Early Christmas advertising in Southern Oregon and Northern California is nothing new; it has been around since the late 1800s when some ads popped up even before Halloween. It got a boost in 1903 when the socialist co-founder of the NAACP, Florence Kelley, wrote a widely published essay advocating early shopping in support of her crusade for child labor laws and an eight-hour workday.
Kelley鈥檚 essay, titled 鈥淭he Travesty of Christmas,鈥� contended that late shopping resulted in 鈥渁 bitter inversion of the order of holiday cheer鈥� for poor clerks and delivery boys. The essay inspired the National Consumers League to implore citizens to halt what it called 鈥渢he inhuman nature of the eleventh-hour rush鈥� on bedraggled sales clerks.
The Ashland (Oregon) Tidings echoed Kelley鈥檚 sentiments nine years later, declaring it was 鈥渧ery poor policy to delay Christmas shopping until the last minute.鈥� The newspaper warned that late shoppers could face low and picked-over stocks, as well as poor customer service from clerks 鈥渨orn out and apt to be nervous if not inattentive.鈥�
The Tidings advised city folk to stay home Saturdays, the day farmers preferred coming to town to shop.
Sources: "Do Shopping Early: Holiday Shoppers Advised to Do Their Shopping Early in a Day and a Week." Ashland Tidings 9 Dec. 1912: 1. Collins, Paul. Christmas Season Starts Earlier Every Year!. Slate.com, 9 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
