Celebrating the Holidays in Turn-of-the-Century Phoenix

Posted December 1, 2018

Written by Heather Roberts, Research Historian

Did you know…

As we make our way through the season, decking the halls within an inch of their lives and singing along with 24/7 holiday radio stations, it’s interesting to look back and see how the holidays were celebrated at the turn of the 20th century. We’ve looked through several issues of the Arizona Republican and Phoenix Tribune newspapers to get a better idea of how the people who lived in the Rosson House experienced the holidays. Here’s what we found:

  • Like us, late 19th century Phoenicians liked to exchange presents. Ads for gifts generally appeared in the newspaper around the beginning of December. Stores like The Irvine Co. at 35 E. Washington St. promoted Christmas cards (which were considered gifts at that time), toys, dolls, games, books, photo albums, cactus ware, fountain pens and novelties. Clothing, linens and handkerchiefs were also favored gifts, as were bicycles and jewelry. Food was often exchanged as well, and candies, oranges, apples and nuts were added to children’s stockings. In 1895, City Marshal Gus Clark gave his deputies a “handsome diamond pin and…a diamond scarf pin as a reward for efficient and faithful services”.
  • Fresh greenery – including evergreens, palm leaves, mistletoe, holly, and pepper branches – and red roses and carnations were used to decorate everything from homes to churches to country clubs. Evergreen trees were decorated with small gifts, hand-made and store-bought ornaments, and with candles or electric lights. In early Territorial Phoenix, a deciduous tree on the corner of Center and Washington Streets was “decorate” with joke gifts – individuals would stop by, find their nametag, and take their gift. The funniest was said to be the overlarge pair of scissors gifted to the editor of the newspaper.
  • Donations were made to charities at Christmas, so that everyone could enjoy the holidays. The Salvation Army took donations of food from local grocery stores, bakeries, butchers, and restaurants for the poor. Even the residents at the Arizona Insane Asylum got to celebrate the holidays – they enjoyed a Christmas tree; seasonal music (they had their own orchestra!); gifts of handkerchiefs, nuts, candies, apples and oranges; and later they ate a turkey and duck for dinner.
  • You can’t celebrate the holidays without food, and turn of the century Phoenicians weren’t ones to shy from that kind of party! Holiday dinners were special, and so, were more extravagant. If they could afford to, people would go to a restaurant for their holiday meal. The Hotel Adams, the Ford Hotel, Hotel Hardwick, and the Opera House Café all listed their menus in the December 25, 1896 edition of the newspaper. Like the Christmas dinner menu pictured here from the 1896 Fanny Farmer Cookbook, these menus listed anywhere from six to eight different courses, and include caviar, oysters, consommé, green turtle soup, lobster bisque, olives, halibut, roasts, turkey, venison, quail, duck, potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, peas, tomatoes, waffles, puddings, sweetbreads, pies, ice cream, lady fingers, macaroons, fruit, walnuts, almonds, candied raisins, cheese, crackers, and coffee. The courses were small, but that is still a lot of food!
  • And finally, who knows what this says about the holidays and how they were celebrated when this ad from Dr. G. H. Keefer could be found in the Arizona Republican newspaper on December 31, 1899, but it’s one of our favorites.

Whether you’re taking the season off, or partying like it’s 1899, we hope that your holidays are happy and healthy.

See you next year!

 

 

You can learn more about how people at the turn-of-the-century lit their Christmas trees from our December 2016 blog article, Lighting Up the Holidays: How Electricity Changed Holiday Décor. In that same vein, read Smithsonian Magazine’s great article, The History of the Christmas Card – it’s just what you need to procrastinate filling out your own cards this season!

Information about historic Christmas in Phoenix from the Library of Congress Chronicling America digital archives;  Arizona Republican; December 23-28, 1891-1896.

Archive