In California, and probably much of the nation, the 1880 Christmas season was a welcome return to the norm of years past. Said the Humboldt Times on December 23, 1880, citing its many informational exchanges from all parts of the state: “It is evident that business is improving, certainly noticeable among our own merchants and businessmen … Santa Claus is astir, his bells of prosperity are heard far and near, and the universal feeling seems to be that we are about done with the hard times.”
Times had indeed been very hard during the 1870s, after the failure of several East Coast banks precipitated the financial panic of 1873, in turn triggering America’s first national economic depression. Unemployment soared as businesses tottered. In California—among other disorders and disasters—Los Angeles’s first real estate boom crumpled, the severe drought of 1876-77 killed hundreds of thousands of livestock, and a Bay Area mania for gambling on Nevada mining stock ended in the crash of local stock markets.
But this year, things would be different! From the snowy climes of the far northern counties, though the warmer Central Valley, along coastal cities down to San Diego, newspapers announced Christmas balls, tree-lighting parties, and religious festivals. They carried advertisements for fancy goods such as Spanish lace scarfs, satin skirt ruffling, gold thimbles, imported liquors, oysters, Christmas stockings at 50 cents, and premier candies for 40 cents a pound.
At Christmas 1880, a general spirit of magnanimity was in the air. San Francisco’s Alms House served turkey and mince pies to its 75 resident children, the prisoners at Folsom Prison received fine Christmas dinners, and the inmates of Sacramento’s city and county jails enjoyed Christmas dinners of turkeys, ducks, sea bass and roasted meats, cakes, pies, and puddings—besides being treated to a liberal supply of pipes, tobacco, and cigars donated by local smoke shop owners.
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