This Month in Rockingham County History: December - Hometown Christmas Commerce

Foreword by Matthew Titchiner: Dr. Debbie Russell has tirelessly gathered Christmas ads from 1880 - 1920. So whether you're stuck for ideas or curious about Christmases past, make sure you don't miss the 'Christmas ads through the decades' at the bottom of the article. In the meantime, Happy Holidays and New Year from all of us at the MARC Team.

December 1880 - 1920

Christmas and commerce have long been companions. Advertisements in local newspapers around the turn of the twentieth century give us a look into lifestyles and commerce during the Christmas seasons long ago in Rockingham County.

(Merchants Banner, Reidsville Review, December 19, 1916, page 9)

Businesses a hundred years ago devised a variety of marketing strategies to improve their holiday sales. The Reidsville Review paired a year’s subscription to the newspaper for 1890 with a complete set of Charles Dickens’s works for only two dollars. Others offered guessing games and rewards to potential customers. One pharmacy placed forty pounds of tobacco in its window and asked the public to guess the number of tobacco leaves there. Mrs. Cornie Irvin promised a pattern for a fashionable Minaret Lady Doll’s dress free to every child who came to her store. A jewelry store “On the Boulevard” in Spray offered a free diamond ring valued at $35 to one lucky customer selected on Christmas Eve. A Madison jeweler assured a ten percent discount on all cash sales in his store during the holiday season.
    
Popular gifts and holiday deals varied by decade and many ads emphasized the importance of buying presents for friends as well as family. “Chinese and Japanese novelties” could be found at an area drugstore in the 1890s. “Victor talking machines” and bicycles were advertised in the early 1900s. Fireworks for the holidays could be purchased from multiple merchants. One business offered them “cheap on account of the hard times” in 1891.
 
Christmas advertisements of this era often offered items for the area’s gentlemen and, just as now, clothing was a mainstay of Christmas giving. By 1920, Reidsville had a number of clothing stores. One business named itself “The Man’s Store,” and promoted collars and suspenders, along with high quality suits. Other firms suggested Christmas gifts of pipes, shaving mugs and brushes, or walking sticks. As North Carolina was already becoming a center for their production, tobacco products were popular gift items for men. Cigars were sold at several establishments. As suggested by one 1903 ad, other gifts appropriate for Rockingham men and boys were rifles and “one of those driving robes,” suggesting an item that may have been used when driving buggies and carriages as well as the early automobiles that were just beginning to appear in the area. No doubt these robes would become more popular as mass production of autos started five years later.
 
For ladies, gifts could often be found in the local drug stores. One merchant suggested a “bottle of Rose Jelly for her chapped lips,” while other pharmacies advertised perfumes or hair combs. The Mayo and Smith bookstore offered padded leather volumes of poetry and cut glass to their patrons. Mrs. Cornie Irvin and Co. listed numerous gift ideas for women including embroidered handkerchiefs and linens, furs, and “dainty aprons.” Another merchant offered “fascinators” as gifts for women. Berger’s New Store was one of the few local businesses in the 1890s to specifically mention Christmas toys for sale. Whereas today’s advertising appeals strongly to fulfilling children’s Christmas wishes, local ads during the 1890s more often featured gift buying for adults. In 1903, D. R. Ellington’s Store, however, advertised that it was Kris Kringle’s Headquarters. “We will be glad to have all the children to come and see what we have,” the store’s Christmas ad read, “and then they can write Santa what they desire him to bring them.” Over time, more emphasis on children emerged in local ads as print advertising in general boomed by the 1920s.
 
In the 1890s and early 1900s, newspaper advertisements offered a variety of alcoholic beverages to Rockingham residents for celebrating the holiday season. W. W. Small appealed to locals to buy their Christmas liquors from his Red Star Saloon. Many businesses could be contacted at their two-digit telephone numbers, such as “Phone 48” for T. L. Rorer and Co. “Pure rye whiskies” could be found at one establishment located in “Uptown” Reidsville. “About Christmastime you will need a little Brandy, Wine, or Whiskey,” perhaps for eggnog or just “for the stomach’s sake,” another Reidsville business suggested. Buck Young, proprietor of the Opera House Saloon, reminded consumers that his bar was open for male customers with “first-class liquors” as well as oysters, fish, and game for a Christmastime feast. The nature of these ads changed quite a bit around 1909 when North Carolina implemented a state prohibition mandate. Then for a short time, the only ads in the Reidsville newspaper for liquor were from out-of-state firms, mostly in Virginia. One Richmond whiskey dealer advertised, “I want to supply you,” and assured customers that he could “ship in plain packages.” Gradually, liquor ads disappeared from the publication’s pages altogether.

(W. S. Benson ad, Reidsville Review, December 23, 1910, page 4)

Many foods and candies were offered for Christmastime meals and gatherings. “Make your friend a present of something good to eat,” one ad suggested. Fresh fruits, nuts, and candies were available in abundance from a variety of merchants. One ad claimed, “Pure candy never harmed anyone!” In 1915, six “nice Florida oranges” could be had for only ten cents at one five and dime store, while a full holiday turkey dinner was only fifty cents at a Reidsville cafe. An early bottler of Coca-Cola, Fred DeGrotte, offered the beverage to Rockingham County folks as a holiday drink. In the early 1900s, having oysters for Christmas seems to have been a local holiday tradition. A grocer and a cafe both advertised “Fresh oysters every day.”

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(A. S. Price & Co. ad, Reidsville Review, December 17, 1915, page 5)

Practical gifts were also mentioned frequently. “Honest now,” one ad read, “don’t you prefer something that you can use?” Items such as iron safes, “dinner bells” and coal, wood, and oil heaters were all offered by local hardware merchants as possible holiday gifts. One store listed among its “sensible Christmas presents” “Leaksville blankets” from one of the county’s textile mills. Even men’s suits and overcoats were promoted as “last-a-long-while” gifts. In contrast, the phonograph, a new form of entertainment and a luxury to many people, was offered by a Leaksville merchant. The public was invited into the store to hear the new Columbia Grafonolas, pictured in the ad alongside an image of their inventor Thomas Edison. If families could afford even larger ticket items, the Reidsville Motor Company could order a 1913 Ford runabout for them at a cost of $500.

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(A. S. Price & Co., Reidsville Review, December 31, 1912, page 2)

Advertisements adapted to the times. In December 1918 during the influenza pandemic, merchants mentioned, in addition to their bargains, that their stores were “disinfected daily against spread of diseases.” With the country having just won the Great War, a piano dealer in Reidsville emphasized the “peace and tranquility” that music could bring into the home for the holidays in the aftermath of such conflict. And, in addition to all the commercial activity, area citizens organized to help those who could not afford to buy for themselves or others. In the 1910s, several prominent citizens headed up the Empty Stocking Fund that sought to get gifts for all the “needy and destitute children” in Reidsville.

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Main street businesses a hundred years ago looked to successful Christmas sales to assure a profitable year. Often a “Thank You” placed in the newspaper at year’s end enabled businesses to show their appreciation for consumers who continued to “buy local.” Then as now, it was important to the local economy that consumers support Rockingham County merchants, especially during the holiday season.

Christmas Ads Through The Decades:

1880's

1890's

1900's

1910's

References:
Articles and Advertisements from the Reidsville Review, NC Live, DigitalNC, North Carolina Newspapers, https://newscomnc.newspapers.com; “Santa Claus and the Empty Stockings” Reidsville (NC) Review, December 16, 1913, 1; William A. Link, North Carolina: Change and Tradition in a Southern State (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2009), 309-311; “Model T,”Encyclopedia of Detroit, Detroit Historical Society, https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/model-t.