Explore Americas best-loved no work days through 380 beautiful and fun postcard images from the early 20th century. They portray specific animals, children, flowers, and symbols that have come to identify each holiday, and some pretty weird events as well. Fascinating histories of each holiday are included, and what diverse backgrounds they have! For an appreciation of the weirdness of holiday recognitions, think of the images of a kid in a diaper kicking out an old bearded man, turkeys dancing, chickens nodding to rabbits, and strange men dropping down chimneys to make children happy. The weird is integral to American holidays. All who celebrate them as well as artists, decorators, and postcard collectors will enjoy this book for the graphic styles it contains. Historians will marvel at the reasons these holidays are celebrated today.
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Irwin Richman has spent all or part of sixty-five summers in the Catskills. The author of The Catskills in Vintage Postcards, Hudson River from New York City to Albany, and Sullivan County: Borscht Belt, he is a professor of American studies at the Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg. In Catskill Hotels he takes us through the silver age and the golden age of one of America's great resort areas and invites us to learn and to share memories.
