Centre professor finds inspiration in researching the history of our holidays

Centre College Professor Tara Strauch sees the magic in our celebrations of the holiday season. As Paul L. Cantrell Associate Professor of History, she knows how American holiday traditions, beliefs and practices have changed over the years, shaped by the times in ways both small and large.

“I love culture, and cultural history is my favorite thing to teach,” she said. “It's also one of my favorite things to study and learn about — the history of stuff, why that stuff is how it is, and how that stuff changes over time. It’s really, really interesting.”

Strauch has garnered national attention for her research in the area, including how the American Girl doll franchise reflects how we create historical narratives. She has also studied the history of the American holiday calendar, how it came to be and the history of such rituals in our culture.

A historian of the American Revolution and early republic by training, the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, including Christmas, holds a special place in her heart.

“My general mindset on life is joy first,” she said. “And the study of holidays is mostly joyful. There is serious subject matter here, but it is very satisfying.”

Her research in the area deepened as she began teaching on the topic, leading her to develop a book project on the history of American holidays.

“I did a lot of reading into the theories behind holidays to make the class stronger and realized that there wasn't a whole lot of good history on American holidays,” she said. “A lot of it was really constrained by time, like looking at Sundays in the Colonial period or Christmas in the 20th century … but there wasn't a whole lot.”

Her focus has been on how the holidays came to be, and how they have changed over the years.

“The book project really looks at how Americans assess their own holiday calendar and find problems and fix them,” she said. “In teaching the class, students tend to think of holidays as something that happens to them, which makes sense because growing up they were always told what’s going to happen and when it will happen.”

But in reality, American holiday traditions have never been static. Strauch points to several moments when individuals or institutions reshaped the calendar to reflect shifting cultural priorities.

• Sarah Hale, dubbed the “godmother of Thanksgiving,” used her position as editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book magazine to lobby for the establishment of a national holiday to mark Thanksgiving across the nation.

“One of the things she assesses is, we don't have enough holidays where women's work is the center of the holiday,” Strauch said. “That's a problem. She assesses it. She fixes it. She writes letters to every single governor and letters to Abraham Lincoln.”

• New traditions were introduced by Catholic priests in the 1950s who worried about the commercialization of Christmas as part of the “keep Christ in Christmas” campaign.
• The Knights of Columbus also sought to encourage men to be more engaged in Christmas preparations to ease the burden on women, who were becoming overworked and exhausted during the holiday season.
• Elf on the Shelf — launched in 2005 by a children’s book author who drew from her family’s tradition of an elf who monitored children’s behavior — quickly became a cultural phenomenon.

“Elf on the Shelf is interesting to me because it expands that magical belief period of Christmas all the way to Dec. 1 or the beginning of Advent or whenever people decide to start doing the Elf,” she said.

• Christmas used to start on Dec. 25 and run through Epiphany on Jan. 6, hence the 12 days of Christmas. Businesses wanted a long shopping season and slowly the holiday season gravitated to the start of December.

“By 1880 or 1890, the Christmas season is Dec. 1 to Dec. 25, and we kind of leave that older understanding of the Christmas season behind,” Strauch said. “The book project really is trying to look at how Americans change their holiday calendar in ways they think of for the better,” she said.

A more recent example of Americans tweaking the holiday calendar centers around the day before Valentine’s Day.

The sitcom “Parks and Recreation” saw lead character Leslie Knope create Galentine’s Day, celebrated on February 13 as a way for women to honor their friendships ahead of the romantic holiday. The holiday has since taken off.

“And it is now an actual thing,” Strauch said. “Restaurants catered to it. Boutique stores will have events. There are women who love going out for Galentine's Day.

“It was a cultural idea. What's wrong with Valentine's Day? Lots of people agree. The problem is, if you don't have a partner, it's no fun.  What's the solution? Go out with your gals.”

Sharing the history of such changes opens the eyes of her students, who have seen the same traditions throughout their lifetimes. It offers them a greater understanding of how the narratives of history are changed in the moment.

“I like my students realizing that holidays don't actually happen to us,” she said. “We are participating in them, and we can change it. I think that's good for them to realize.”