holiday – Page 5 – Empowering women through fiction and history.

Photo Credit: Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse, Claude Monet, 1866-1867, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY: Crisco 1492/Wikimedia Common/PD old 80

This Sunday is the official start of summer. Much of my historical family saga, the Waxwood Series, takes place during the summer months. For us 21^st century people, summer means hot weather, swimming pools, and beaches. It’s about fun, leisure, and rest.

The Victorians, however, had a different take on summer. In the 19^th century, only the privileged (like my Alderdice family) could afford to take a summer vacation. Middle-class and working-class people did not take time off in the summer or go on vacation. Why?

First, there was a philosophical issue involved. Tension existed between work and play in America at that time. Doctors and ministers and other authorities were suspicious of vacations, believing they led people to vice. There was also a very practical reason: Most people just couldn’t afford to take time off and go somewhere for the summer (no paid time off for vacations in those days).

What changed? Our awareness that being the constant workhorse was more unhealthy than the sort of vices vacation destinations could offer. Also, the rising middle class in the Gilded Age could finally afford to a week or two off from work during the summer for some fun and leisure. And, too, as with much of American life in the Gilded Age, there was the question of commerce. The travel and hospitality industries (like hotels and restaurants) quickly realized they could make a lot of money by encouraging Americans to take time off to enjoy the summer and play.

In my series, when summer comes, the Alderdice family vacation in the resort town called Waxwood. Resort life was growing in the Gilded Age among the wealthy and upper-middle class. These wealthy people took their summer vacations very seriously, spending months lounging in resorts, meeting new people, and participating in all sorts of activities and events. You can find out more about my series on this page.

Ready to dive into my Gilded Age family saga? Now is a perfect time! Book 1, The Specter, has been updated and revised and is now at 99¢. You can get it here.

And if you really want to know what it was like to spend a summer in a resort with the wealthy, you’ll want to read Book 2 of the series, False Fathers, which has also recently been updated and revised.

Photo Credit: Let all rejoice sweet Easter Day, 1881, stock card, published by Geo M. Hayes, Boston Public Library, Print Department: Boston Public Library/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

It’s officially Easter and, if you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I love to dive into the way things were during the holidays. The Gilded Age made of Easter what it made of many other holidays — an opportunity for opulence and excess. But, then, Gilded Agers knew how to enjoy life.

Easter in America didn’t become a spectacle until after the Civil War. In the first half of the 19^th century, it was an important holiday for Christians and Catholics, but some religious groups were apt to ignore it. Others made Easter Sunday a day of mourning the fallen soldiers of the war.

But things began to change around the 1870s (which coincides, not coincidentally, I think, with the birth of the Gilded Age). Easter was still, of course, a religious holiday and honored as such, but the Gilded Age mentality began to slip in. Gilded Agers saw it as a time to celebrate spring in the best way they knew how — by showing off.

Now, here’s a cartoon that is a sign of the times: An elderly Victorian lady dressed to the nines points toward a lavish Easter bonnet on a maypole while other equally garish women gather around to worship this sign of Gilded Age opulence. But the New Woman isn’t buying it and, in her sensible and comfortable suit, gives her a look like, “Seriously?”

Photo Credit: She won’t bow to the hat, C. J. Taylor, 1896, Library of Congress, Chromolithographs: Picryl/No known restrictions

The tradition of new Easter clothes took off during this period. Easter was the perfect time to jump into spring with bright, pastel shades and adornments. As with other holidays, such as Christmas, consumerism ruled, and it suddenly became a necessity rather than desirable for women and men to get new clothes for the holiday. Advertisements for men’s clothes urged them not to wait to order their new Easter suits, and buying a new hat for the holiday was the order of the day for most women (thus was born the “Easter bonnet”). As you can see from the photos on this page, not a ribbon or a frill was spared on these elaborate headgear.

Where did Gilded Agers take themselves to display their new Easter garb? To church, obviously. In fact, there were those who weren’t regular churchgoers but would make an exception for Easter Sunday so their fellow worshipers could admire their new spring clothes. Another place Gilded Agers went to see and be seen in their new Easter garb was restaurants and hotels. Just as with Thanksgiving, hotel dining rooms had special menus for Easter that might have included lamb and asparagus (a vegetable just coming into vogue in Victorian cuisine). And the height of showing off in the Gilded Age was the Easter parade. In fact, the idea of the parade was conceived when aristocratic Victorian ladies flocked down Fifth Avenue dressed in their finest after church. In 1948, the musical Easter Parade, starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire epitomized this Easter tradition, especially in this song where Garland tackles all the cliches of Easter in one tune.

Want to read about one Nob Hill family and their rise and fall in the Gilded Age? My entire Waxwood Series is now available!

Want to explore the nooks and crannies of history that aren’t in the history books? Like social and psychological history and not just historical events? Want in on exclusive sneak peeks, giveaways, and surveys? Then sign up for my newsletter! You’ll get a free short story when you do.

Category: holiday

Summer Vacation in the 19th Century

All Decked Out: Easter in the Gilded Age