Speaker 1: Happy Saturday and Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating.
Speaker 1: Since today's episode is coming out on Christmas Day, we
Speaker 1: thought we would replay a particularly Christmas Ee episode as
Speaker 1: our Saturday Classic, and it is our Christmas triple feature,
Speaker 1: which originally came out on December and covers three Christmas
Speaker 1: classics that were each having milestone birthdays that year. So
Speaker 1: enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Honley Frying. Today's podcast
Speaker 1: is coming out on Christmas Eve, so it seems like
Speaker 1: a good time to take a look at three creative
Speaker 1: works that have become staples of the Christmas season. All
Speaker 1: three of them have played a huge part in how
Speaker 1: people observe and celebrate Christmas and parts of the world,
Speaker 1: and they all happen to have milestone birthdays this year.
Speaker 1: So A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens turned a hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five on December nineteen. The poem A Visit
Speaker 1: from St. Nicholas turned a hundred on December Probably we're
Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about that too, and
Speaker 1: then the song Still Knocked or Silent Night is turning
Speaker 1: two hundred on the day that this episode comes out.
Speaker 1: I will tell you that if you had asked me
Speaker 1: before any of this research landing in my hand, I
Speaker 1: would have reversed the order that I believed they were
Speaker 1: in terms of age. You would have put the You
Speaker 1: would have put Silent Night as the youngest one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but in my brain it seems newer.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. Um I think I bet it
Speaker 1: has to do with perception that I always see a
Speaker 1: Christmas Carol or I have often seen a Christmas Carol
Speaker 1: played out in old timey costumes, and that has been
Speaker 1: the case with the other two. So in my head,
Speaker 1: those must be those must be the younger ones. I
Speaker 1: think that's what it is. But we are going to
Speaker 1: start with the youngest of these three works, and that
Speaker 1: is Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol in Prose being a
Speaker 1: Ghost Story of Christmas, first published by Chapman and Hall
Speaker 1: on December nineteenth, eighteen forty three. And this novella begins
Speaker 1: with the author's note quote, I have endeavored in this
Speaker 1: ghostly little book to raise the ghost of an idea
Speaker 1: which shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves,
Speaker 1: with each other, with the season, or with me. May
Speaker 1: it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wished to
Speaker 1: lay it their faithful friend and servant C. D. Today's
Speaker 1: readers may miss the double meaning of to lay it,
Speaker 1: which meant both to lay the book down and to
Speaker 1: lay the ghost Dickens was raising to rest. Then the
Speaker 1: book moves on to the relatively un Christmas e opening
Speaker 1: line of Marley was dead to begin with. There is
Speaker 1: no doubt whatsoever about that. Then it introduced is Ebenezer
Speaker 1: Scrooge quote a typefisted hand at the grindstone, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,
Speaker 1: covetous old center. There's also his jolly and kind hearted
Speaker 1: nephew Fred, his ill treated employee Bob Cratchett, cratch its son,
Speaker 1: Tiny Tim, and the ghosts of Marley and the spirits
Speaker 1: of Christmas past, present and yet to come. The story,
Speaker 1: of course, follows Scrooge as he becomes a kinder and
Speaker 1: more generous person through the intervention of all these spirits.
Speaker 1: God bless us everyone. A Christmas Carol is commonly named
Speaker 1: as one of the best selling books of all time,
Speaker 1: but because of its age, that's actually pretty tricky to confirm,
Speaker 1: and at this point there are also hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of adaptations across many genres and many types of media.
Speaker 1: You can see flickers of it in everything from It's
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life to How the grinchtul Christmas, and none
Speaker 1: of this colossal popularity is new. When it was first
Speaker 1: published in eighteen forty three, its first run of six
Speaker 1: thousand copies sold out in just a week, and within
Speaker 1: two months of its debut, eight different dramatic versions were
Speaker 1: already being staged. But Charles Dickens didn't originally set out
Speaker 1: to write a book when he wrote a Christmas Carol,
Speaker 1: his original intent was a pamphlet. Earlier, in eighteen forty three,
Speaker 1: he had read a report on child labor in Britain,
Speaker 1: and he had also visited what he described as a
Speaker 1: ragged school. Urbanization, industrialization and the eighteen thirty four Poor
Speaker 1: Laws had all combined to create a system of really
Speaker 1: devastating poverty. In nineteenth century England. Conditions at a lot
Speaker 1: of the factories were just appalling, and children employed in
Speaker 1: the factories frequently did exhausting and dangerous work. This whole
Speaker 1: system was also set up so that the poor were
Speaker 1: forced to go work in workhouses, but the conditions at
Speaker 1: those workhouses were so terrible into humanizing, that people would
Speaker 1: do anything rather than to go there. Dickens thoughts on
Speaker 1: all of this were certainly influenced by his own lived experience.
Speaker 1: When he was a child, his father was placed in
Speaker 1: a debtor's prison over an unpaid bakery bill. Dickens had
Speaker 1: to leave school and work in a boot blacking factory.
Speaker 1: So Dickens wanted to do something about all of this,
Speaker 1: and he initially planned a pamphlet called an Appeal to
Speaker 1: the People of England on Behalf of the poor Man's Child,
Speaker 1: but he quickly decided that a work of fiction might
Speaker 1: do a better job of getting his point across than
Speaker 1: a pamphlet. Wood He also had a practical motivation to
Speaker 1: write a book instead of a pamphlet. He flat out
Speaker 1: needed money. He had just come back from a tour
Speaker 1: of the US, where he had been treated like a celebrity,
Speaker 1: but he hadn't earned very much, so he needed to
Speaker 1: write a work that would sell, and that meant a
Speaker 1: book not a pamphlet. He cranked out a Christmas Carol
Speaker 1: over just a couple of months of writing while also
Speaker 1: working on the Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit as
Speaker 1: a serial. He's described as basically the most famous writer
Speaker 1: living at that moment, and so he went on this
Speaker 1: whole tour of the US and Canada and was just
Speaker 1: hailed everywhere that he went, but did not earn money
Speaker 1: off of it. Christmas Carol really synthesizes a lot that
Speaker 1: was going on at the time that it was written.
Speaker 1: There's the Victorian fascination with ghosts and the supernatural, the
Speaker 1: horrors of poverty and morality. The character of Ebenezer Scrooge
Speaker 1: really embodies commonly held attitudes towards the poor, seeing them
Speaker 1: as a burden on society who just deserved the cruelties
Speaker 1: and degradations of the workhouse. The celebration of Christmas in
Speaker 1: Britain was also shifting during this time. Christmas trees, turkey dinners,
Speaker 1: decorating with evergreens, gifts, and greeting cards were all becoming
Speaker 1: more and more popular. So A Christmas Carol both reflected
Speaker 1: and reinforced the Victorian idea of how to celebrate Christmas.
Speaker 1: It's also credited with pop arizing Merry Christmas as a
Speaker 1: Christmas greeting and with the idea that there should be
Speaker 1: snow at Christmas. Even though A Christmas Carol was an
Speaker 1: instant bestseller, Dickens did not make nearly as much money
Speaker 1: with it as he hoped, and this was mostly because
Speaker 1: of his own decisions. He wanted this book to be
Speaker 1: really nice, with fancy gilded bindings and woodcuts and edgings
Speaker 1: and extravagant lettering. All that stuff cost money. He even
Speaker 1: made last minute changes to the title and in pages
Speaker 1: of the books because he wasn't satisfied with the original versions.
Speaker 1: All of this was very expensive and cut very deeply
Speaker 1: into his profits. That entire first printing only netted two
Speaker 1: hundred thirty pounds, and that was a fraction of the
Speaker 1: thousand pounds that he had hoped to make off of
Speaker 1: this book. In its first year, A Christmas Carol sold
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand copies, and even after that he still was
Speaker 1: not anywhere close to that thousand pound mark. It's like
Speaker 1: he needed a business manager or to explain like how
Speaker 1: the ballance of of profit works um And while the
Speaker 1: book was not a financial success at all, It was
Speaker 1: incredibly well received. It was nicknamed a new gospel. William
Speaker 1: make Peace. Thackeray described it as quote a national benefit
Speaker 1: and to every man and woman who reads it, a
Speaker 1: personal kindness. It also appears to have inspired exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of charitable mindset that Dickens had hoped that it
Speaker 1: would when he decided to write it. The following spring,
Speaker 1: Gentleman's magazine reported quote, more extensive kindness has been dispensed
Speaker 1: to those who are in want at the present season
Speaker 1: than at any preceding one. Later on, Robert Louis Stevenson
Speaker 1: wrote to a friend that after reading this book, he
Speaker 1: wanted to quote go out and comfort someone, and he
Speaker 1: insisted in the same letter that the idea of not
Speaker 1: handing out money to people who needed it was just nonsense.
Speaker 1: On top of all that, A Christmas Carol launched the
Speaker 1: genre of Christmas books. It also popular is the genre
Speaker 1: of Christmas ghost stories, although the British tradition of telling
Speaker 1: ghost stories around a fire in winter definitely predates Dickens's work.
Speaker 1: Dickenspace's disparity between how his book was received and how
Speaker 1: much money he made off of it with a lot
Speaker 1: of frustration. He summed up his chagrin in a letter saying, quote,
Speaker 1: what a wonderful thing it is that such a great
Speaker 1: success should occasion me such intolerable anxiety and disappointment. It
Speaker 1: took him more than ten years after this book came
Speaker 1: out to really get on stable financial footing. At the
Speaker 1: same time, though, he was genuinely glad that it inspired
Speaker 1: such a wave of seasonal goodwill and really spread the
Speaker 1: idea that employers had a duty not to be completely
Speaker 1: horrible to their employees. I don't know why that tickles me,
Speaker 1: but it does. Uh. Today Dickens's original handwritten manuscript of
Speaker 1: a Christmas Carol is at the Morgan Library and Museum
Speaker 1: in New York City, and they put it on display
Speaker 1: there every Christmas season. I don't think I have been
Speaker 1: at the Morrigan at exactly the time when they're showing it.
Speaker 1: But when I realized that, I was like, do I
Speaker 1: need to go to New York between now at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. I don't think I do. We
Speaker 1: will get into our next little piece of culture after
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. People may know our next subject,
Speaker 1: which is the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas by
Speaker 1: another name, The Night before Christmas A Visit from St.
Speaker 1: Nicholas is sometimes also called an Account of a Visit
Speaker 1: from St. Nicholas, and it was first published in the
Speaker 1: Troy Sentinel of Troy, New York on December twenty three.
Speaker 1: This is the one that starts twas the night before Christmas,
Speaker 1: when all through the house not a creature was stirring,
Speaker 1: not even a mouse. The narrator and his wife and
Speaker 1: the story are settling in forbid when St. Nicholas arrives
Speaker 1: in a miniature sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer. In
Speaker 1: the first printing they were named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, comment, Cupid, Dunder,
Speaker 1: and Blixum not litzen. Uh. St Nicholas not Honor is
Speaker 1: described as chubby and plump, All right, jolly old elf.
Speaker 1: He comes down the chimney with a bound. He fills
Speaker 1: all the stockings with presents, and then he goes back
Speaker 1: up the chimney before flying away, exclaiming Happy Christmas to all,
Speaker 1: and to all a good night. Similarly to how a
Speaker 1: Christmas carol really reinforced and spread the way that the
Speaker 1: Victorians were celebrating Christmas, this poem had a huge effect
Speaker 1: on how people think about Christmas, especially St. Nick. Among
Speaker 1: other things, A Visit from St. Nicholas really cemented jolly
Speaker 1: old St. Nick as this rotund and laughing person with
Speaker 1: twinkling eyes and a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer who
Speaker 1: comes into people's homes by sliding down the chimney. That's
Speaker 1: not the first ever appearance of sliding down the chimney,
Speaker 1: but it did really popularize all of that. And then
Speaker 1: they're also the sugar plums, which went on to become
Speaker 1: a prominent part of the nutcracker sweet in eight after
Speaker 1: that first appearance of the poem, in eighteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: the Troy Sentinel reprinted a Visit from St. Nicholas every year,
Speaker 1: still anonymously. Over the years, it went through various edits,
Speaker 1: mostly related to changes in spelling. For example, in earlier
Speaker 1: editions of the poem, the narrator sprung from the bed,
Speaker 1: but later he sprang, and of course dunder and blixum
Speaker 1: became dunder Mifflin, No I'm kidding became donner and blitzen Uh.
Speaker 1: The poem was picked up in other publications as well.
Speaker 1: As This poem grew in popularity, people started writing into
Speaker 1: the Troy Sentinel to talk about or to ask about,
Speaker 1: who the author was. In eighteen nine, the paper printed
Speaker 1: that they could only say that it was someone quote
Speaker 1: by birth and residence to the city of New York,
Speaker 1: and that he is a gentleman of more merit as
Speaker 1: a scholar and a writer than many of more noisy pretensions. Then,
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty seven, Charles Fenno Hoffman published a book
Speaker 1: called New York Book of Poetry, in which he named
Speaker 1: the author of a Visit from St. Nicholas as his friend,
Speaker 1: Clement Clark Moore. Moore was a scholar and a professor
Speaker 1: at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where
Speaker 1: he taught subjects such as Hebrew and Greek literature. His
Speaker 1: other works included a two volume compendious lexicon of the
Speaker 1: Hebrew language. At first, More didn't really acknowledge Hoffmann's claim
Speaker 1: that he had written a Visit from St. Nicholas, but
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty four he included the work in an
Speaker 1: anthology of his poetry. He said that he had written
Speaker 1: it for his children back in eighteen twenty two and
Speaker 1: that he had never intended for it to be made
Speaker 1: public outside their family at all. The most common explanation
Speaker 1: for how it came to be in the pages of
Speaker 1: the Troy Sentinel was that a family friend named Sarah
Speaker 1: Harriet Butler had visited that Christmas of eighteen twenty two
Speaker 1: and taken a copy of this family poem home with her,
Speaker 1: and then sent it to the Sentinel the following year
Speaker 1: without telling more about it. In eighteen sixty two, the
Speaker 1: librarian of the New York Historical Society asked More to
Speaker 1: handwrite a copy of it for their collections, and he did.
Speaker 1: You can see a scan of it online at the
Speaker 1: New York Historical Society Museum and Library website. At the time,
Speaker 1: the Society's librarian noted that when they were discussing this
Speaker 1: request for a manuscript, Moore said his inspiration for his
Speaker 1: depiction of St. Nick was quote a portly rubicund Dutchman
Speaker 1: living in the neighborhood. He wrote out other copies of
Speaker 1: the poem on request as well. However, there's also a
Speaker 1: competing claim to the authorship of a visit from St. Nicholas.
Speaker 1: Descendants of Major Henry Livingston Jr. Had said that he,
Speaker 1: not More, was the one who wrote the poem all
Speaker 1: the way back in roughly eighteen o eight, a few
Speaker 1: years after the eighteen forty four anthology of Moore's poetry
Speaker 1: came out. The Livingston's learned about it, and various members
Speaker 1: of the family started writing to each other about how
Speaker 1: Moore was taking credit for their father or grandfather's poem,
Speaker 1: depending on who was doing the writing, but they didn't
Speaker 1: really go public with their allegations until the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: By that point, all they really had to go on
Speaker 1: with this claim was their family lore. The family members
Speaker 1: who had said they had personal memories of it had
Speaker 1: all died, and then Livingstone himself had been dead for
Speaker 1: sixteen years when Moore's anthology came out, so even when
Speaker 1: that anthology came out, they could not just go ask him, hey,
Speaker 1: is this the poem that you wrote? There is no
Speaker 1: original handwritten copy of a visit from St. Nicholas from
Speaker 1: eighteen o eight or eighteen twenty two. The Livingstone family
Speaker 1: said they had a manuscript with handwritten notes, but that
Speaker 1: it was destroyed in a fire around eighteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: So this has spawned a debate over who should actually
Speaker 1: get credit. Moore's supporters have pointed out that the Troy
Speaker 1: Sentinel described the poet as a scholar from New York City.
Speaker 1: More was a scholar and was born in New York City,
Speaker 1: and when this poem was first published, he was living
Speaker 1: in a eight in Chelsea, Manhattan. Livingstone, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: was neither a scholar nor from New York City. He
Speaker 1: was sort of a gentleman farmer living in Poughkeepsie, roughly
Speaker 1: eighty miles or a hundred and twenty nine kilometers north
Speaker 1: of New York City. More supporters also questioned why More
Speaker 1: would take credit for the poem if he didn't write it,
Speaker 1: going so far as to write out copies for historical collections,
Speaker 1: especially since he seemed kind of embarrassed that it had
Speaker 1: even been published in the first place. More as a detractors,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, have contended that he was too
Speaker 1: preachy and cranky to have written such a lighthearted poem,
Speaker 1: and also that he hated children. They've also noted that
Speaker 1: Moore's family members gave three completely different stories about what
Speaker 1: inspired him to write it. One was that it was
Speaker 1: written to cheer up the sun after he was thrown
Speaker 1: from a horse and broke his leg. Another was that
Speaker 1: he wrote it after having to go out on Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve to find a turkey after the butcher didn't deliver their's,
Speaker 1: And the last was that it was written after hearing
Speaker 1: the bells jingling on his horse while traveling to his
Speaker 1: Chelsea estate by slay. So they point to the existence
Speaker 1: of these three disparate stories as a sign that none
Speaker 1: of them are true. Some of those spelling changes made
Speaker 1: to the poem over the years have also been brought
Speaker 1: up as evidence that Moore did not write it, especially
Speaker 1: dunder and blixum to donner and Blitzen. Dunder and Blixum
Speaker 1: is supposedly derived from the Dutch words for thunder and lightning,
Speaker 1: and Livingstone spoke Dutch. However, Moore spoke German, and donner
Speaker 1: und blitz is German for thunder and lightning. Ye, dunder
Speaker 1: and donna are really the words for thunder. Neither blix
Speaker 1: um nor blitzen is exactly the word for lightning. It's
Speaker 1: close in those two languages. Moore's detractors have also brought
Speaker 1: up a handwritten note on the title page of a
Speaker 1: book that he donated to the New York Historical Society.
Speaker 1: The note says, by clements seem Moore a m this
Speaker 1: book is a translation of another work in Moore's detractors
Speaker 1: say that this is evidence that he made a habit
Speaker 1: of just taking credit for other people's work, but his
Speaker 1: supporters counter that this note is not even in his handwriting,
Speaker 1: and that it's probably not him trying to say I
Speaker 1: translated this book, but it's just the notation written by
Speaker 1: someone else at the Historical Society to Mark who donated
Speaker 1: the book today. Livingston supporters include Donald Foster of Vassar College,
Speaker 1: who wrote Author Unknown on the Trail of Anonymous, and
Speaker 1: McDonald P. Jackson of the University of Auckland, author of
Speaker 1: who wrote The Night Before Christmas. Analyzing the Clement Clark
Speaker 1: Moore versus Henry Livingston question. Both Foster and Jackson ground
Speaker 1: their arguments in linguistic forensics, with Jackson's book having such
Speaker 1: chapter titles as the Evidence of Meter, Statistical Interlude, Phony Pairs,
Speaker 1: Definite and indefinite articles, and Favorite Expressions, and Quirks of Style.
Speaker 1: But of these men argue that the poem uses language
Speaker 1: in a way that makes it more likely to be
Speaker 1: Livingstone's than More's and Jackson's analysis, the most important part
Speaker 1: is quote, the frequencies of common words such as the
Speaker 1: on as at to that would, and some vocutions such
Speaker 1: as mania and in vain, and phony pairs comprised of
Speaker 1: the last phonetic symbol on in one word and the
Speaker 1: first in the next. Jackson goes on to state that
Speaker 1: these elements of language are not easy to imitate and
Speaker 1: are outside the conscious control of a writer. After Foster's
Speaker 1: book Author Unknown was published, historic document dealer Seth Keller
Speaker 1: published a point by point rebuttal of the various claims
Speaker 1: against Clement Moore as author of a Visit from St. Nicholas,
Speaker 1: including Foster's forensic analysis. When it comes to the more
Speaker 1: subjective claims of things like More's temperament, Keller's response is
Speaker 1: sort of no, he wasn't a jerky pedant who hated
Speaker 1: kids here are example. But when it came to the
Speaker 1: linguistic analysis, Caller contended that Foster cherry picked the evidence
Speaker 1: that supported the idea that Livingstone was the author, while
Speaker 1: discarding everything that did not support his idea. Caller concludes
Speaker 1: unequivocally that Moore wrote the poem. McDonald p. Jackson's book
Speaker 1: Just came out in April of twenties sixteen, so it
Speaker 1: is really new, and there really has not been a
Speaker 1: lot of scrutiny into whether his analysis holds up. I
Speaker 1: found one blog post on that subject and nothing in
Speaker 1: any peer reviewed journal or anything like that. The book
Speaker 1: author unknown as much older, so there's been a lot
Speaker 1: more writing about whether those conclusions are valid. However, it's
Speaker 1: important to note that there is debate about whether linguistic
Speaker 1: forensics can reliably and conclusively identify the author of a
Speaker 1: work at all, especially as the field stands right now.
Speaker 1: The field itself is kind of divided over this issue
Speaker 1: of can linguistic forensics conclusively identify the author of an
Speaker 1: unknown work, and several of Foster's other attempts to use
Speaker 1: forensic linguistics and criminal investigations have been completely wrong. This
Speaker 1: includes falsely implicating the wrong man in the September eleven
Speaker 1: anthrax attacks in the United States, which led to a
Speaker 1: massive defamation suit. Keller, Jackson, and Foster are just the
Speaker 1: latest round of people to weigh in on this topic.
Speaker 1: It's been the subject of ongoing debate since about n
Speaker 1: and at this point you will find the poem attributed
Speaker 1: in a lot of different ways Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on
Speaker 1: the poem attributes it to neither man, but acknowledges the
Speaker 1: issue of its authorship in a paragraph. The Academy of
Speaker 1: American Poets lists More as the author, as do various
Speaker 1: publications from the U S Library of Congress. The Poetry
Speaker 1: Foundation confusingly has the poem on two different pages on
Speaker 1: its website, one attributed to More and the other attributed
Speaker 1: to Livingston. Livingston's biography at the Poetry Foundation lists him
Speaker 1: unequivocally as the author, while Moore's points out the lack
Speaker 1: of concrete evidence in Livingstone's claim before saying, scholars today
Speaker 1: give the credit to Livingstone. I don't know what scholars
Speaker 1: are talking about. I am not a linguist. I am
Speaker 1: not a forensic scientist. But as a poet, I find
Speaker 1: the idea that you can conclusively determine what the author
Speaker 1: was of a five hundred and something word poem with
Speaker 1: some computer analysis. I find that specious. I was having
Speaker 1: a conversation with somebody about this yesterday, and I think
Speaker 1: that forensic linguistics has the potential to someday be sort
Speaker 1: of like fingerprinting in terms of identifying people. But at
Speaker 1: this point it's a lot more like phrenology. So that's
Speaker 1: my Uh. I read a lot of very frustrating charts
Speaker 1: of words in their use in different works by Clemet
Speaker 1: Moore and and Livingston, and I found it all very frustrating.
Speaker 1: And as a side note, this is not the only
Speaker 1: he said she said back and forth about the authorship
Speaker 1: of a Christmas classic. Medford, Massachusetts and Savannah, Georgia, two
Speaker 1: cities I cannot think of more different from one another,
Speaker 1: have both claimed to be the place where James Pierrepont
Speaker 1: wrote jingle Bells. They even have their own plaque about it,
Speaker 1: each city having a plaque saying this is where where
Speaker 1: he wrote jingle Bells. Over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: there's been a whole other argument raised about that author
Speaker 1: or that location of where it was written, which is
Speaker 1: that it might not be either of them. They might
Speaker 1: both be wrong. Uh. Both cities, however, feel extremely passionately
Speaker 1: about it. And we are going to move on to
Speaker 1: something that that has a much clearer authorship after another
Speaker 1: quick break. The song Studa Knocked, known in English as
Speaker 1: Silent Night or a Silent Night Holy Night, was created
Speaker 1: in the eighteen teens, and since neither Holly nor I
Speaker 1: speak German, we do not want to traumatize people with
Speaker 1: h like preschool Irish attempt to read lyrics in German instead.
Speaker 1: Here is the beginning of the song from a nineteen
Speaker 1: fourteen recording sung by Julia Colp. The most common English
Speaker 1: translation of this song is by episcopal priest John Freeman Young,
Speaker 1: who was born in Pittston, Maine, and later became Bishop
Speaker 1: of Florida. His eighteen fifty nine version starts silent night,
Speaker 1: Holy night, All is calm, all is bright round yon,
Speaker 1: Virgin mother and child, Holy infant, So tender and mild,
Speaker 1: Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. The original
Speaker 1: German lyrics to Still An Act were written by Joseph Moore.
Speaker 1: More had been born into poverty in Salzburg on December eleventh,
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two, and when he was still a child,
Speaker 1: a local priest started mentoring him and saw that he
Speaker 1: had a talent for music. This priest helped him get
Speaker 1: an education, including studying music at a Benedictine monastery. More
Speaker 1: also attended the Lyceum school in Salzburg. In eighteen eleven,
Speaker 1: More entered seminary, something that he had to get a
Speaker 1: special dispensation to do because his parents had not been married.
Speaker 1: He was ordained in eighteen fifteen, and in eighteen sixteen
Speaker 1: he moved to the town of maryap Far in Lungao
Speaker 1: in the Austrian Alps for his first assignment as an
Speaker 1: assistant priest, and this area was also where his father's
Speaker 1: family was from, and it was where he wrote the
Speaker 1: poem that would become the lyrics to Silent Night in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen. He never described a s ific inspiration for
Speaker 1: the poem, but Maria Far, which translates to Mary's Parish,
Speaker 1: had been the spiritual and religious heart of the Longal
Speaker 1: region for centuries, and it had also really really struggled
Speaker 1: in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. It had been
Speaker 1: occupied by Bavarian troops, and those troops were finally withdrawing
Speaker 1: at about the same time that more started working there.
Speaker 1: So it makes a lot of sense that all of
Speaker 1: this would come together to inspire a poem about the
Speaker 1: birth of Christ that prominently featured the themes of peace,
Speaker 1: love and salvation. Working as an assistant priest required more
Speaker 1: to move from place to place than by eighteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: He had arrived in Obendorff by Salzburg, roughly eighty miles
Speaker 1: that's about a hundred and thirty kilometers northwest of Maria
Speaker 1: Far on the Austrian border, and like Maria Far, this
Speaker 1: region had been through its share of turmoil. Starting in
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century. It had been part of a state
Speaker 1: that was ruled by the prince archbishops of the City
Speaker 1: of Salzburg. In eighteen oh three, it had been forced
Speaker 1: to secularize. Then, after the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of
Speaker 1: Vienna drew a new border through the region, and what
Speaker 1: had been its own entity was divided up and absorbed
Speaker 1: into Austria and Bavaria. Part of this new border followed
Speaker 1: the Salzac River, which ran directly through town, and so
Speaker 1: what had been one municipality became Obendorf by Salzburg, Austria
Speaker 1: on the east side of the river, and Laffen, Bavaria
Speaker 1: on the west. The war had also affected the salt trade,
Speaker 1: which was a major part of the local economy, so
Speaker 1: laborers and boat builders, who made up most of the
Speaker 1: population of Obendorf were really struggling. After the new border
Speaker 1: was drawn, a parish was established at Obendorf by Salzburg
Speaker 1: at the Church of St. Nicholas, and that is where
Speaker 1: Moore became assistant priest in eighteen eighteen. And as a
Speaker 1: side note, More did not get along with the parish
Speaker 1: priest there, who accused him of, among other things, singing
Speaker 1: songs which do not edify. The organist at the Church
Speaker 1: of St. Nicholas was a man named Franz Xaver Gruber.
Speaker 1: Gruber was born on November seven and his parents were
Speaker 1: linen weavers, but his real interest was in music, and
Speaker 1: his teacher encouraged this interest and gave him some music
Speaker 1: lessons outside of his regular studies. At first, Gruber went
Speaker 1: into the family linen business, but when he turned eighteen,
Speaker 1: his father gave him permission to find work as a teacher.
Speaker 1: Gruber hoped that teaching would let him keep pursuing music.
Speaker 1: It was pretty common for teachers to also work as
Speaker 1: church organists. He found an internship with another organist, and
Speaker 1: he got his first job as a teacher in eighteen
Speaker 1: oh seven. In eighteen eighteen, he was working as the
Speaker 1: organist at the Church of St. Nicholas, along with working
Speaker 1: as a school teacher. A church caretaker and as organist
Speaker 1: at another church. On Christmas Eve eighteen eighteen, More went
Speaker 1: to Gruber and asked him to write a melody to
Speaker 1: along with that poem he had written two years earlier.
Speaker 1: More wanted something suitable for a choir with two soloists
Speaker 1: accompanied by a guitar, and it's not totally clear what
Speaker 1: prompted this request. One hypothesis is that the church organ
Speaker 1: was broken. Today, there are a lot of really dramatic
Speaker 1: explanations for what was wrong with the organ, including a
Speaker 1: mouse infestation that's really not uh substantiated in anyway, and
Speaker 1: the fact that the organ was broken is really speculative.
Speaker 1: Whatever the reason, Gruber wrote the music and presented it
Speaker 1: to More on that same day, and Gruber described it
Speaker 1: as just a simple composition, but More was pleased enough
Speaker 1: with it that he decided to include it as part
Speaker 1: of that night's Christmas Eve mass. More saying the tenor
Speaker 1: part and played the guitar, and Gruber sang the bass part.
Speaker 1: Very little is known about this first performance on Christmas
Speaker 1: Eve eighteen eighteen, but Gruber later described it as receiving
Speaker 1: quote general approval by all so still, Nach started out
Speaker 1: as a simple song for Christmas Eve, with lyrics by
Speaker 1: an assistant priest and a melody by a church organist.
Speaker 1: This is what I really love about the story. These
Speaker 1: were just regular people doing their regular work at their
Speaker 1: local church, performing for a congregation of laborers and their families,
Speaker 1: all living at a place that had just come through
Speaker 1: a war and was struggling economically. And in the years
Speaker 1: that followed, the song continued to be performed all around
Speaker 1: this part of Austria. There are surviving copies of the
Speaker 1: music and lyrics that belonged to various teachers, choir directors, vicars,
Speaker 1: and the like. By the eighteen thirties, the song had
Speaker 1: started to spread beyond Austria, mostly through traveling groups of
Speaker 1: family singers. One was the Strasser family singers, who performed
Speaker 1: the song in Leipzig in eighteen thirty two. A newspaper
Speaker 1: article promoting the upcoming concert even said that the writer
Speaker 1: hoped that they would sing stealen Nacht, meaning that by
Speaker 1: that point the song had been performed there before four.
Speaker 1: It is not known exactly how and when the song
Speaker 1: spread beyond Europe, but the Rainer family singer started a
Speaker 1: North American tour in eighteen thirty nine, and they performed
Speaker 1: the song on Christmas Day of that year. But in
Speaker 1: the process of copying and passing along this music, people
Speaker 1: had left off the attribution some More and Gruber. By
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, folks were trying to figure out who
Speaker 1: had written this song that at this point had become
Speaker 1: incredibly popular. Word got back to Gruber about the search,
Speaker 1: and on December eighteen fifty four he wrote his authentic
Speaker 1: account of the origin of the Christmas carol Silent Night,
Speaker 1: Holy Night. Of course it was really titled in German.
Speaker 1: By the turn of the twentieth century, Silent Night had
Speaker 1: been performed in one language or another on almost every continent. Today,
Speaker 1: it has been translated into more than three hundred languages
Speaker 1: and dialects. It's also remembered as one of the songs
Speaker 1: sung during the Christmas Eve Truce in World War One.
Speaker 1: In eleven, UNESCO designated it as an Intangible Cultural Heritage
Speaker 1: being Crosby's nineteen thirty five version is reportedly the number
Speaker 1: three best selling single of all time. You see that
Speaker 1: statistic a lot. How they came up with it is
Speaker 1: a little unclear, And of course More and Gruber both
Speaker 1: lived their own lives. After that first performance of Silent
Speaker 1: Night and their song becoming so popular, More moved from
Speaker 1: parish to parish on various assignments, becoming known as a
Speaker 1: social reformer in his later work as a parish priest,
Speaker 1: and he died on December four, eight Gruber continued to
Speaker 1: teach and work as an organist and a choir director.
Speaker 1: He was married three times, remarrying after the deaths of
Speaker 1: his first and second wives. He also had at least
Speaker 1: twelve children, but only four lived to adulthood. One of them,
Speaker 1: his son, Felix, followed in his footsteps as a composer
Speaker 1: and a musician. Gruber died on June seven, eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: The St. Nicholas Church is no longer standing, but today
Speaker 1: there is a chapel on the former site known as
Speaker 1: the Opendorf Silent Night Chapel. The guitar that More played
Speaker 1: also still survives and is in a museum. I find
Speaker 1: that whole story kind of lovely, just a simple story
Speaker 1: about a simple song that has stayed around for two
Speaker 1: hundred years. It is very sweet. I also, before we
Speaker 1: get into some listener mail, I want to thank Christopher
Speaker 1: Hasciotis who did some research for this day in History
Speaker 1: class about the first publication of a Christmas carol, which
Speaker 1: became a part of the research for that part of
Speaker 1: today's episode. So thanks Christopher Heay so much for joining
Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of
Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a
Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar over the course
Speaker 1: of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current
Speaker 1: email address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Our old health Stuff Works email address no longer work us,
Speaker 1: and you can find us all over social media at
Speaker 1: missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show
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