Holidays and Protests

One hundred years ago today … The first night of Hanukkah (חֲנוּכָּה) fell on the first day of Xmas (Christmas). The Women’s Peace Society took the occasion to picket churches around NYC, protesting the church for supporting US militarism of recent years. Continue reading for that and other sights and items from this auspicious day. And please note that we have reported on Hanukkah in early 1920s NYC here and Xmas here and here. 

The next day’s News acknowledged Hanukkah on page 18, with a photo of a woman selling menorahs, and an article about Nathan Straus, owner of Macy’s (which we feature here) and Abraham & Strauss (about which click here), exhorting charity on Hanukkah. Both entries seem compelled to remark that the Jewish holiday coincided with Xmas. Note that the News makes use of Strauss’s explanation of Hanukkah below, in its caption, above.

The paper offered numerous scenes of Xmas throughout the edition, including a Santa Claus and Salvation Army visit to the Ninth Regiment Armory, 125 West 14th Street (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues).

Another Xmas image mentions “curb brokers” acting as Santa Claus. ”Curb brokers” were indeed stock brokers who traded shares while stationed on the curb on Wall Street. Why this job made people well suited (ahem) to play Santa is not clear.

About those peace protests: the Times described the demonstration and listed sites and some participants.

A group of the women, carrying banners and leaflets, appeared in front of churches, distributing a leaflet called "Let Us Be Christians Again!"

The churches visited included St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. Thomas's, Calvary Baptist, St Bartholomew's, Trinity, the Brick Church and the Marble Collegiate Church. In the group were Miss Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, Mrs. Henry Neumann, Miss Esther Tomkins, Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram. Miss Caroline Lexow Babcock, Miss Norvell Harrison, Miss Mary Abbott, Mrs. Edna Buckman Kearns, Mr. Beatrice H. Fets. Mrs. Gertrude Franchot Tone, Mrs. Henrietta Spader, Miss Caroline Singer, Ms. Phoebe Scott and Miss Elizabeth Black.

(“PACIFISTS CONDEMN CHURCH WAR STAND,” New York Times, 26 December 1921, p. 2.)

Activist Edith Claire Bryce Cram (the “Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram” of the article) spoke:

Those of us who are pacifists and church members were frankly grieved by the attitude of the Church in the last war, when ministers of the Gospel preached hatred and murder from their pulpits, and the Church permitted without protest the Conscription and imprisonment of those of its members who believed it wrong to destroy human life. We are, therefore, urging Christians to return to the example of the early Christians and say “I am Christian: I will not kill, and therefore I will not participate in or sanction war in any way whatever."

The News snapped Caroline Lexow Babcock protesting in front of Trinity Church.

The Women’s Peace Society had been founded in 1919 by a group of women activists, including Babcock, who had left the executive committee of the Women's International League of New York State. (See the archive summary of the Women's Peace Society Records, 1914-1933 at Swarthmore Library.) It was headquartered at 503 5th Avenue off 42nd Street.

– Jonathan Goldman, Dec. 25 2021

TAGS: Holidays, religion, Christian, Jewish, protests, demonstrations, war, military, peace, women