This Chicago Tribune article from December 1912 appeared in the women's pages; those special sections where writers like Fanny Butcher, who'd just joined the paper that year, guided readers through the modern woman's world. Back then, the women's section offered advice on navigating a rapidly changing society where young women suddenly earned their own paychecks and faced questions their mothers never had to answer.
The holiday season of 1912 hummed with electric anticipation. Department stores blazed with lights, their windows dressed in evergreen boughs and red velvet ribbons. Santa Claus had become a fixture in nearly every major store since the 1890s, drawing crowds of wide-eyed children and their parents. But alongside the festive cheer, a certain anxiety bubbled beneath the surface, especially when it came to courtship and propriety.
The 1912 Gift-Giving Dilemma
This particular article tackles a question that kept young men and women awake at night: What's appropriate to give when you're courting? The rules were strict, specific, and - to modern eyes - almost comically rigid. Yet reading between the lines, you'll find something beautifully timeless. The nervousness of choosing the perfect gift and the desire to express affection without overstepping; the universal truth that thoughtfulness matters more than price tags.
What You'll Discover in This Article
What follows is a fascinating glimpse into a world where a girl couldn't accept jewelry unless she was engaged, where men were advised to stick to violets and novels, and where a poorly chosen necktie could be a "romance wrecker". The language is wonderfully archaic, the advice charmingly earnest, and the underlying message? Surprisingly modern!
So settle in with your coffee and read on. You're about to step into a Chicago winter over a hundred years ago, where young hearts worried about the very same things we do today ... just with a lot more rules about what was proper.
What to Give Your Sweetheart For Christmas
Adapted from The Chicago Tribune, December 22, 1912, p. 51.
WITH the thought of picking out the Christmas gifts there comes to every woman a sinking of the heart. The thought of paying for them exasperates this feeling, and doing them up in fancy papers tied with ribbons is the proverbial "last straw."
But is man confronted with this awful task? Is there anything more helpless?
The half ashamed, half guilty, out of place look he wears betrays his discomfiture as he timidly approaches the sales girl who welcomes him with almost outstretched arms because she sees her sales check mounting with half the effort on her part a woman customer would require.
He usually waits until the last day, then rushes madly around, his footsteps directing him along the line of least resistance, with the result that he finds himself in comparatively short order marching homeward, laden with gifts—mother's, sister's, and sweetheart's—all chosen with about the same discretion—or lack of it, I'd say.
Young men are not apt to attach enough importance to the fact that it is the thought rather than the gift that makes the gift happy. And where the gift symbolizes loving consideration of the girl's tastes—no matter how inexpensive it may be—it is sure to prove a happy one.
Avoid Expensive Gifts
Men should welcome this joyous season for the opportunity it give them to extend some little form of appreciation to the girls who have entertained them at parties, dinners, or dances in their homes.
And the nicest expression of such appreciation is in the box of candy, the bunch of violets, or the latest popular novel, or perhaps a subscription to her favorite periodical. A pair of gloves, a dainty perfume, a corsage bouquet or boutonniere of artificial flowers, too, are acceptable remembrances.
Jewelry, or furs, or any expensive article should never be sent by a man to a girl to whom he is not engaged unless he wants to be stamped as ill bred and suffer the embarrassment of having the article returned to him by the right sort of girl.
A silver chatelaine or vanity case, opera glasses, an extension bracelet, a bracelet, a coral necklace, or one of pearls, a pendant, a silk parasol, a chafing dish, a toilet set, a wrist watch, a fitted handbag, a brooch, jeweled bar pin, a leather suitcase, a leather pocketbook, writing desk accessories, framed prints of favorite pictures, are but a few of the many, many things a plighted lover may choose from for his sweetheart's gift.
Christmas Gift Not a Cupid Dart
Men should remember that love differs from all other Christmas commodities in that it cannot be commanded for the season's trade. Particularly should he think of this when the temptation to buy beyond his means in the hope of planting himself more firmly in a girl's affections overcakes him.
Young boys are apt to make the mistake of thinking that the Christmas gift is one of Cupid's surest darts.
Did you ever go into a jewelry store in December and see the tall and shiny youth of meager salary leaning over the showcase, with his nose against the glass and his hand in his pocket, clasping tightly his weakly stipend of $12? He looks longingly at the tray of sparkling diamonds as his $12 shrinks smaller every minute. He finally sees a case marked $10.50, and from it he chooses an artificial diamond set. What matters it, he thinks, if the landlady has to wait a couple of weeks, so long as he makes a hit with "Lillian"? In less than a month, while he is paying up back installments to the landlady, the fair Lillian has found more to her liking the company of his rival and disports about gaily bedecked in the gift that cost him so dear.
Happy, indeed, is the man whose privilege it is to solve his Christmas gift to his sweetheart with a solitaire! No happier gift can a girl receive.
What to Give Your Beau For Christmas
"WHAT shall I give my beau for Christmas?" This is the all absorbing problem with those sands upon thousands of girls right now.
"Is it proper for a young girl to give her man friend a ring for a Christmas gift?" I am asked by one of my correspondents.
"Tell me what you think is an appropriate Christmas present for a boy with whom I've been keeping company for three years and who is awfully good to me," writes another.
This is verily the season of brain puzzles!
Down on the list goes mother's name first. But mother's gift is not hard to choose, because at one time or another she has expressed a wish for something that she shall have this Christmas. And so it is with father and sister and brother. The girl chums are dispensed with with some little bit of handiwork.
But the one who is uppermost in the girl's mind—whose name she fears to write out in case her young brother would discover her "list" and then set in to make life a burden with his teasing—is the one over whom her brain is puzzled most.
How much happier Christmas was in grandmother's days when girls never thought of making nor ever were expected to make gifts to men. But things have changed since girls have money of their own earnings to do with what they will.
Suitable Gifts for Men
There are three things to be considered in the making of a perfect present—the giver, the recipient, and the gift. As giver, put into it tender sympathetic personality. The more genuine feeling the less money need be expended.
The gift should be a worthy symbol of a worthy feeling—not some valueless thing with no meaning. Such was the gift of a volume of Bryant's poems to the rural mail carrier by his well enough intentioned sweetheart. On its receipt the carrier exclaimed delightedly: "Gee, I'm glad to get these! I've voted for that man three times."
Be chary of those romance wreckers—the Christmas cigars and the neckties badly chosen.
Here are a few of the miscellaneous and not too expensive articles from which suitable gifts for men may be made:
Subscriptions to periodicals, books, book racks, suitcase umbrella, a card case, cigaret case, cigar cutter, a pipe, telephone pad, desk postage scale or basket, a humidor, leather collar box, bill fold or combination bill and coin purse, collapsible drinking cup, coin watch fob, leather pocket mirror, dictionary or atlas, military brushes, art and crafts outfit, small camera, thermos bottle, travel slippers, pocket manicure set, collar buttons, cravat hanger, gloves, desk fittings, ash receiver, key a calendar, fraternity or den cushions, cap, clothes brush and holder, bookplate, ring, or electric flashlight.
Some Unwelcome Gifts
If girls had to ask their fathers for money for the gifts they buy today many of the indiscretions connected with gift giving would never be committed. The girl who thinks to buy a ring for a fellow to whom she is not engaged, if forced to ask her father for the money with which to buy, no doubt would be strongly advised against the folly of such an act.
But the ignorance of youth is most often responsible for the present that should not be sent.
In the choosing of a gift for her beau a girl should use the very wisest discretion possible. Many a romance has been shattered because of an ill selected Christmas gift.
The man worth while prefers not to receive a gift of any sort from a girl to whom he is not engaged. A Christmas card or letter breathing the spirit of joy and cheer of the season inspires a much more kindly interest in the girl than could ever be inspired by an unwelcome gift.
A costly gift is never expected from a girl—not even from the engaged girl.
Reading this 1912 guide feels like peering through a frosted window into a world where romance moved at a slower, more deliberate pace. The rules seem almost quaint to us now - a girl couldn't even accept jewelry from a man unless they were engaged, and heaven forbid she buy him a ring! Yet beneath all that rigid etiquette beats something wonderfully familiar: the nervous flutter of choosing the perfect gift, the worry about spending too much or too little, the desire to show someone you care.
When Women Started Earning Their Own Way
What strikes me most is the line about girls having "money of their own earnings to do with what they will". In 1912, women working outside the home was still relatively new and slightly scandalous in many circles. Just months before this article was published, thousands of women textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, walked out shouting "Short pay, short pay!" demanding fair wages. These women were earning less than $9 a week while working 60-hour weeks. The fact that young women now had their own money to spend on Christmas gifts represented a genuine shift in American social customs.
The author's nostalgia for "grandmother's days when girls never thought of making nor ever were expected to make gifts to men" reveals the era's growing pains. Female independence (even something as simple as buying a gift) made society nervous.
The Chafing Dish Era
Did you catch that chafing dishes made the list of acceptable gifts for an engaged man to give his sweetheart? These tabletop cooking devices were the height of modernity in 1912. Wealthy young women would gather around chafing dishes at progressive dinner parties, preparing Welsh rarebit or creamed oysters right at the table while their gentleman callers looked on. It was daring, domestic, and delightfully fashionable all at once.
The rest of the gift suggestions paint such a vivid picture: opera glasses for evenings at the theater, silk parasols for summer promenades, fitted handbags with their little compartments for visiting cards. These weren't just random objects - they were the accessories of an elaborate social dance where every gesture carried meaning.
Some Things Never Change
But the poor young man with his $12 salary, nose pressed against the jewelry case, trying to win "Lillian" with a gift he couldn't afford? That story could have been written yesterday. The landlady waiting for her rent while he gambles on love. The cautionary tale about how you can't buy affection. The gentle reminder that "it is the thought rather than the gift that makes the gift happy". These truths transcend any era.
I love the deliciously specific warning about "romance wreckers; the Christmas cigars and the neckties badly chosen". Some gifts have apparently been dangerous territory for over a century!
What's your family's gift-giving tradition that's been passed down through the generations? Did your grandmother have strict rules about what was appropriate, or has your family always been more relaxed about these things? Share your stories in the comments below!
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