out of hand, a kind of nineteenth-century frat party. Historians of American cities have agreed with that assessment. One of them puts it like this: “Riotous disorder, racial violence, and jolly foolery for neighbors and audiences existed side by side … for decades…. Customary Christmas license combined with seasonal unemployment made the winter holiday a noisy, drunken, threatening period in the eyes of the respectable.” And another historian suggests that New York’s callithumpians can be considered “a bridge between the traditional youth group misrule of the English village … and a more direct challenge to authority.” 18
K NICKERBOCKER H OLIDAY
Let us return for a few minutes to our friend John Pintard, if only because at one point, in December 1823, Pintard offered his own interpretation of the situation—and it is both interesting in itself and germane to the question of Christmas. Pintard mused that it might be the culture of Protestantism itself that was to blame for New York’s problems. Protestants, he argued, unlike Catholics and even pagans, had systematically suppressed the kind of “religious festivals” at which “mechanics and laborers” could find officially sanctioned and organized “processions” that would allow them to release their “pent-up” energies in satisfying but orderly ways. 19 (Pintard might almost seem to be referring to
Puritans
in particular rather than to Protestants in general.)
In fact, John Pintard himself was drawn almost compulsively to ceremonies, rituals, and traditional practices—for himself and his family, for New York City, and even for the United States as a nation. And when he could not find such things, he devised them. (One of the nation’s first antiquarians, Pintard was the founder of the New-York Historical Society in 1804; and he played a role in the establishment of Washingtons Birthday, the Fourth of July, and even Columbus Day as national holidays. 20 ) In fact, it was John Pintard who brought St. Nicholas to America, in an effortto make that figure both the icon of the New-York Historical Society and the patron saint of New York City. In 1810 Pintard paid for the publication of a broadside, sponsored by the Historical Society, that featured a picture of St. Nicholas bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season (actually, on St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6). The picture was accompanied by a short poem that began, “Sánete Claus goed heylig man.” 21
In his letters Pintard regularly expressed nostalgia for what he called the “old customs” and “ancient usages” of New York, and particularly for the forgotten spirit of the old Christmas season, when rich folk and poor, old and young, would mingle together in genial harmony in the streets of the city. 22 But Pintard never managed to discover or devise any way of observing the Christmas holidays that actually involved working-class people. All of his own carefully planned seasonal rituals were restricted to the members of his own social class (for example, the formalized New Year’s Day described at the beginning of this chapter). The reason for this
What are we to make of scenes like these? Once again, E. P. Thompson makes a convincing case that it would be misleading to interpret them either as wholly conscious political protest
or
as mere revelry that got out of hand, a kind of nineteenth-century frat party. Historians of American cities have agreed with that assessment. One of them puts it like this: “Riotous disorder, racial violence, and jolly foolery for neighbors and audiences existed side by side … for decades…. Customary Christmas license combined with seasonal unemployment made the winter holiday a noisy, drunken, threatening period in the eyes of the respectable.” And another historian suggests that New York’s callithumpians can be considered “a bridge between the traditional youth group misrule of the English village … and a more direct challenge to authority.” 18
K NICKERBOCKER H OLIDAY
Let us return for a few minutes to our friend John Pintard, if only because at one point, in December 1823, Pintard offered his own interpretation of the situation—and it is both interesting in itself and germane to the question of Christmas. Pintard mused that it might be the culture of Protestantism itself that was to blame for New York’s problems. Protestants, he argued, unlike Catholics and even pagans, had systematically suppressed the kind of “religious festivals” at which “mechanics and laborers” could find officially sanctioned and organized “processions” that would allow them to release their “pent-up” energies in satisfying but orderly ways. 19 (Pintard might almost seem to be referring to
Puritans
in particular rather than to Protestants in general.)
In fact, John Pintard himself was drawn almost compulsively to ceremonies, rituals, and traditional practices—for himself and his family, for New York City, and even for the United States as a nation. And when he could not find such things, he devised them. (One of the nation’s first antiquarians, Pintard was the founder of the New-York Historical Society in 1804; and he played a role in the establishment of Washingtons Birthday, the Fourth of July, and even Columbus Day as national holidays. 20 ) In fact, it was John Pintard who brought St. Nicholas to America, in an effortto make that figure both the icon of the New-York Historical Society and the patron saint of New York City. In 1810 Pintard paid for the publication of a broadside, sponsored by the Historical Society, that featured a picture of St. Nicholas bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season (actually, on St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6). The picture was accompanied by a short poem that began, “Sánete Claus goed heylig man.” 21
In his letters Pintard regularly expressed nostalgia for what he called the “old customs” and “ancient usages” of New York, and particularly for the forgotten spirit of the old Christmas season, when rich folk and poor, old and young, would mingle together in genial harmony in the streets of the city. 22 But Pintard never managed to discover or devise any way of observing the Christmas holidays that actually involved working-class people. All of his own carefully planned seasonal rituals were restricted to the members of his own social class (for example, the formalized New Year’s Day described at the beginning of this chapter). The reason for this
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