THEY HAVE FEW HOLIDAYS

•Americans observed a calendar that was remarkably simple compared to those in England and Western Europe•Except for a small minority of Catholics, Americans did not observe Easter with great ceremony, and many ignored it completely•Halloween had not yet arrived from Catholic Ireland•Instead, the 5th of November marked “Pope’s Night” or “Guy Fawkes’ Night”

– A militantly Protestant English holiday which marked the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot against the Houses of Parliament.•Feast of St. Patrick was celebrated by the Irish in Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia

CHRISTMAS Most Americans observed Christmas on a similarly small scale or not at all – Presbyterians, Baptists, and Congregationalists traditionally ignored Christmas

completely

In the South - Celebrated Christmas week in the tradition of the Church of England; they gathered

family, feasted, and frolicked – The carnival season of the children of bandage – Slaves were given their longest holiday from working, usually a week or more – In St. Mary’s Parish in southern Louisiana, each planter took a yearly turn in providing

an outdoor feast for the slaves, which included 300 to 500 people Majority of Americans who “kept Christmas” did not exchange gifts or decorate New Yorkers and Lutheran Germans of Pennsylvania were the exception Burned Yule logs Told their children of St. Nicholas Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement Moore in 1822 Week between Christmas and New Year’s off Well-to-do gave presents By 1830, some Americans beginning to find Christmas in the New York style contagious – Christmas celebration became a mark of wealth and gentility

THANKSGIVING North

– celebrated in early December – Festival – Not yet a national holiday – started to spread south, but Yankees thought that “south of Connecticut such holidays scarcely deserve the name”--“days of thanksgiving” – Without reference to the seasons – New England – For particular acts of divine favor or deliverance – as people became more preoccupied with agriculture in the 18th century, these days transformed into a ritual celebration of abundance in the Fall, after the harvests – by the early 19th century, Thanksgiving was still in part a day of holy remembrance, but also a time of harvest festival and homecoming – Church in the morning – Occasion to renew kinship ties – became more important and people grew increasingly apart – City apprentices who were not permitted to visit their parental and rural homes more than twice a year, Thanksgiving was one of their opportunities to go home – Sometimes families traveled hundreds of miles to see each other

OTHER INFORMATION

Yankees observed Fast Day Work ceased and citizens were not supposed to eat Allowed them to still begin the agricultural year with repentance and to end

the agricultural year with celebration The Calendar that mattered to many Americans was civil and secular, not

sacred – Militia musters, state and local elections, and periodic sessions of circuit-

riding courts Some men came to certain public gatherings reluctantly. The militia laws of

each state called out all able-bodied men for military drill two or three times a year. Many men had come to resent training bitterly, both for the time it took away from their work and the subordination to commanding officers it presupposed. Some made deliberate travesties of military discipline.

The only holiday of midsummer was an unavoidable one: The Fourth of July. In each American community, the Declaration of Independence had been read. It was an awkward time, due to its timing (agriculture). Yet Americans made the Fourth their most universal holiday. They fired cannons, watched parades, and listened to endless orations in town common and courthouse squares. It was the only sanctioned way of taking a break from the intensive labor of midsummer.