History That Doesn't Suck - 126: Christmas Special 6: Jacob Riis’ “Is There a Santa Claus?”

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

“Now, how would you like to be a reporter, if you have got nothing better to do?” This is the story of a reporter–a muckraker–answering a boy who wants to know if Santa Clause actually exists. And somehow, it’s an answer that manages to mention Theodore Roosevelt.  This is Jacob Riis’ Is There a Santa Clause? ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What did it take to survive an ancient siege? Why was the cult of Dionysus behind so many slave revolts in ancient Rome? What's the tragic history and mythology behind Japan's most haunted ancient forest? We're Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fangirl. Join us to explore ancient history and mythology from a fun, sometimes tipsy, perspective. Find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy.

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slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes. It's an unspecified night, sometime in the late 1880s, and the nearly 40-year-old Danish immigrant Jacob Rees is walking along Mulberry Street in New York City. This is a less affluent neighborhood. To be blunt, it's a slum. And it's unique because nearly everyone here isn't only poor, but blind. Hence its nickname, Blind Man's Alley. And Jacob has come here to document these hard-lived lives with his camera. Now, it's a bit dark out for photos, true,

but the photographer has gotten his hands on some cutting-edge technology called a flash lamp. It's a genius little tray that, once filled with a dash of explosive powder, called flash powder, of course, can produce a brief burn and flash as the camera shutter clicks. In brief, this new tech means Jacob can take pictures on the darkest of nights. And so armed, he's determined to use his flash lamp to shine a long-lasting light on the living conditions of the poorest of poor here in New York. The bespectacled photojournalist soon arrives at his destination, a decaying tenement building.

He enters the rickety structure and climbs several flights of stairs. As he ascends, he hears the constant tap, tap, tap of sightless residents making their way around with guide canes. Finally, Jacob reaches the top of the building, the attic. He enters a cramped space, a depressing room in which ceiling and walls alike are peeling. Rags and newspapers line these decaying walls, and the box stoves seem better days. The spot where its cylindrical pipe enters the wall is so cracked and corroded, it's a miracle the wall hasn't completely crumbled in. At least this shabby attic space has a window.

Those living here likely consider themselves lucky, since that infrequent luxury means fresh air. Ah, and of course, Jacob now greets those living in this small, windowed hovel. It's a group of blind men and women who've agreed to sit for a picture. Jacob likely asks his volunteers to act naturally, as he doesn't care for posed portraits. His aim is to capture real life in the slums. Avoiding anything overly posed then, the group circles their chairs around the small box stove and its teapot. They carry on as the Dane positions his camera and readies his new flash lamp. Okay, all set. Say cheese.

When developed, the photo to come will show us a blind woman in the foreground, seated and smiling softly with her eyes closed. Two men are across from her, and another figure is captured but moving too quickly for us to identify beyond a blur. It's a hauntingly serene scene. But as Jacob blinks and recovers from the brilliant flash, he's horrified. The rags and papers strung along the wall right by him are ablaze. His new flash lamp's small, light-producing explosion must have caught them on fire.

He scans the decrepit attic, quickly thinking through options, knowing that he has precious few moments to save his five blind subjects, all of whom remain blissfully unaware of their situation. Evacuation could be dangerous. There are, as Jacob will later recall, a dozen crooked rickety stairs between their attic room and the safety of the street. And of course, there are several rooms filled beyond capacity with more blind residents on each level below to consider. So should he run to the street and call for help? No, no time. The flames are already spreading. Jacob does the only thing he can do. He smothers the fire on his own. The flames fight back, licking at his hands and coat, but thankfully he acted fast enough. The Dane contains and extinguishes it,

then double and triple checks that he's suffocated every little ember. Finally satisfied, he heads back down the crooked, rickety stairs. Stunned and shaken, Jacob emerges from the tenement building. His walk down the street soon takes him across the path of a friendly policeman. The photographer regales him with the tale of those frightful flames, and the policeman bursts out in laughter. Jacob insists this is a serious matter. What if some sparks manage to burrow into the wall? What if they're laying in wait to create devastation later this evening?

Regaining his composure, the officer answers, Why, don't you know that house is the dirty spoon? It caught fire six times last winter, but it wouldn't burn. The dirt was so thick on the walls, it smothered the fire. But Jacob can't laugh this off. He finds nothing funny about filth, fire, and flimsy construction. With renewed determination, Jacob continues to take his photographs. He soon publishes them,

along with the stories of the real people living in these deplorable conditions. Readers devour the stories, and in the 1890s, the Danish immigrant produces a whole book packed with yet more stories, photographs, and drawings. It's called How the Other Half Lives, and the impact is both immediate and massive.

Middle and upper class Americans are shocked. Some will take action. This includes a police commissioner by the name of Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy and Jacob strike up a lifelong friendship. One founded on the fight to enact social reform, to restore hope to the hopeless. But not every effort to give hope will be focused on the slums or legislation. Sometimes hope comes in the form of stories. And sometimes, those stories are about Santa Claus.

Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I can hardly believe it, but here we are at our sixth annual HTVS Christmas special. As you know, I like to tell a Christmas story that aligns chronologically with our current era of American history. And that's why we're visiting with Teddy Roosevelt's friend from episodes 111 and 114, Mr. Jacob Reese. Because you see, Jacob isn't just a pioneering photojournalist and muckraker. He's also the author of a touching little Christmas short story titled, Is There a Santa Claus? And I want to share it with you. Now, you might be thinking, that sounds a bit like, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

You're absolutely right. And they are similar, particularly in their inspiration. Just a few years after Virginia penned the letter that resulted in the son's Francis Church writing his beloved editorial, a young boy entrusted Jacob with the same question. But the famed photojournalist's take, which was first published as a small, hardback book in 1904, is just a touch different from that of Francis.

Not better or worse, and not altogether different in messaging, but unique enough and worth a listen. Before we get to the story itself, though, I can't help noting we've only met our dear author ever so briefly in past episodes. And frankly, you'll better get Jacob's view on Santa if you know Jacob. So let's bond with our social crusading immigrant author, Jacob Rees, just a bit more first. Then we'll dive right into his short story. Born in 1849, Jacob Rees is one with an innate soft spot for the less fortunate. This was true even as a child. One Christmas, while still a young boy in his native Denmark, Jacob received a coin called a mark.

An extraordinary gift, considering what a hard time it was for so many in their small town of Riba that year. And those difficulties are precisely why it surprised everyone when little Jacob selflessly re- regifted the coin to a needy family he knew. He kept nothing for himself. At age 21, Jacob completed his four-year apprenticeship and received his carpenter's certificate. Elated, the now trained young man rushed to propose to his curly-haired lifelong crush, Elizabeth. And she said no. Jacob later described his painful rejection.

I kissed her hands and went out, my eyes brimming over with tears, feeling that there was nothing in all the wide world for me anymore, and that the farther I went from her, the better. So it was settled that I should go to America. Thus it was that, like millions of other 19th century Europeans, the young Danes stepped aboard a steamer bound for the States. Generally, Jacob's transatlantic voyage was a dreary, stormy one, but when his steamship arrived in New York in 1870, it did so on a beautiful spring day with clear skies. Hope and promise were in the air, and Jacob breathed it all in. His clear eyes scanned the streets, trees, and buildings of Brooklyn. Right then and there, the young Dane determined there must be a place for him in this country, and he was going to find it. From the banks of western Pennsylvania's Allegheny River to New York City, Jacob worked all sorts of odd jobs. At times,

he put his carpentry skills to use, but was happy with any honest work that paid enough to keep him fed. He experienced countless hardships that, sadly, were quite typical of many immigrants to the eastern United States at the time. He often went homeless, slept in fields, wagons, and once even curled up on a brownstone slab in a graveyard. He actually preferred the slab to the fields, as the stone retained warmth better than grass or dirt. Jacob became well acquainted with true hunger. He slowly pawned off nearly all he possessed so he could afford an occasional meal rather than starve to death. With nine hunger and hopeless desperation, the Danish immigrant

eventually found himself in one of New York City's worst slums, one of the most run-down parts of the city's infamous Five Points neighborhood, a place known as Mulberry Bend. It was a place filled with depressing, overcrowded tenements, where many people had no option other than to live in the streets. It was here that Jacob learned firsthand the horrors of New York City tenements. He would never forget this painful time, nor likely would have escaped before a chance meeting. It was the fall of 1873, three years since Jacob first came to the United States. The Dane had hit rock bottom and figured his life was a waste.

Then, an old but unnamed acquaintance recognized him on the street. The man asked, Why, what are you doing here? Jacob answered that he was out trying to sell books. The man scoffed. Books? I guess they won't make you rich. Now, how would you like to be a reporter if you have got nothing better to do? The manager of a news agency downtown asked me today

to find him a bright young fellow whom he could break in. It isn't much, $10 a week to start with, but it is better than peddling books, I know. Glancing down, the man notices the book Jacob's carrying, Charles Dickens' novel, Hard Times. Poking at it, he chuckles as he adds, I guess so. What do you say? I think you will do. Better come along and let me give you a note to him now.

Jacob Rees' life changed that day. He became a reporter and now a man of means. He eventually found the courage to write to his dear Elizabeth with a second marriage proposal. This time, she accepted. Jacob sailed to Denmark, they married, then moved back to the United States in 1876. Thus, we come to the Jacob of the 1880s. While he still spent his time in the slums in and around Mulberry Street, he no longer did so as a resident but as a police reporter. And as we know, he, his camera, and that state-of-the-art flash lamp

began to capture glimpses of New York's seedier side that most Americans were shocked to learn even existed as they thumbed through his book, How the Other Half Lives. He became famous. Public speaking tours and more publications followed, as did a friendship with a certain New York City police commissioner

who shared Jacob's thirst for reform, one Mr. Theodore Roosevelt. A child who believes in small acts of kindness. An immigrant. A man who's known the hard side of life and seen fame as a reporter. A family man. A friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. In small and big ways, all of these elements of Jacob Rees can be found in his short little story, Is There a Santa Claus? And now that you know what to look for and which dots

to connect, well, there's only one thing left to do. Enjoy the story. Want to learn how you can make smarter decisions with your money? Well, I've got the podcast for you. I'm Sean Piles, and I host NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. On our show, we help listeners like you make the most of your finances. I sit down with NerdWallet's team of nerds, personal finance experts in credit cards, banking, investing, and more. We answer your real-world money questions and break down the latest personal finance news. The nerds will give you the clarity you need by cutting through the clutter and We answer your real-world money questions and break down the latest personal finance news.

The Nerds will give you the clarity you need by cutting through the clutter and misinformation in today's world of personal finance. We don't promote get-rich-quick schemes or hype unrealistic side hustles. Instead, we offer practical knowledge that you can apply in your everyday life. You'll learn about strategies to help you build your wealth, invest wisely, shop for financial products, and plan for major life events. We'll see you next time. It's Smart Money Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. When Johan Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was, was a warning delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Raw lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there.

Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Kreisler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at ConstantPodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Is There a Santa Claus? by Jacob Rees Dear Mr. Rees, A little chap of six on the western frontier writes to us, Will you please tell me if there is a Santa Claus? Papa says not.

Won't you answer him? That was the message that came to me from an editor last December, just as I was going on a journey. Why he sent it to me, I don't know. Perhaps it was because when I was a little chap, my home was way up toward that white north where even the little boys ride in sleds behind reindeer

as they are the only horses they have. Perhaps it was because when I was a young lad, I knew Hans Christian Andersen, who surely ought to know and spoke his tongue. Perhaps it was both. I will ask the editor when I see him. Meanwhile, here was his letter with Christmas right at the door and, as I said, I was going on a journey. I buttoned it up in my great coat along with a lot of other letters I didn't have time to read. And I thought as I went to the depot, what a pity it was that my little friend's papa should have forgotten about Santa Claus. We big people do forget the strangest way.

And then we haven't got a bit of a good time anymore. No Santa Claus. If you had asked that car full of people, I would have liked to hear the answers they would have given you. No Santa Claus. Why, there was scarce a man in the lot who didn't carry a bundle that looked as if it had just tumbled out of his sleigh. I felt of one, slyly, and it was a boy's sled. A flexible flyer. I know, because he left one at our house the Christmas before. And I distinctly heard the rattling of a pair of skates in that box in the next seat.

They were all good-natured, every one, though the train was behind time. That is a sure sign of Christmas. The brakeman wore a piece of mistletoe in his cap and a broad grin on his face, and he said Merry Christmas in a way to make a man feel good all the rest of the day. No Santa Claus is there.

You just ask him. Then the train rolled into the city under the big gray dome to which George Washington gave his name. And by and by, I went through a doorway, which all American boys would rather see than go to school a whole week, though they love their teacher dearly. It is true that last winter, my own little lad told the kind man, whose house it is, that he would rather ride up and down in the elevator at the hotel, but that was because he was so very little at the time

and didn't know things rightly. And besides, it was his first experience with an elevator. As I was saying, I went through the door into a beautiful white hall with lofty pillars, between which there were regular banks of holly with the red berries shining through, just as if it were out in the woods. And from behind one of them, there came the merriest laugh you could ever think of. Do you think now it was that letter in my pocket that gave that guilty little throb against my heart when I heard it? Or what could it have been? I hadn't even time to ask myself the question, for there stood my host all framed in holly and with the heartiest hand clasp.

Come in, he said, and drew me after. The coffee is waiting. And he beamed upon the table with the various Christmas face as he poured it out himself, one cup for his dear wife and one for me. The children, ah, you should have asked them if there was a Santa Claus. And so we sat and talked, and I told my kind friends that my own dear old mother, whom I have not seen for years, was very, very sick in faraway Denmark and longing for her boy. And a mist came into my hostess's gentle eyes, and she said, Let us cable over and tell her how much we think of her, though she had never seen her. And it was no sooner said than done. In came a man with a writing pad, and while we drank our coffee, this message sped under the

great stormy sea to the faraway country where the day was shading into evening already, though the sun was scarce two hours high in Washington. The White House, Mrs. Reese, Reba, Denmark. Your son is breakfasting with us. We send you our love and sympathy, Theodore and Edith Roosevelt. For, you see, the house with the holly in the hall was the White House, and my host was the President of the United States. I have to tell it to you, or you might easily fall into the same error I came near falling into. I had to pinch myself to make sure that the President was not Santa Claus himself. I felt that he had, in that moment, given me the very greatest Christmas gift any man ever

received. My little mother's life. For really, what ailed her was that she was very old, and I know that when she got the president's dispatch, she must have become immediately 10 years younger and got right out of bed. Don't you know mothers are that way when anyone makes much of their boys? I think Santa Claus must have brought them all in the beginning. The mothers, I mean. I would just give anything to see what happened in that old town that is full of blessed memories to me when the telegraph ticked off that message. I will warrant the town hurried out, Burgomaster, Bishop, Beetle, and, to do honor to my gentle old mother. No Santa Claus, eh?

What was that, then, that spanned two oceans with a breath of love and cheer? I should like to know. Tell me that. After the coffee, we sat together in the president's office for a little while

while he signed commissions, each and every one of which was just Santa Claus's gift to a grown-up boy who had been good in the year that was going. And before we parted, the president had lifted with so many strokes of his pen clouds of sorrow and want that weighed heavily on homes I knew of, to which Santa Claus had had hard work finding his way that Christmas. It seemed to me, as I went out of the door, where the big policeman touched his hat and wished me a Merry Christmas, that the sun never shone so brightly in May as it did then. I quite expected to see the crocuses and the jonquils that make

the White House garden so pretty out in full bloom. They were not, I suppose, only because they are official flowers and have a proper respect for the calendar that runs Congress and the Executive Department, too. I stopped on the way down the avenue at Uncle Sam's Paymasters to see what he thought of it. And there he was, busy as could be, making ready for the coming of Santa Claus. No need of my asking any questions here. Men stood in line with banknotes in their hands asking for gold, new gold pieces, they said, most every one. The paymaster, who had a sprig of Christmas green fixed in his desk, just like any other man, laughed and shook his head and said, Santa Claus. And the men in the line laughed too, and nodded and went away with their gold.

One man who went out just ahead of me, I saw stoop over a poor woman on the corner and thrust something into her hand, then walk hastily away. It was I who caught the light in the woman's eye, and the blessing upon her poor wan lips, and the grass seemed greener in the treasury dooryard, and the sky bluer than it had been before, even on that bright day. Perhaps, well, nevermind. If anyone says anything to you

about principles and giving alms, you tell him that Santa Claus takes care of the principles at Christmas and not to be afraid. As for him, if you want to know, just ask the old woman on the treasure corner. And so, walking down that avenue of goodwill, I came to my train again and went home. And when I had time to think it all over,

I remembered the letters in my pocket, which I had not opened. I took them out and read them, and among them were two sent to me in trust for Santa Claus himself which I had to lay away with the editor's message until I got the dew rubbed off my spectacles. One was from a great banker, and it contained a check for a thousand dollars to help buy a home for some poor children of the east side tenements in New York, where the chimneys are so small and mean that scarce even a letter will go up through them, so that ever so many little ones over there never get on Santa Claus's books at all. The other letter was from a lonely old widow,

almost as old as my dear mother in Denmark, and it contained a two-2 bill. For years, she wrote, she had saved and saved, hoping some time to have $5 and then she would go with me to the homes of the very poor and be Santa Claus herself. And whenever you decided it was right to leave a trifle, that should be the place where it would be left, read the letter.

But now she was so old that she could no longer think of such a trip, and so she sent the money she had saved. And I thought of a family in one of those tenements where father and mother are both lying ill, with a boy who ought to be in school fighting all alone to keep the wolf from the door and winning the fight. I guess he had been too busy to send any message up the chimney, if indeed there is one in his house. But you ask him right now whether he thinks there is a Santa Claus or not. No Santa Claus. Yes, my little man, there is a Santa Claus, thank God. Your father had just forgotten. The world would indeed be poor without one. It is true

that he does not always wear a white beard and drive a reindeer team. Not always, you know, but what does it matter? He is Santa Claus with the big, loving Christmas heart for all that. Santa Claus with the kind thoughts for everyone that make children and grown-up people beam with happiness all day long. And shall I tell you a secret which I did not learn at the post office, but it is true all the same, of how you can always be sure your letters go to him straight by the chimney route? It is this. Send along with them a friendly thought for the boy you don't like. For Jack who punched you, or Jim who was mean to you. The meaner he was, the harder do you resolve to make it up, not to bear him a grudge.

That is the stamp for the letter to Santa. Nobody can stop it, not even a cross-draft in the chimney when it has that on. Because, don't you know, Santa Claus is the spirit of Christmas. And ever and ever, so many years ago, when the dear little baby was born, after whom we call Christmas, and was cradled in a manger out in the stable because there was not room in the inn, that spirit came into the world to soften the hearts of men and make them love one another. Therefore, that is the mark of the spirit to this

day. Don't let anybody or anything rub it out. Then the rest doesn't matter. Let them tear Santa's white beard off at the Sunday school festival and growl in his bearskin coat. These are only his disguises. The steps of the real Santa Claus you can trace all through the world, as you have done here with me. And when you stand in the last of his tracks, you will find the blessed babe of Bethlehem smiling a welcome to you. For then, you will be home. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. Welcome to you. Matthew Mitchell, Matthew Simmons, Melanie Jan, Nick Kaffrel, Noah Hoff, Owen Sedlak, Paul Goeringer,

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