A Pictorial History of Santa Claus

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A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF SANTA CLAUS

Contrary to what many believe, Santa Claus as

we know him today – sleigh riding, gift ‐giving,

rotund and white bearded with his distinctive

red suit trimmed with white fur – was not the

creation of the Coca Cola Company. Although

their Christmas advertising campaigns of the

1930s and 40s were key to popularising the

image, Santa can be seen in his modern form

decades before Coca Cola’s illustrator Haddon

Sundblom got to work. Prior to settling on his

famed red garb and jolly bearded countenance,

throughout the latter half of the 19th century,

Santa morphed through a variety of different

looks. From the description given in Clement

Moore’s A Visit from St Nicholas in 1822, through

the vision of artist Thomas Nast, and later

Norman Rockwell, Mr Claus gradually shed his

various guises and became the jolly red ‐suited

Santa we know today. Below we’ve put

together a little pictorial guide showing his

evolvement through the ages.

13TH CENTURY

The name Santa Claus has his roots in the

informal Dutch name for St.

Nicholas, Sinterklaas

(an

abbreviation

of

Sint

Nikolaas). St. Nicholas was a historic 4th ‐century

Greek saint (from an area now in modern day

Turkey) who had a reputation for secret gift ‐

giving, such as putting coins in the shoes left

out for him. He was also famous for presenting

the three impoverished daughters of a pious

Christian with dowries so that they would not

have to become prostitutes.

St. Nicholas “Lipensky” as he appears on a Russian icon dated to 1294

from Lipnya Church of St. Nicholas in Novgorod.

Being the patron saint of children St. Nicholas

has long been associated with giving gifts to

children. The parallels to the modern day Santa

Claus don’t end there. In his Dutch form

of Sinterklaas he was imagined to carry a staff,

ride above the rooftops (on a huge white horse)

and have mischievous helpers who listened at

chimneys

to

find

out

whether

children

were

being bad or good. These features all also link

him to the legend of Odin, a god who was

worshipped among the Germanic peoples in

North and Western Europe prior to

Christianization.

Although in Europe the feast of St. Nicholas,

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2 A Pictorial History of Santa Claus

typically on the 6th December, was very

popular throughout the middle ages, after the

reformation in the 16th century the celebration

died out in most Protestant countries, apart

from Holland where the celebration

of Sinterklaaslived on.

17th CENTURY

Another important tributary to the image of

Santa Claus was the phenomenon of Father

Christmas – also known as Old Father

Christmas, Sir Christmas, and Lord Christmas –

a traditional figure in English folklore and

identified with the similarly bearded Old

English god Woden. He typically represented

the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, but was not associated with either children of the

bringing of gifts.

Father Christmas as pictured in Josiah King’s The Examination and

Tryal of Father Christmas (1686).

The earliest English examples of the

personification of Christmas are thought to be

from a 15th century carol which refers to a “Sire

Christmas”. The picture above is from Josiah

King’s The Examination and Tryal of Father

Christmas (1686), published shortly after

Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in

England after being banned in post Civil War

England as a symbol of “Catholic superstition

and godless self‐indulgence.”

1810

Although the east coast of America was full of

Dutch settlers, it was not until the early 19th

century that the figure of “Sinterklaas” would

make his way properly across the Atlantic and

so give birth to the Americanised Santa Claus.

Following the Revolutionary War the already

heavily Dutch influenced New York City

(formerly of course named New Amsterdam)

saw a new surge of interest in Dutch customs,

and with them St. Nicholas. In 1804 John

Pintard, an influential patriot and antiquarian,

founded the New York Historical Society and

promoted St. Nicholas as patron saint of both

the society and city. On December 6th 1810 the

society hosted its first St. Nicholas anniversary

dinner and Pintard commissioned the artist

Alexander Anderson to draw an image of the

saint to be handed out at the dinner. In

Anderson’s portrayal he was still shown as a

religious figure, but now he was also clearly

depositing gifts in fireside stockings and is

associated with rewarding the goodness of

children. While “St. Nicholas day” never quite

took off in the way Pintard wanted, Anderson’s

image of “Sancte Claus” most certainly did.








Print of St Nicholas by Alexander Anderson commisioned by John

Pintard (1810).

A year before the New York Historical Society’s

feast the author Washington Irving had written

about Santa in his satirical fiction Knickerbocker’s

History

of

New

York ,

describing

a

jolly

St.

Nicholas character as opposed to the saintly

bishop of yesteryear – one who flew in a

reindeer pulled sleigh and delivered presents

down chimneys. The next key step to securing

the image of Santa Claus was the 1822 poem

entitled A Visit from St. Nicholas written by

Clement Moore, later better known as The Night

Before Christmas. Moore drew upon Irving’s

description and Pintard’s New Amsterdam

tradition and added some more Odin ‐like

elements from German and Norse legends to

create the all‐winking, sleigh ‐riding Saint and

also the names for his flying reindeer.

1863

As time went by, more and more was added to

the Santa Claus legend. The cartoonist Thomas

Nast

established

the bounds

for

Santa

Claus’

current look with an initial illustration in an

1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, as part of a large

illustration titled “A Christmas Furlough”.

Detail from Thomas Nast’s illustration “A Christmas Furlough” for

the front page of a 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly.

In later Nast drawings a home at the North Pole

was added, as was the workshop for building

toys and a large book filled with the names of

children who had been naughty or nice.

1864

Although Nast had gotten the paraphernalia of

reindeer, sleigh, etc down to a tee, the famous

red suit

was

still

yet

to

be

set.

Over

the

decades

Santa would be depicted in a variety of colours

such as blue, green and the yellow as pictured

in this 1964 edition of Moore’s “A Visit from St.

Nicholas”.






Illustration from the 1864 edition of Clement Moore’s poem A Visit

from St. Nicholas.

1868

In this 1968 advert for Sugar Plums we see the

red of the jacket, but the hat is green and he

appears to have no trousers on at all.

Santa Claus Sugar Plums, showing a red(ish) suited Santa Claus on sleigh with reindeer.

1881

In this later 1881 illustration by Thomas Nast

named “Merry Old Santa” the modern Santa

character really

begins

to

take

shape.

Present

is

the jolly rotundity and the all important red of

the suit.

Colour version of Thomas Nast’s famous image below.

Thomas Nast’s most famous drawing, “Merry Old Santa Claus”, from

the January 1, 1881 edition of Harper’s Weekly.








1902

The Life and Adventures Of Santa Claus by author

of The Wizard of Oz , L. Frank Baum, with its

elaborations

and

much

added

detail

went

a

long way to popularising the legend of Santa.

However, in the cover to the first edition of

Baum’s book we see the red of his suit is still yet

to be ‘mandatory’.

The Life and Adventures Of Santa Claus (1902) by L. Frank Baum.

In this cover for Puck illustrated by the

Australian Frank A. Nankivell, we see perhaps

for the first time a depcition of Santa which is

indistinguishable from that of the present day.

Santa Claus as illustrated by Frank A. Nankivell in Puck, v. 52, no. 1344

(December 3 1902).

1906

In this Canadian department store brochure

from 1906 we see that Santa, with his black

trimmed suit and bobble ‐less hat, was still able

to deviate from his typical image.

Cover of the Eaton’s department store Christmas catalogue for 1906, showing

an image of Santa Claus. Toronto, Canada.






1913

The illustrator Norman Rockwell, with his

many depictions throughout the 1920s, was a

key player

in

cementing

Santa’s

modern

look.

Here is an early illustration of his from before

the First World War.

Norman Rockwell’s cover of Boys’ Life published December 1913.

1914

An Japanese illustration from 1914, showing the

spread of the Santa legend had reached far

wider than just Europe and America.

Japanese illustration featuring Santa, artist unknown.

1918

Santa appears in classic form in this piece of U.S.

WW1 propaganda.

A poster by the U.S. Food Administration. Educational Division,

Advertising Section, ca. 1918 – Source

1920

Pictured here are just two of Norman

Rockwell’s many Santa themed covers for

the Saturday Evening Post. Like Sundblom’s

depictions for Coca Cola more than a decade

later, these pictures of Rockwell’s give a very

physiologically human and naturalistic aspect

to the character as opposed to the more cartoonish features which had gone before.


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Peace._Your_Gift_To_The_Nation._A_Merry_Christmas.%22_-_NARA_-_512601.jpg









Two covers for the Saturday Evening Post by Norman Stockwell, the left one from 1920, the right from 1922.

1930

Santa in Australia in 1930.

Illustrated front cover from The Queenslander, December 25 1930.

1942

In the U.S. Second World War poster below

Santa takes a radical departure from the jolly

red suit and dons the dour shades of war.

A poster from the Office for Emergency Management, War Production

Board, circa. 1942.






A poster from the Office for Emergency Management, War Production

Board, circa. 1942 .

Sources and Further Reading: http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/12/13/a ‐pictorial ‐history ‐of‐santa ‐claus/

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/origin ‐of‐santa/

http://www.unmuseum.org/santa.htm

http://www.the ‐north ‐pole.com/history/

http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/santa/the_father_of_santa_claus.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus


http://publicdomainreview.org/2012/12/13/a-pictorial-history-of-santa-claus/











http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/origin-of-santa/








http://www.the-north-pole.com/history/








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas














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A Pictorial History of Santa Claus