History That Doesn't Suck - 80: “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus:” A History

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

“Church bristled and pooh-poohed at the subject when I suggested that he write a reply to Virginia O’Hanlon.” This is the story of America’s most famous editorial. Virginia O’Hanlon is an inquisitive eight-year-old. She’s debated with her friends and studied out the matter, but she still can’t decide: is there a Santa Claus? At her father’s suggestion, she writes to New York’s great arbiter of truth: The Sun. Her letter is handed to an editorial writer by the name of Francis “Frank” Pharcellus Church. But Frank doesn’t want to answer the letter. Emotionally scarred by what he witnessed reporting on during the Civil War, Frank is a cynic. Further, as a man without a wife, children, or faith, a religious or faith-filled holiday focused on children really isn’t his thing. What exactly can he say to this little girl? The result is the most famous editorial in the history of American newspapers. ____ 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. From the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the MinuteEarth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you

might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to MinuteEarth wherever you like to listen. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life as your storyteller. Each episode is the result of laborious research,

with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to help support this work, receive ad-free episodes, bonus content, and other exclusive perks, I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a seven-day free trial today at htdspodcast.com slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Welcome to our fourth annual Christmas special. Keeping with our tradition of telling a Christmas story that aligns chronologically with our current era of

American history, today we head to 1890s New York, where a girl is desperate to know if there really is a Santa Claus. Her question will yield one of the most celebrated editorials ever published in an American newspaper. So let's distract you from that yet-to-be-delivered present with a timeless tale of faith and hope. You know, the exact things you're relying on

regarding that late package. Oh, and lastly, a quick thanks to my dear friend Tim O'Brien at Shaping Opinion Podcast for his help with sources while researching this episode. With no further ado, here we go. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. It's July, 1897, and an inquisitive 8-year-old girl with bright eyes and curly hair named Virginia O'Hanlon has a question. It's consumed this youthful New Yorker's mind for some time now.

She's studied it, asked her friends about it, yet definitive proof remains elusive. Still, she must know. Is there a Santa Claus? Virginia is now so distraught she's even willing to go to an adult who, though trusted, is one whom few children ever wish to discuss the veracity of Kris Kringle. Yeah, she's going to ask her father. There's little record of their discussion. I can't tell you if she asks over dinner, while they casually walk the streets of their Upper West Side neighborhood, or perhaps just after a bedtime story. All settings in which this very conversation between a parent and a young child

has undoubtedly taken place countless times before, and will yet happen countless times again. But whatever the setting, I can tell you that Virginia's father doesn't provide one of the handful of typical responses to the question. He doesn't offer a definitive answer at all, in fact. Instead, the coroner's physician points his daughter toward a newspaper that he maintains never publishes a falsehood. The Sun. If you see it in the sun, it's so, the good doctor assures his daughter. And by that logic,

why not ask the editor of this paper with unimpeachable integrity? That's exactly what Little Virginia sets out to do. Writing in black ink and without the benefit of lined paper, the eight-year-old puts her best cursive to use. She's let a little too much ink flow on a capital E, but otherwise, our small author flawlessly pens the following. Dear Editor, I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says if you see it in the sun, it's so. Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon, 115 West 95th Street. The four sentence note is then placed in an envelope, postmarked, and mailed across the city. Unable to know if the paper will answer or even verify if the letter reaches its destination,

Virginia will faithfully scour the Sun's forthcoming issues with hopes of seeing a reply. It's now September, 1897. That's right, two months since Virginia sent her letter. It didn't take that long for the U.S. Postal Service to do its job. It just took that long for those in the Sun's mailroom to do theirs. Nonetheless, the small envelope has finally made its way to the desk of the paper's editorial page editor, a pioneering author in science fiction literature named Edward Page Mitchell. He reads the letter and decides the paper should respond. Edward assigns that task to his lead editorial writer, Francis Farsellus Church.

Now Francis, or Frank, as his friends know him, isn't interested in answering Virginia's letter. Not in the least. Edward will later recall, one day in 1897, I handed to him a letter that had come in the mail from a child of eight saying, please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus? Her little friends had told her no.

Church bristled and poo-pooed at the subject when I suggested that he write a reply to Virginia O'Hanlon. It's ironic. Frank is on the cusp of writing a masterpiece, the American classic of all editorials, and he's not one bit happy about it. That might seem crazy, but remember,

we have the advantage of hindsight. He doesn't know what a hit it's going to be. And when we consider who Frank is, his lack of enthusiasm actually makes a lot of sense. Frank's a serious newspaper man. Just after graduating from Columbia College, he was a war correspondent for the New York Times. After that, he and his brother

William founded two notable publications, the Army and Navy Journal and the Galaxy. That second one published eminent authors like Mark Twain and Walt Whitman before its acquisition by the Atlantic in the 1870s. Meanwhile, Frank kept at his writing. He's been a principal editor writing here at the Sun for more than 20 years, and he's been honored with admittance to some rather prestigious organizations, the Society of the Sons of the Revolution and New York's highly selective Association of Authors and Artists, the Century Association.

But beyond a lifetime of polished professionalism that might sound too serious to write for kids, Frank's private life is hardly one of family-filled, faith-inducing Christmas cheer. He has no wife, no children, and the sight of carnage and death on Civil War battlefields left an indelible impression of humanity's uglier side on the editorial writer. He's a bit cynical in his views and a skeptic, particularly when it comes to religion. Frank's an atheist. Yeah. Given that background, I can get Frank poo-pooing as Edward asks him to write about Santa Claus. But don't make the air of misconstruing Frank's very grown-up and empirically driven mind for a hard, unfeeling heart. The man brings the best of both worlds. Edward will later say of Frank,

There was never a more delightful associate, quick of perception of the interesting in every phase of human activity except politics, for which he cared little, bless his soul. There was in his features something of that gentlemanly pugnacity, a latent aggressiveness that marred neither the delicacy of his fancy nor the warmth of his sympathies. Perhaps it's the warmth of Frank's sympathies that catches him in this moment, because as unenthusiastic as he is about this assignment, the 58-year-old writer with receding hair and a walrus mustache acquiesces. Edward will later recall how Frank, quote,

took the letter and turned with an air of resignation to his desk, close quote. And so, the polished, sober-minded, childless, fact-driven non-believer Frank sits at his desk and contemplates what to write to an eight-year-old girl who hopes the sun, the ever-truthful sun, will confirm her faith in Santa Claus. Are their paradigms simply too different? No, they aren't, at least not for Frank. Bringing to bear whatever faith he still holds in humanity, for our capacity to love and to share that love through words, art, or touch, he pens a brilliant defense

of the symbol of Santa Claus. One that, when we think of his own skepticism and Civil War-rooted pain, maybe is a bit more personal than most readers even realize. One that simultaneously shelters the innocence of childhood

while broaching the realities of adulthood. He writes it in a single day in less than 500 words. Let me read it to you. Is there a Santa Claus? We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below expressing at the same time our great gratification

that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of the sun. Dear editor, I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, if you see it in the sun, it's so. Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon, 115 West 95th Street. Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours,

man is a mere insect, an ant in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world around him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist. And you know that they abound

and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus. You might as well not believe in fairies.

You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not. But that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside. But there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith,

fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus. Thank God he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. The editorial appears on Tuesday, September 21st, 1897. It's on page 6 of 10, just beneath a piece about chainless bicycles hitting the market next year. Virginia is stunned. Yes, it's been two whole months since she wrote The Sun, but she expected

her response, if she got one, would be in the newspaper's question and answer column, not a full editorial. She reads eagerly and finds it to be everything she hoped for. Over 60 years from now, she'll recollect, I was so happy and proud to have such overwhelming proof that I was right, that there was a Santa Claus, and my little friends were wrong.

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Editorials, especially in this era, are anonymous. But they see real beauty in Frank's call for faith in Santa, or, perhaps, if reading between the lines, faith in ourselves and the world around us despite the worst of life's realities. And, of course, many parents find themselves turning to the editorial when their own children ask that oft coming-of-age question,

is there a Santa Claus? Soon enough, readers are even asking the son to publish it again. Now, republishing an editorial isn't really a thing in turn-of-the-century America. It's not until Christmas Day in 1902, five years after the editorial's initial publication, that The Sun does finally cave and reprint it, though not without sarcastically balking

that scrapbooks, quote, seem to be wearing out, close quote. Yet, as the years pass and other newspapers republish it, the Sun begins to comply more readily. It will finally do so annually and with relish by the 1920s, and will continue to do so until the iconic 117-year-old newspaper disappears through an acquisition by the New York World-Telegram in 1950. But Frank will never see the extent of his editorial's reach. Less than 10 years after

his initial publication, the 67-year-old writer passes away on April 11, 1906. Devastated, his friends and colleagues at The Sun let the world know that Frank wrote the beloved editorial. Their article reads, At this time, with a sense of personal loss strong upon us, we know of no better or briefer way to make the friends of the son feel that they too have lost a friend than to violate custom by indicating him as the author of the beautiful and often republished editorial article affirming the existence of Santa Claus. Close quote. Whether Frank would have wanted us to know he wrote it is something we can certainly debate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he would have appreciated his friend's sentiments, but the strict newspaper man might not have appreciated their breaking the editorial code of anonymity. Now finally, what becomes of the one who started it all, Miss Virginia O'Hanlon? She grows up.

She earns her bachelor's degree from Hunter College in 1910. Unknowingly, I assume, Virginia then follows in the footsteps of her favorite editorial writer, Frank, by going to Columbia, which is now a full-fledged university, to obtain her master's in 1912. It's around this time that Virginia gets a taste of what Frank might have meant in his editorial when he spoke of a world with, quote,

no romance to make tolerable this existence, close quote. Only recently married, Virginia's husband, Edward Douglas, leaves her shortly after she becomes pregnant. The single mother gives birth to a daughter and raises her alone. But Virginia doesn't let this moment of heartbreak dampen her soul. She builds a beautiful life. Virginia teaches school and continues her own education. In 1930, she completes a Ph.D. in education at Fordham University with a dissertation entitled, The Importance of Play.

In its abstract, Virginia tells us that, quote, Upon reflection, it seemed to the writer that not only the happiest memories of her childhood, but many of her most abiding interests and small successes had their beginning in play life. Huh. Her topic and that sentiment are all too appropriate for one who, as a small girl, wrote a letter inquiring about Santa Claus. Then again, her entire career seems fitting. For 43 years, Virginia educates and serves the

children of New York as a teacher and then principal. She retires in 1959. But now, over 60 years after writing her letter to the sun, does a much older Virginia still believe in the jolly old elf? Here's how she answers that question in an interview the very same year she retires. Well, of course I do. Everybody wants to know, particularly at Christmas time,

that there's some kindly person interested in his well-being. It gives a glow to living. Whether it really is a person or a spirit doesn't really matter very much, does it? Some people say we shouldn't believe in things we can't see. This is most unrealistic. Look at all the nice things that have happened to me because of Santa Claus.

She'll reiterate her belief the next year, in 1960, to Perry Como on his show. And that same little girl, Virginia, is with us tonight.

I'd like to have you meet a very charming Miss Virginia Douglas. What has been happening to you in the years since you wrote the letter to the New York Sun? There's so many wonderful things. It's been a wonderfully full life. In other words, you're convinced, really convinced there is a Santa Claus.

Absolutely. This letter has been answered for me thousands of times. Yeah. It seems Virginia's taken Frank's less literal view on Kris Kringle to heart. 81-year-old Virginia dies in 1971. But while she, Frank, and even the Sun newspaper may no longer be around, her letter and Frank's response live on. The now-famous editorial is revisited and republished every Christmas season by countless newspapers, blogs, and, well, even podcasts now. It's appeared in more than 20 different languages. The story of the editorial has even been told as

a children's book and through TV specials. Well over a century since its writing, it seems that Frank's timeless appeal to believe in Santa Claus, or perhaps simply to keep hope alive despite what life can throw at us, remains as meaningful in our skeptical age as it was in his. But whatever the exact reason that editorial enjoys such a staying power, one thing is certain,

it will forever number among the most famous editorials ever written in American, or Christmas, history. keep going. And a special thanks to our members whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Ellen Stewart, Bernie Lowe, George Sherwood, Gurwith Griffin, Henry Brunges, Jake Gilbreth, James G. Bledsoe, Janie McCreary, Jeff Marks, Jennifer Moods, Jennifer Magnolia, Jeremy Wells, Jessica Poppock, Joe Dobis, John Frugledugel, John Boovey, John Keller, John Oliveros, John Radlavich, John Schaefer, John Sheff, Jordan Corbett, Joshua Steiner, Justin M. Spriggs, Justin May, Kristen Pratt, Karen Bartholomew,

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