Is There a Santa Claus? Exhibition Opens
| Date/Time: | Monday, 12 Nov 2012 from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Location: | Farm House Museum |
| Cost: | Free and open to the public. |
| URL: | www.museums.iastate.edu |
| Contact: | University Museums |
| Phone: | 515-294-3342 |
| Channel: | University Museums |
| Categories: | Arts, performances |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
"Is there a Santa Clause" was the title of an editorial appearing in the September 21, 1897 edition of The Sun of New York. The editorial, which included the famous reply "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus", has become an indelible part of popular Christmas folklore in the United States.
In 1897, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, a coroner's assistant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was asked by his then eight-year-old daughter, Virginia O'Hanlon (1889-1971), whether Santa Claus really existed. Virginia O'Hanlon had begun to doubt there was a Santa Claus, because her friends had told her that he did not exist.
Dr. O'Hanlon suggested she write to The Sun, a prominent New York City newspaper at the time, assuring her that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." He unwittingly gave one of the paper's editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple question, and address the philosophical issues behind it.
Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, a time which saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in much of society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the editorial page, below even an editorial on the newly invented "chainless bicycle", its message was very moving to many people who read it. More than a century later it remains the most reprinted editorial ever to run in any newspaper in the English language.
The exhibition, Is there a Santa Claus?, will take the visitor back to Virginia's time - the late 1890s - with appropriate holiday decoration, classical images of Santa Claus by Thomas Nast, and toys and gifts of the era. Visitors will also delight in the 15 featured music boxes of the period, a recent gift to the permanent collection from Donald Larew.