Midcentury Christmas Stocking Stuffer Edition

by Sarah Archer

"The perfect joy-filled stocking stuffer!" ― Woman's World Midcentury America was a wonderland of department stores, suburban cul-de-sacs, and Tupperware parties. At Christmastime, postwar America’s dreams and desires were on full display, from shopping mall Santas to shiny aluminum Christmas trees, from the Grinch to Charlie Brown’s beloved spindly Christmas tree. With more than 100 colorful illustrations and iconic designs, Sarah Archer celebrates the turning point of Christmas in America, when new technologies and unprecedented prosperity made anything seem possible. Midcentury Christmas is sure to be on everyone’s wish lists. More than 100 color photographs and illustrations

Genres: Nonfiction, Christmas

192 pages, Hardcover

Published November 6, 2018

About the author

I’m a contributing editor for the American Craft Council’s new journal, American Craft Inquiry, and a regular contributor to Hyperallergic. My first book, Midcentury Christmas, which explores the material culture of Christmas during the Cold War in the United States, was published by Countryman Press/W.W. Norton in 2016.

My articles and reviews have appeared in The Journal of Modern Craft, Modern Magazine, Studio Potter, The Huffington Post, Slate, The New Yorker online, and The Washington Post. I have contributed essays to exhibition catalogs for the Portland Art Museum, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design, as well as to the anthologies Shows and Tales, edited by Art Jewelry Forum, and The Ceramic Reader from Bloomsbury Press. I have curated exhibitions at Urban Glass and Pratt Manhattan Gallery. Prior to moving to Philadelphia to become Senior Curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, I was the Director of Greenwich House Pottery. I have taught at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, Drexel University, and the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. I hold a BA from Swarthmore College, and an MA from the Bard Graduate Center.

Reviews

[Kevidently · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may not be a month for deep thought. With the pandemic still raging (and surging in some places), all the stuff I love shut down, and my Christmas celebrations mostly canceled, I don't really have the headspace for challenging books. I tried Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and I know I'm going to like it eventually. What I want to do now is get lost in Stephen King novels, and - apparently - look back with nostalgia at midcentury kitsch and design. That's what I can handle right now.

Sarah Archer's tiny book (the stocking stuffer edition!) is cram-jam with imagery and reminiscences of the holiday season from the 1950s to the early 1970s. Broken up into easily digestible chapters like Aluminum Trees, Christmas Wrapping, and Christmas Cards, Midcentury Christmas is almost entirely a breezy, history-lite exploration of this fascinating era of American history. While Archer touches on some of the not-great aspects of the time period - the non-equal rights of women and people of color, the fear of nuclear war, the consumerism that came with the modern-since-the-1800s version of Christmas - that help to give a fuller picture of the time, this is largely a celebration.

What is sort of interesting is that, near the end of the book, Archer begins to focus on the DIY movement of the time, and how both that and the interest in midcentury markers like Googie stars and atomic imagery are once again in vogue, especially during the holidays. She chooses this note to end the book on and doesn't really sum up the whole of the experience, but her late focus on Better Homes and Gardens magazine (and its Christmas issue) stands in for a punctuation on the era. I really liked this book.

[Cheryl Malandrinos · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stocking stuffer edition of Midcentury Christmas was such a joy to find in my stocking this year. The glossy pages are filled with tons of historical details and photos that bring you back to the post World War II era holidays. Christmas cards from various countries, famous writers and artists of the time, magazine covers, Christmas television episodes, toys, décor, and more fill these pages.

I read this tiny, but jam-packed, book as I unwound after family and friends left. It was a great way to sit back and relax after two days of entertaining. This, like other special Christmas titles I have found in my stocking or under the tree, will join my treasured collection.

If you yearn to explore Christmas past, pick up a copy of Midcentury Christmas by Sarah Archer.

[Angie Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't realize when I requested this from the library that it's the small, "stocking stuffer" edition. There were some ads and product photos I hadn't seen, but the print was too small to read. Reading the copy is half the fun for me. Still had some cute stuff.

[Laura Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Liked some of the pictures.

[Twofrontteethstillcrooked · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darling and mod! Somehow this book doesn't mention Mad Men even once? But otherwise it is a fun look at 1950-1960s Christmas aesthetics in the US, many of which were amazing.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I would've preferred the non "stocking" version of this book, which appears to go a little more in-depth, but this is a charming little coffee table book.

[kerrycat · Rating 4 out of 5]

this brought back a lot of memories - I wish it was bigger so I could read the advertisements featured more clearly.

[Heather McC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nostalgic pictures transport readers to a bygone era.