Read The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York

The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York

Alex Palmer

4.9/5 (18584 ratings)

Description:Before the charismatic John Duval Gluck, Jr. came along, letters from New York City children to Santa Claus were destroyed, unopened, by the U.S. Post Office. Gluck saw an opportunity, and created the Santa Claus Association. The effort delighted the public, and for 15 years money and gifts flowed to the only group authorized to answer Santa’s mail. Gluck became a Jazz Age celebrity, rubbing shoulders with the era’s movie stars and politicians, and even planned to erect a vast Santa Claus monument in the center of Manhattan — until Gotham’s crusading charity commissioner discovered some dark secrets in Santa’s workshop. The rise and fall of the Santa Claus Association is a caper both heartwarming and hardboiled, involving stolen art, phony Boy Scouts, a kidnapping, pursuit by the FBI, a Coney Island bullfight, and above all, the thrills and dangers of a wild imagination. It’s also the larger story of how Christmas became the extravagant holiday we celebrate today, from Santa’s early beginnings in New York to the country’s first citywide Christmas tree and Macy’s first grand holiday parade. The Santa Claus Man is a holiday tale with a dark underbelly, and an essential read for lovers of Christmas stories, true crime, and New York City history.PRAISE FOR THE SANTA CLAUS MAN:"Palmer deftly weaves in cultural touchstones such as the genesis of the Boy Scouts, Clement Clarke Moore’s 'A Visit from St. Nicholas,' and the WWI Christmas Day armistice (in which opposing armies traded goods) to tell the larger story of America’s adoption and adaptation of Christmas that endures to this day. It’s a highly readable account of the evolution of one of America’s favorite holidays and traditions."—Publishers Weekly“A Christmas pudding of a book, studded with historical nuggets and spiced with larceny.”—Gerard Helferich, author of Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin “The Santa Claus Man draws a picture of an era in New York when the pockets of the wealthy were open to anyone who was willing to offer kind-hearted promises of help to the poor. Alex Palmer's book is fun to read and raises questions about gullibility and fraud even more relevant today than they were in the 1920s.”—Jean Ashton, New-York Historical Society's Library Director Emerita“From the very first page the reader is immersed in a bygone New York of celebrities and debutantes, impoverished children, colorful con men, crusading politicians, crass commercialism, and, above all, outsized ambition and striving self-invention; a historical city, come to think of it, not all that different than the New York City of today. One only hopes that in a hundred years’ time we will have a chronicler as skilled and entertaining as Alex Palmer to tell our tales.“— Stephen Duncombe, co-author of The Bobbed-Haired Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York“Palmer superbly recounts the trials and tribulations of Gluck and his organization as well as places the Christmas holiday and the invention of Santa Claus into historical perspective.”— J. North Conway, author of the New York City Gilded Age Trilogy: King of Heists, The Big Policeman and Bag of Bones “A fascinating look at how Christmas tugs at both the heart and the wallet and how a dapper advertising genius with a waxed moustache used Santa to make himself, for a moment at least, rich and famous.”— Gerry Bowler, author of Santa Claus: A Biography and The World Encyclopedia of ChristmasWe have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York. To get started finding The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

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ISBN: 1493018906

Description: Before the charismatic John Duval Gluck, Jr. came along, letters from New York City children to Santa Claus were destroyed, unopened, by the U.S. Post Office. Gluck saw an opportunity, and created the Santa Claus Association. The effort delighted the public, and for 15 years money and gifts flowed to the only group authorized to answer Santa’s mail. Gluck became a Jazz Age celebrity, rubbing shoulders with the era’s movie stars and politicians, and even planned to erect a vast Santa Claus monument in the center of Manhattan — until Gotham’s crusading charity commissioner discovered some dark secrets in Santa’s workshop. The rise and fall of the Santa Claus Association is a caper both heartwarming and hardboiled, involving stolen art, phony Boy Scouts, a kidnapping, pursuit by the FBI, a Coney Island bullfight, and above all, the thrills and dangers of a wild imagination. It’s also the larger story of how Christmas became the extravagant holiday we celebrate today, from Santa’s early beginnings in New York to the country’s first citywide Christmas tree and Macy’s first grand holiday parade. The Santa Claus Man is a holiday tale with a dark underbelly, and an essential read for lovers of Christmas stories, true crime, and New York City history.PRAISE FOR THE SANTA CLAUS MAN:"Palmer deftly weaves in cultural touchstones such as the genesis of the Boy Scouts, Clement Clarke Moore’s 'A Visit from St. Nicholas,' and the WWI Christmas Day armistice (in which opposing armies traded goods) to tell the larger story of America’s adoption and adaptation of Christmas that endures to this day. It’s a highly readable account of the evolution of one of America’s favorite holidays and traditions."—Publishers Weekly“A Christmas pudding of a book, studded with historical nuggets and spiced with larceny.”—Gerard Helferich, author of Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin “The Santa Claus Man draws a picture of an era in New York when the pockets of the wealthy were open to anyone who was willing to offer kind-hearted promises of help to the poor. Alex Palmer's book is fun to read and raises questions about gullibility and fraud even more relevant today than they were in the 1920s.”—Jean Ashton, New-York Historical Society's Library Director Emerita“From the very first page the reader is immersed in a bygone New York of celebrities and debutantes, impoverished children, colorful con men, crusading politicians, crass commercialism, and, above all, outsized ambition and striving self-invention; a historical city, come to think of it, not all that different than the New York City of today. One only hopes that in a hundred years’ time we will have a chronicler as skilled and entertaining as Alex Palmer to tell our tales.“— Stephen Duncombe, co-author of The Bobbed-Haired Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York“Palmer superbly recounts the trials and tribulations of Gluck and his organization as well as places the Christmas holiday and the invention of Santa Claus into historical perspective.”— J. North Conway, author of the New York City Gilded Age Trilogy: King of Heists, The Big Policeman and Bag of Bones “A fascinating look at how Christmas tugs at both the heart and the wallet and how a dapper advertising genius with a waxed moustache used Santa to make himself, for a moment at least, rich and famous.”— Gerry Bowler, author of Santa Claus: A Biography and The World Encyclopedia of ChristmasWe have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York. To get started finding The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York

The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York

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