Happy Easter, 1800s Style by Jo-Ann Roberts

Easter Sunday has been observed since the 2nd century as a way to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Over the years, many Easter traditions have taken shape, from chocolate bunnies to Easter egg hunts.

 As it turns out, there is so much that makes this holiday what it is today — religious or otherwise.

Easter Eggs

Throughout most of Christian Europe, the pagan symbols of the spring hare, the egg, and chick were quickly adopted as symbols for the Christian Easter. The colorful ritual of decorating eggs also has an intriguing origin. As part of the Lenten season leading up to Easter, early Christians abstained from eating food from animals as the Lenten fast. Yet chickens continued to lay eggs, so eggs were hard-boiled, then decorated to celebrate the Easter season but were not eaten until Easter. Easter egg decorating became a high art in Europe, especially in eastern Europe and Russia, that immigrants brought to America.

Easter Bunny

Like many Easter traditions, the Easter Bunny evolved out of ancient fertility and spring celebrations. Rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, and give birth in the spring. So, in places where the fields became overrun with baby bunnies, it was natural to incorporate the rabbit as a symbol for spring and, eventually, Easter.

 

Another legend tells of  a poor German woman who loved children. She would hide brightly colored eggs in her garden as Easter treats. One year, while the children searched for them, they noticed a hare hopping past and believed that the animal had left the eggs.

                                  

Easter Cards

Easter cards became very popular in the 1800s with colorful depictions of the egg-laying and egg-painting Easter bunny, as well as the Easter chick. And some cards combined the Easter bunny and chick in whimsical narratives to deliver colored Easter eggs to children.

 

 

Easter Egg Rolling

Given the egg’s symbolic significance representing the rock before the tomb, egg rolling became a popular children’s Easter activity in America in the 1800s, recreating the rolling away of the rock in front of Christ's tomb. According to the White House Historical Association, some historians credit First Lady Dolley Madison (yes, her name is spelled correctly!)with first proposing the idea of a public egg roll around 1810. There are also accounts of informal egg rolls staged by the children of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson on the White House lawn. The 1878 event hosted by President Rutherford B. Hayes on the South Lawn, however, stands as the first official White House Easter Egg Roll. 

                                  

                                         

Hot Cross Buns

According to popular lore, these Easter-famous breads trace back to ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece, where they served as symbols of honor toward their goddesses. Later, these sweet breads became popular at Easter, especially in England where bakers were forbidden to sell spice breads except on special holidays, like the Friday before Easter.

Chocolate Bunnies 

In 19th century Germany, chefs concocted pastry and sugar bunnies (some had hard boiled eggs inside of them!) were in production. And bunny-shaped tins, used for chocolate molds, have been traced back to Munich in the 1850s.

Around the same time, Robert Strohecker, a business man in Pennsylvania, placed a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit in his drugstore's window. The rest, as they say, is history.

Easter Outfits

How many of us remember the dressing up to the nines on Easter Sunday? Girls in frilly spring dresses with little gloves and purses? Boys in pastel suit jackets and bow ties? Purchasing a new holiday outfit may seem like a 20th century commercial invention, but even early Christians followed the practice of wearing new clothes for Easter.  It was the one time of year when, if you had new clothes, you wore them. You dressed in your finest to go to church as a manner of honoring the resurrected Savior. In America, stores soon latched onto the idea that creating Easter outfits and sales during the season would help them sell fancy bonnets or suits.

Fueled by the popularity of Irving Berlin’s song, Easter Parade, as well as the resulting movie featuring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire,  city-goers went to New York's Fifth Avenue to show off their new attire, eventually leading to the creation of the famous Easter Parade.  

    

Easter Egg Trees

It's only in recent years that miniature Easter trees have become popular in North America. This Easter tradition from Germany is a favorite. Beautifully decorated Easter eggs are hung on branches in a vase in the home or on trees outside, adding a splash of color to spring's palette.

 

Until this research, I never knew I was ahead of the curve on this tradition. From the time my children were babies, I’ve decorated a tree outside our home. Using plastic eggs (to endure the elements, e.g. ice/snow/wind/rain…you get the picture!), I would thread a ribbon through a hole in one end of the egg then loop them over the bare branches. Here is this year’s masterpiece!!!

                                                         

As with Christmas’s Santa Claus—who came first from the pagan Father Winter, then morphed into the Christian St. Nicholas—the Easter bunny and Easter chick had pagan origins that then became symbolic to the Christian faith. But the Christian symbolism associated with all three and the historical context behind them is, sadly, little known by most in modern America. It is worth remembering that all three are associated with birth and rebirth, sharing gifts and bringing joy, and peace and good will.

Happy Easter!

 

Author website: https://www.jo-annrobertsauthor.com/

Email:   jrobertsauthor@yahoo.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jrobertsauthor/ 

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Of Jell-O, Straws, and Cracker Jack

By Sophie Dawson

I’ve been researching the early 1900’s for a book I’m writing. It is set in 1910, an era I’ve never written about before and not done much reading or study of. It’s been fun. Stuck between the Victorian era and, basically, World War I, the Edwardian era, also called the Belle Epoch it was a time of changing from the Industrial Revolution into the modern times that spanned the 20th Century.

Technological development research is always needed for historical writing. You can’t include barbed wire in the 1850’s or removable rifle magazines in the 1880’s. Neither were invented until a later time. Thus my research into what was available and in use by the general public in 1910. Here are some of the fun things I have found out that you’ll find in the book I’m working on. Sorry. I can’t tell the title because it’s part of a Multi-author series I’m involved in, and it’s still secret. BEG (Big Evil Grin)

I have to say, I had no clue Jell-O was invented in 1897. The flavors were strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon. It wasn’t the first gelatin. The French used gelatin as a source of protein for their troops in the Napoleonic wars in the early 1800’s. In 1902, a major advertising campaign was undertaken and soon Jell-O was a household word.

We know that carbonated soft drinks were invented in the 1880’s. At least I knew that. Ice cream was a sweet treat enjoyed often. BUT, did you know that paper plates were invented in 1904 with cups coming shortly after? I didn’t. Dixie cups were the first in 1906.

Paper straws came about when Marvin C. Stone was drinking a mint julep through a rye grass straw. He didn’t like the grassy taste it gave his bourbon. Taking a pencil, he wound a thin paper strip around it and glued it together. That was in 1888. It wasn’t long before the resourceful man invented a machine to coat the straw in wax so the bourbon wouldn’t dissolve the glue. The bendy straw was invented in 1937 by a devoted father so his young daughter could sip her milkshake from a tall glass. He stuck a screw in the straw, wound dental floss around the grooves, removed both, and the bendy straw was born.

Baseball wouldn’t be the same without the seventh inning stretch singing of Take Me Out To The Ballgame with the iconic line 'Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,' at least in Wriggly Field in Chicago. The sweetened popcorn has been around since 1896. It must have become very popular very fast because the song came out in 1908. The “toy surprise” in every box wasn’t added until 1912. They went through various adaptations until they were replaced by codes to be used to play games on Android devices in 2013.

I’ve included each of these within my book. I think it’s fun to include today’s common items that date back over one hundred years. My favorite was finding out that the first individually wrapped candy was created in 1907 and marketed in 1908. They took the country by storm. My characters find it at the amusement park they went to on the Fourth of July. Tootsie Roll.

A newspaper advertisement from 1918 during World War I