The second President liked the first President well enough, but he wasn’t all gaga about having The Great One’s birthday celebrated with dance parties, fireworks and parades. In fact, if any one President would surely take fiendish pleasure in knowing… Read More ›
Holidays
Different demographics in different regions shaping Holidays with American style.
Once Banned in Boston: Mince No Pie in the Old Bay State
Cakes may rise and fall on matters as minor as baking powder but for some pies it is a matter of politics. Christmas Day is over but in earlier times, it was simply a highpoint of the long winter days… Read More ›
Old Hollywood Movie Stars & their Holiday Greeting Cards
Romantic, ridiculous, egotistical, modest, perplexing, mundane, creative, funny. Like the Christmas cards once sent by Grandma and Grandpa, all those cousins, the neighbor and the business downtown, the Seasons Greetings, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year messages once… Read More ›
American Hanukkah: How Pop Culture Created “Jewish Christmas”
This Holiday Season, many who celebrates Christmas might sense something is sorely missing. Hanukkah. In the store aisles, alongside the rock-and-roll animatronic Santa Claus shaking his belly and fake green wreathes with red glass ornaments, there are none of the… Read More ›
Great Scots! Happy St. Andrew’s Day
It may be the fact that its so close to Thanksgiving which accounts for it not quite making it onto the national radar, but the last day of November is St. Andrew’s Day, the national day of Scotland when Americans… Read More ›
California Oktoberfest: Authentically German, Utterly American
It’s that time of year again. Cincinnati makes sense. Upper Midwestern cities certainly. East Coast bastions of ethnic immigrant history absolutely. But Oktoberfest in Torrance, California? That small city in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County that’s home… Read More ›
The Scruffy Dudes Who Got Wyoming Women the First Vote & Got Forgot
It isn’t a federal holiday and probably never will be declared one, considering how close it it to Labor Day, Still, every year, starting in the middle of August until the month’s end, from Macomb, Illinois to Redmond, Washington to… Read More ›
Milwaukee Marseillaise: Biggest Bastille Day in Wisconsin
Today, July 14 is celebrated with reverential pomp in France, where it is formally known as La Fête Nationale.In the United States, its easier to just call it Bastille Day and use it t0 party between the Fourth of July and… Read More ›
Uncle Sam: Not the Man They Say He Is (Part 1)
Uncle Sam is a real man named Samuel Wilson, born from two brothers both named John. He was around before there was even a United States and only later became a sexist who overpowered an idealistic young woman who had always loyally… Read More ›
Juneteenth: A Texan African-American Holiday Spreads Freely
It may be famous as a holiday established by the federal government to remember one man and one era, but well over a century before Martin Luther King Day was made official as a time to reflect on the strides… Read More ›
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