Back in 1877, American manufacturing was turning out consumer goods with unprecedented variety and speed. The selection of Christmas gifts was greater than ever. The Post helped its readers stay informed of all the new choices by reporting on appealing new items in local Philadelphia stores.

Elegant Russia leather boxes lined with satin… $10.00. Work baskets lined with silk, large and substantial ($3.00 and upwards)… Fans with pearl sticks mounted with blue and white Marabou stork trimming… $9.00.

Dolls of high and low degree, blondes, brunettes, mistress, child and maid, dressed with consummate taste and skill, dressed in materials of Fashion’s latest design designs. They cost from $2.50 and upwards, while others of less pretentious styles are as low as 50 cents.

Whatever the price of the doll, parents could be fairly certain they would please their youngster. As another Post writer observed, children were happy with any present.

All is fish that comes to their all-embracing net. Dolls, rocking-horses, marbles, balls, tops, kites, arks; it is a lovely way of finding out how brightly [their] eyes can shine. No questioning your motive, or the probable cost of your gift—no invidious comparisons with your possible presents in other quarters; they are satisfied and ecstatically happy for the time.

Men, on the other hand, were a problem, particularly bachelors:

Oh! the torment of finding a suitable male present. There are cigar cases, to be sure, in every form of elaboration and adornment, [and] the unfailing resource of a pair of slippers, or a watch-chain; and having enumerated all these, I will leave it to anybody if I have not exhausted the list. What Christmas gift can we make a gentleman?

Mittens they don’t seem to fancy… night-caps they all look like frights in—what’s to be done? He may keep the watch-chain you give him until after he is married. Some day his wife, rummaging among his old traps, will hold it up between her thumb and finger with, “What’s this thing, Bob?” Bob will reply, as he stops sharpening his razor, “That? Ha! ha! by Jove! it’s a chain a woman gave me who was once desperately in love with me; give it to Willie to play with!” Whereupon Bob and his wife laugh heartily, winding up with a kiss.

Ha, ha! Or maybe that scene will end with a flurry of new questions from the wife about that woman.

_­

The Post’s fashion editor in 1877, Olive King, had a gift idea for men who already had enough dressing gowns and slippers: the smoking jacket.

Oscar Wilde in his smoking jacket—a gift from his greatest admirer: himself.

Never before this seasons have they been brought out in such perfection and elegance.

The most beautiful and expensive ones are of Lyons velvet with collar, cuffs, and lining of quilted satin in blue or scarlet.

They are cut in loose sack form, and are stylish, costly, and comfortable.

It is a fine present from a wife to a beloved husband, because you see it is all in the family.

And if the aforementioned beloved husband don’t behave himself, the aforementioned wife can cut it up into a magnificent cloak for herself.

She also happily suggested fashionable items that husbands should consider for their wives:

Double bracelets are now all the rage—one worn at the wrist, the other above the elbow, fastened together by a heavy chain. [Really?]

Six button gloves [mid-forearm length] are the only one considered comme il faut for full dress.

Yellow and blue are the favorite combination of color for reception dresses this season.

Another Post writer assumed there wasn’t a husband alive who, at Christmas time, wouldn’t think “I wish there was anything half pretty enough, or good enough for my faithful, true wife.” If such a wretched husband did exist, the writer continued —

may he always arrive at the ferry just as the boat is out of jumping distance, may his umbrella turn inside out when he tries to hold it right side up; may bank hours be over when he wants a check cashed; may his baby cry persistently and uproariously all Sunday, while he is at home trying to enjoy himself; and may he lose his pocket handkerchief some 25^th of December, when he has a cold.

What then, did the Post recommend as the ideal gift in 1877? This suggestion appeared in the Nov. 24, 1877, issue. We reprint it for the sake of historic accuracy.

A year’s subscription to a weekly literary and family newspaper, such as the Saturday Evening Post, is always relished, as it has a permanent value, and, arriving every week with its fresh and varied banquet ornamental food, is a perpetual reminder of the kindness, thoughtfulness and good wishes of the giver.

Don’t look at us that way; we’re just including this for the sake of history.

Other presents are forgotten and are allowed to lie around in out-of-the-way corners, but such is not the case with the literary newspaper. On the whole, we know of no more suitable gift than a year’s subscription to a journal, and such of our patrons as feel inclined to present their friends with the Post will find us ready to fill all order they may send.

Our 1877 Christmas Gift Guide The Saturday Evening Post

When Cecelia was 15, she accompanied Fanny on a trip to Niagara Falls. So close to freedom in Canada, she took a chance and escaped from captivity. In Canada, she created a life for herself as an independent woman while Fanny went back to her home in Kentucky, where she married and had children.

Years later, Fanny and Cecelia began a cordial correspondence through the mail. Over the years, they sent many letters back and forth, keeping each other updated on their lives. Cecelia also used their relationship to search for her mother, who had not escaped slavery with her.

Not all of the letters survived, but Fanny’s son collected as many as he could find and kept them safe. Through these letters—as well as birth certificates and other records—Asher follows the two women throughout their lives. The story moves back and forth between Cecelia and Fanny, but Asher’s meticulous research weaves the two tales together. His additional writing helps to brings the story alive as well; the little details about Fanny’s family and Cecelia’s independence make the book even more interesting.

The story of Cecelia and Fanny is fascinating. Asher gets credit for taking historical facts and using them to write a riveting book that gives us look at a surprising friendship that stands as a testament to both human compassion and the ability to overcome remarkable adversity.

Cecelia and Fanny: The Remarkable Friendship Between an Escaped Slave and Her Former Mistress is available now from The University Press of Kentucky at a list price of $30.

Cecelia and Fanny The Saturday Evening Post

Col. Crockett happened once to be travelling in a steamboat when, discovering the vessel went too slow for his calculation, he ordered the boat ashore, took it up under his arm, and trudged off through the woods at the rate of ten knots an hour. It is said, he was so well pleased with this performance, that he grinned the bark off three large trees in succession.

Davy Crockett by John Gadsby Chapman photo from wikipedia

Unfortunately, all the tall tales and comic speeches attributed to Crocket have obscured the facts of his life. He was born in poverty and received minimal education. He enlisted in the Tennessee Militia during the Creek Indian wars. His popularity, combined with a skill in hunting that kept his troops fed, enabled him to leave the service as a lieutenant colonel. It also helped him win election to Congress in 1827. Defeated the next term, he was re-elected in 1833, lost again, and decided to head west to Texas.

As Crockett became known in Washington, newspaper writers and editors fastened onto him as the embodiment of the pioneer spirit. Crockett didn’t seem to mind. In fact, with his talent for story telling, he probably contributed to his own legend. Soon Crockett stories, comic pamphlets, and Crockett almanacs were appearing throughout the states. They were full of humorous folk takes like this one found in an 1833 Post.

As I was walking out one night, looking carelessly about me, I saw a racoon planted upon one of the highest limbs of an old tree. I though I’d bring him down, in the usual way, by a grin. I set myself but, after grinning at the ‘coon a reasonable time, found that he didn’t come down. I wondered what was the reason. I took another steady grin at him. Still he stuck there. It made me a little mad; so I felt round and got an old limb about five feet long. Planting one end upon the ground, I placed my chin upon the other and took a rest. I then grinned my best for about five minutes, but the ‘coon hung on.

Illustration from "Davy Crockett on the Track" serial from the Post .

I determined to have him. I went over to the house, got my axe, returned to the tree, and began to cut away. Down it come, and I run forward, but the ‘coon was nowhere to be seen. What I had taken for one was a large knot upon a branch of the tree—and upon looking at it closely, I saw that I grinned all the bark off, and left the knot perfectly smooth. [May 4, 1833]

Later that year, the Post offered this account of Crockett’s dinner at the White House.

I walked all round the long table, looking for something I liked. At last I took my seat just beside a fat goose, and I helped myself to as much of it as I wanted. But I hadn’t took three bites when I looked away up the table [where] a man was talking French to a woman on t’other side of the table. When I looked back again, my plate was gone, goose and all.

I cast my eyes down the table, and sure enough I see a man walking off with my plate. I says, “Hello, mister, bring back my plate.” He fetched it back in a hurry.  Says he, “What will you have, sir?” And says I, “You may well ask that, after stealing my goose.”

I then filled my plate with bacon and greens; and whenever I looked up or down the table, I held on to my plate with my left hand.

This time, it seems, the stories went too far, and the Post published Crockett’s request to set the record straight.

Mr. James Clark, a member of Kentucky who sat opposite to Mr. Crockett at the dinner table, declares his behavior was “marked with the strictest propriety.”

But the temptation to embellish Crockett stories seemed hard to resist. When the Post reported a speech by Crockett, it gave him a backwoods dialect, even giving his spoken word folksy misspellings.

I know a good many things has been said about me, but one half of ‘em is not true. You see me, I’m but a plain man, and have got no education to boast of. Thirty-four years ago, I visited this ‘ere same city. I was then only thirteen years of age, and had jist got education enough to spell “baker”—that was the biggest word I ever spell’d in them times.

But when the Post reported another speech by Crockett the same year, it hardly sounds like the same man.

I am travelling for my health, without the least wish of exciting the people in such times of high political feeling. I do not wish to encourage it. I am unable at this time to find language suitable to return my gratitude to the citizens of Philadelphia. I am almost induced to believe it flattery. This is new to me, yet I see nothing but friendship in your faces; and if your curiosity is to hear a backwoodsman, I will assure you I am ill prepared to address this most enlightened people.

"The Fall of the Alamo" by Robert Jenkins wikipedia.org

In 1836, however, man and myth intersected when Crockett joined the doomed garrison of Texans at the Alamo. In death, more than in life, Crockett became a legend. And, as we know, legends never die, as the Post suggested in 1840.

The Story of Colonel Crockett being alive, and a captive in one of the Mexican mines, is being revived. An extra of The Austin Gazette contains a letter written to the editor by an American in Mexico, giving the particulars of an interview which the writer had with Crockett, in the mine where he is a captive.

Looking for the Real Davy Crockett The Saturday Evening Post

You get a sense of how old the publication is when you consider that the biggest news story in its first issues was the death of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The death of Napoleon Bonaparte is placed beyond a doubt. News has been received from Liverpool dated July 8th. The Ex-Emperor died of a cancer in the stomach, and was buried on the 7th of May.

In that summer of 1821, the news of the ex-emperor’s death sparked many debates at dinner tables across America. Was Napoleon a liberator or a tyrant?

The Post picked up the story in August and was still running related items into October.

The illness of the ex-emperor lasted in the whole, six weeks. During the latter days of his illness he frequently conversed with his medical attendants on its nature, of which he seemed to be perfectly aware.

As he found his end approaching, he was dressed, at his request, in his uniform of Field Marshal with the boots and spurs, and placed on a camp bed, on which he was accustomed to sleep when in health.

In this dress he is said to have expired. Though Bonaparte is supposed to have suffered much, his dissolution was so calm and serene that not a sigh escaped him or an intimation to the bystanders that it was so near.

Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen.

Still widely revered in France, Napoleon had many American admirers who regarded him as a champion of liberty. Most of the world hated and feared him, though. Napoleon had kept Europe at war for twelve years. His struggle for empire had cost the lives of 6 million soldiers and civilians. He had been defeated and imprisoned, but escaped and narrowly missed becoming the ruler of Europe.

Despite his past, and the destruction he caused, he seemed to enchant people. He made admirers out of most people who met him—even his enemies. Since his re-capture in 1815, journalists had been writing of his intelligence, his vision, and his destiny. Now that he was safely dead, and could never again escape from exile, it became easier, and safer, to sing his praises.

The Post quoted one particularly fawning passage from a British newspaper.

“[Napoleon's] person was well-turned, broad in the shoulders, and, till he grew fat, very elegant downwards. The late Mr. West told us that he had never seen a handsomer leg and thigh.

His head was somewhat too large for his body, but finely cut, as we may all see in his medals. It looks like one of the handsomest Roman emperors. His face [had] a forehead of genius, and mouth and chin of resolute beauty.

Napoleon was of a warm temperament, generous and affection…. His abilities, independent of his warlike genius, were considerable. His intellect was strong and searching, and he acquired so much information that he could converse with all sorts of men on the topics which they had particularly studied.

[A Swiss historian who met Napoleon] says, “quite impartially… I must say, that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding… his grand and comprehensive views filled me with astonishment, and his manner of [conversation], with love for him.”

While the Post reprinted such hero worship, it wasn’t buying any of it. The editors, being sturdy champions of the republic, viewed Napoleon dispassionately:

Thus has terminated the life of perhaps the most extraordinary man who has ever figured upon the stage of history. Born obscurely, and without evident means of advancement, he rose to supreme power, not only over France, but over the continent of Europe, and his authority was extended to both hemispheres.

Disdaining man but as the means of his own exaltation, he probably surpassed all other rulers in his ascendancy over everyone who came within the vortex of his personal influence.

After having dethroned kings and overthrown empires, he himself became the football of fortune, was dethroned and exiled to a high rock in the midst of the ocean, under the guard of the greatest powers of Europe.

There he was imprisoned, and there he has expired—a striking example of the inevitable destruction attending an uncontrollable ambition, and a warning to despots.

The Post’s editors, Messrs. Atkinson and Alexander, knew that celebrity news would sell papers. But they recognized that Napoleon Bonaparte, like most celebrities, was best admired from a distance.

190 Years Ago: The Post Covers The Death of Napoleon The Saturday Evening Post

Our first issue appeared on August 4^th, 1821, making us the oldest magazine in the United States. (Because our publication was interrupted in 1969, we are not the oldest continually published magazine, however; that honor is held by Scientific American.)

The Post began life as a weekly newspaper, printed on the same equipment Ben Franklin used to publish The Pennsylvania Gazette. The Post‘s four pages were crowded with dense columns of small type; there were no illustrations besides a few crude pictures of hats and boots in advertisements.

The articles may seem archaic today, but those early issues carry a lot of the same content that appears in today’s shrinking newspapers. For example, there is coverage of national news, particularly the continued growth of the country.

The President of the United Sates, by his Proclamation, dated the 10^th instant, agreeable to the conditional power invested in him by an act of Congress, announce the Admission of the State of Missouri into the Union.

Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson was taking up his appointment as Florida’s first governor. The territory had recently been purchased from Spain, and Jackson was eager to prove the absolute authority of the U.S. in the region.

The Spanish Governor of Pensacola has been arrested and thrown into prison by order of Gen. Jackson. The reasons for this procedure is his not having surrendered up all the papers which were legally claimed by the late treaty. They are now in the possession of the American authorities.

In one regard, the Post was quite unlike a modern newspaper. The owners exercised their right to include moral instruction squarely on page one. In the August 18, 1821, issue, they presented an “Admonition Against Sabbath Breaking.”

It is the duty of every Christian to observe [Sunday] as a day of rest from work, buying, selling, travelling (except in cases of great and unavoidable necessity) and from all kinds of sport and diversion. To spend the sacred time in idleness and amusement; to neglect the public and private duties of the day tends to bring the judgments of God on the country. It leads you to bad company, to a habit of idleness, drunkenness, extravagance, and so on to ruin, as many [condemned criminals] have acknowledged [shortly before their] execution.

But when it came to filling up the pages with copy, the Post did what modern newspapers still do; reprint items of passing interest from other newspapers.

A fact, to the curious.— On the 7th of June last, about five o’clock in the afternoon, there passed over Willistown (NH) and Goshen (VT), a swarm of the animal denominated the “Devil’s darning Needle” [the dragonfly]. The swarm extended a mile in width, and was more than an hour in passing from east to west.

There is now residing in Stafford, a man by the name of Nolan, who is at present married to his twenty-sixth wife, and has by the whole, seventy-three children. He is one hundred and five years of age, and his present wife is now pregnant.

The latest accounts from New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston represent those places as entirely free of malignant fever.

A patent churn has been manufactured in Orange county, (N.Y.) which can be worked by a dog!

A man has been sold at public auction, at the market house in Detroit for being found idle, and not giving an account of the manner in which he obtained a livelihood. The purchaser was to be entitled to his services for ten days, and he was then to be walked out of the territory unless he agreed to maintain himself by creditable labor.

The City Gazette of Washington says, that in [leveling the ground] in front of the President’s house, the laborers came to a spot where five graves were opened. One of the coffins was in perfect preservation, and the remains of a corpse was exposed, exhibiting long dark hair, perfectly strong and neatly folded up under the skull. [The White House grounds are] said to have been the burying ground of the Peerce family, of Bladensburg, and that the bodies have been interred about 40 years.

On one subject, there is a particularly strong resemblance between the Post of 1821 and modern newspapers. Then, as now, journalists love to report on the death of celebrities.

On Our 190th Birthday, a Look at Our Earliest Issues The Saturday Evening Post

Any self-respecting publication would regularly critique the latest dress styles with heavy-handed ridicule and indignation about the decadent new styles. (“What, we ask, is this country coming to?”)

What brought this topic to mind was the anniversary of the Women’s Rights Convention, which opened in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19th, 1848. The conference might have been completely ignored by the press had it not been for Elizabeth Smith Miller, who appeared in public wearing the first Bloomer skirt. (The name was only attached later, when they were championed by Amelia Bloomer, editor of a suffragist newspaper.)

Borrowing from Middle Eastern clothing, the outfit featured long, loose trousers that gathered at the ankle, which were worn beneath a knee-length skirt.

Naturally they provoked a storm of criticism. The press had endless fun ridiculing the fashion, which they saw as new, unattractive, and faintly masculine. Trousers had been an exclusively masculine trait in western fashion as long as anyone could remember. Any woman who wanted to cover her legs separately was obviously trying to encroach on male privilege.

Bloomer skirt.

The Bloomer skirt never caught on (in fact, pants for women remained an oddity until the 1940s), but they didn’t fail to gain acceptance because of the ridicule of male editors and pundits.

One of the biggest reasons that the Bloomer skirt went bust was its great dissimilarity with the height of high fashion at the time, the voluminous crinoline hoop-skirt. This contraption of whalebone or cane held a dome of crinoline over a network of hoops that often reached 6 feet in diameter. The skirt was tricky to maneuver; women had to learn how to pass through doorways or simply sit down without tipping up the skirt on its side.

What made the hoop skirt so impractical wasn’t its unpredictable movement but the tight bodice that was part of the outfit. While the legs enjoyed greater freedom within the skirt, the required corset crushed the wearer’s lungs in a vice of heavy cotton reinforced by bone or steel. “Why do people wear such things?” a Post writer wondered in 1856.

Is it because they think them beautiful, elegant, tasteful, or because they find them comfortable, useful, convenient? Not at all. Because they are in the fashion. A common custom makes cowards of us all. If the Parisian arbiter of fashions should decree a garb of plate-mail, we would hasten to put it on.

Although the author has no appreciation of the Bloomer skirt, he at least concedes a few points in its favor.

The advantages of a hoop skirt.

Well, it certainly is ugly. But if it had come from Paris, it would never have been laughed off the forms of our venturous ladies. The subtle French would have persuaded us it was the most beautiful thing ever invented. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it came from the mind of an American woman, benevolently moved to lighten the weight of skirts which afflict so many females with incurable diseases, and impede and discomfort so many; and as she had no spell of foppery to weave over the common-sense of the country, of course she failed ignominiously. Ugly?—so it is; but did it fail for that reason? Is it any uglier than these frightful hooped skirts, which transform the graceful figures of our belles in to the semblance of diving-bells? ["The Philosophy of Dress," October 25, 1856]

An English writer offered two more reasons the Bloomer skirt never caught on.

It was doomed to failure, even without a fair trial, for two reasons. In the first place, it only met the difficulty halfway. It was a compromise between the dress we now wear and that of the ladies of the East. The large trousers were adopted, but the tight-fitting body and corset were allowed to remain, and thus the most important point in the necessary change neglected.

Another reason, and which, perhaps, operated more powerfully in causing the rejection of the Bloomer costume, lies in the perception that most of the actions of the American ladies are unfeminine.

English women have a natural horror of being thought masculine, or strong-minded, in the extreme sense of the word. Had the reform commenced in any other quarter, there is little doubt it would have been carried out with success.  As it was, no one could disconnect [the Bloomer skirt from] the idea of the “Female Rights Association,” or some such movement, and hence the utter hopelessness of it being adopted. ["Suggestions on Female Dress," December 12, 1863]

Lastly, there was the marketing problem of placement. Put simply, the wrong people were wearing Bloomer skirts.

Policeman (to Boy) -"Now then, off with that hoop! or I'll precious soon help you!" Lady (who imagines the observation is addressed to her.) - "What a monster!"

When women proposed to wear a truly sensible and beautiful dress, men opposed it, not only by argument, but by brute force. The Bloomer is the costume to which I refer. Of course, when I mention it, men will have in their minds a picture of the Bloomer as they have seen her. They must try to remember, if the superiority of their minds will allow them, that the Bloomer has been worn only by old and ugly women, who exhibited the most hideous taste in its combinations. Let the young and lovely have a chance at it for a month or so, and I would like to see where male logic would be at the end of it. ["A Lady’s Ideas on Crinoline and Bloomers," April 19, 1862.]

The shapes, fabrics, and colors of women’s wear have changed enormously since the Civil War era. And although it can be debated whether modern style is more attractive or sensible than it was 150 years ago, no one would argue with this one fact: Women’s clothing has become a lot more comfortable—with the exception of high heels.

Hoops, Bloomers, and Common Sense The Saturday Evening Post