The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall
of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York by Alex Palmer Name
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GENRE: History/True Crime
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BLURB:
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.
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Excerpt:
The Santa Claus Association was an enormous hit. By Dec. 24,
1913, the association had coordinated the delivery of gifts to 13,160 kids in
the city. Two years later, that number had ballooned to 50,000 in 16,000
families. The papers were filled with stories of delighted kids receiving gifts
in the tenements.
The city’s richest families were eager to give to the
organization because they saw the results of their charity firsthand — the
Santa Claus Association sent them specific letters, letting them deliver the
gifts themselves if they wanted.
The group moved, first to donated space at the Hotel Astor,
then to the Woolworth Building, then the tallest in the world. As the group’s
work wound down on Christmas Day 1915 and the piles of letters in the office
dwindled, suddenly the space began filling with reporters. Gluck stopped his
volunteers and informed them he was going to make an announcement. He dropped
his big news: “The peculiar nature of our work calls for a building of our
own.”
Gluck had commissioned architects George and Edward Blum to
create “the most unique building in America.”
The Santa Claus Building, in Manhattan, would be made of
white marble, with a massive arched portal, nearly 20 feet deep as a front
entrance. The façade would depict versions of Santa Claus from all the
countries of the world, each created by an artist native to that country.
The ground floor would house the offices of the association
as well as other willing charities. On the second floor would be the
Lilliputian Bazaar — a huge market where toys from around the world would be
sold or given away. “The proposed Santa Claus Building will be a national
monument,” Gluck declared — a real-life Santa’s workshop, as well as a place of
international celebration of the “Christmas spirit.”
Every detail seemed to have been carefully considered and
provided to the press — except how to pay for the $300,000 building.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Alex Palmer is
the author of The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and
the Invention of Christmas in New York, called "required reading" by
the New York Post and "highly readable" by Publishers Weekly.
Available at:
Barnes &
Noble - http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Claus-Man-Invention-Christmas/dp/1493008447/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430324363&sr=1-7
IndieBound -
http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781493008445
It tells the
history of Christmas in America through the true-crime tale of a Jazz Age
hustler who founded an organization to answer children's Santa letters -- and
fuel his own dark dreams. Palmer curated an exhibit about this Santa Claus
Association for Brooklyn's City Reliquary Museum, earning attention from the
Village Voice, Time Out New York, and inspiring a memorable segment on WNYC
(http://wny.cc/1bQIx5k).
The son of two
teachers, Palmer's love of learning and sharing surprising stories behind
familiar subjects has led him to become a secret-history sleuth. In addition to
The Santa Claus Man, he is the author of Weird-o-pedia: The Ultimate Collection
of Surprising, Strange, and Incredibly Bizarre Facts About (Supposedly)
Ordinary Things, published in 2012 by Skyhorse Publishing. it offers up a
wealth of unexpected facts of familiar things. His first book, Literary
Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Literature, takes a look
at some of the more colorful aspects of great writers and their works, and was
published in 2010 by Skyhorse.
He is a
full-time freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Slate, Rhapsody,
Smithsonian, Vulture, the New York Daily News, Publishers Weekly, and The
Rumpus, among others.
See more at
www.alexpalmerwrites.com and follow him @theAlexPalmer.
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION
Alex will be awarding a $20 Amazon or
B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $10
Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteBest of Luck to you and your book!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Teresa!
Delete