Holiday Post Cards

July 2026

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December 1967

15 years ago By admin

Volume

19

Issue

1

Besides its lasting art, every age has its kitsch, and because there is so much of it, this cheap popular art is pretty durable too. Consider this fine collection of holiday post cards, kindly lent to us by Mrs. Earl Moore of Weston, Connecticut. Cliché after cliché, these chromos march through the year’s calendar of feast and folly, carefully missing the real point of every holiday—yet somehow, perhaps because sixty or seventy years have passed since they were mailed in their millions for a penny each, a certain charm has crept over them. There’s George and his cherry tree, Abe, and a scoop of other fond figures. See that sneaky young man with the mistletoe? Wake up, Jane, wake up!

Stories published from "December 1967"

When Christmas Was Banned In Boston

Authored by: Dana P. Marriott

Many a book, a magazine, a play, a movie, has been banned in Boston. But Christmas?

A Cardsharp—or Vice Versa

Authored by: The Editors

A soldier in the American army being unfortunately surprised at a game of cards by a sergeant who owed him an old grudge, was carried before the colonel of the regiment, that he might be punished for gaming, against which general orders were very severe.

Providence Rides a Storm

Authored by: James Thomas Flexner

Had a tempest not thwarted his plans, George Washington might have lost the Revolution in the first major operation he commanded

Verdicts Of History IV: “A Scandalous, Malicious, And Seditious Libel”

Authored by: Thomas Fleming

Is it libel to say that the President of the United States tried to seduce his neighbor’s wife—even if he did? Thomas Jefferson tried to gag the venomous editor of upstate New York’s Wasp; Alexander Hamilton argued brilliantly in defense of journalistic candor.

The Great Meddler

Authored by: Gerald Carson

In Henry Bergh—a reformed dilettante who founded the A.S.P.C.A.—many saw a latter-day Saint Francis of Assisi. But others, especially the cruel or the thoughtless, regarded him as The Great Meddler.

Now That You Are Married Do Not Always Expect The Lover

Authored by: The Editors

We are not sure exactly what it is that married women tell their little sisters about marriage nowadays, but it is certainly not very much like the letter we publish here. It was written in a spidery hand from a home on the newly settled upper Mississippi to a young bride, Mrs. Oliver Ormerod, back in Liverpool, England, and the advice it gives says more than any long treatise about the apologetic, indeed timorous, position of women only a century and a half ago. Mrs. Ormerod was the greatgrandmother of our editor. She is shown in an old miniature about the time she married her Anglican minister, and before she reared a large family of sons.

Mr. Coolidge’s Jungle War

Authored by: Richard O’Connor

Forty years ago, American Marines tangled with a tough Latin-American guerrilla leader whose tactics against “the capitalists” would evoke an unhappy shock of recognition in Vietnam today.

The Army Of The Cumberland: A Panorama Show By William B. T. Travis

Authored by: Bruce Catton

Concerned lest history
overlook their triumphs, veterans of the Army of the Cumberland had them writ large -- on a canvas five hundred feet long.
of the Cumberland had them writ large—on a canvas
five hundred feet long

He Took The Bull By The Horns

Authored by: Jerrold J. Mundis

In the early days of the century, a fearless cowboy named Bill Pickett roused audiences on two continents by giving the fledgling sport of rodeo one of its most exciting events.

The Preposterous Pathfinder

Authored by: Timothy Severin

Giacomo Beltrami’s discoveries were mostly illusory, but he had a glorious time making them, and the people of Minnesota have never forgotten his name.

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