HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Where two history buffs go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.

http://HUBhistory.com

subscribe
share






The Original War on Christmas (episode 212)


The Puritan dissenters who founded the town of Boston are remembered as a deeply religious society, so you might think that Christmas in Puritan Boston would be a big deal. You’d be wrong though. Celebrating Christmas was against the law for decades, and it was against cultural norms for a century or more. What were the Puritans’ theological misgivings about Christmas? What were the practices of misrule, mummery, and wassailing with which Christmas was celebrated in the 17th century? And why did the Puritans literally erase Christmas from their calendars?

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/212/

And support the show on Patreon.

The Original War on Christmas
  • The Diary of Samuel Sewall, volumes one, two, and three
  • William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation
  • Recollections of Samuel Breck
  • Text of A Testimony Against several Prophane and Superstitious Customs Now Practised by Some In New-England, the Evil Whereof is Evinced From the Holy Scriptures, and From the Writings Both of Ancient and Modern Devines, by Increase Mather
  • Grace Defended, A Censure on the Ungodliness, By which the Glorious Grace of God, is too commonly Abused. A Sermon Preached on the Twenty-Fifth Day of December 1712, by Cotton Mather
  • Christmas was banned in 1659, and the ban was overturned in 1681
  • Nissenbaum, Stephen, American Antiquarian Society (1996). Christmas in early New England, 1620-1820: Puritanism, popular culture, and the printed word. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society
  • Spencer, Ivor (1935). “Christmas, the Upstart.” The New England Quarterly, 8(4)
  • Thomas Prince’s New England Chronology


fyyd: Podcast Search Engine
share








 December 21, 2020  58m