or Scoundrel?John Duval Gluck: Saint

JOHN DUVAL GLUCK: SAINT OR SCOUNDREL?

A Book Review

Sometimes it takes a century to connect the dots.

The Santa Claus Man by Alex Palmer sounds like a Christmas story. It both is and it isn’t. It is the story of a New York man, John Duval Gluck, who in 1913, connected the dots that would draw a picture of fame and infamy.

The story starts back 100 years earlier, as a group of men in New York City were tired of the raucous, drunken celebration known as Christmas. Yes, it was a religious day, but as a holiday season, it was anything but religious for the working people who had time off for drinking and mischievous behavior. The group decided to promote the legend of St. Nicholas, and since many were of Dutch background, Sinterklaas became Santa Claus. The goal was to promote Christmas as a family holiday, one that was celebrated in the home, with a greater focus on children rather than adult pastimes. It would be a season of goodwill, not of drunken excess.

One of these men was author Washington Irving, who on a carriage ride in 1822 to New York’s Washington Market (similar to Detroit’s Eastern Market) to gather items for Christmas

dinner, decided he would present his had transportation in a big city, to go family with a poem that night as a out to the country to cut down an gift: A Visit from St. Nicholas (which is evergreen? better known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” today). It was very In the 1870s, a story in a magazine well received and was printed in the was promoting children writing letters newspapers in 1823 when it became to Santa Claus, although it also better known. In the 1850s, when showed parents writing letters about sketches of the royal family in England their bad children who deserved enjoying their indoor Christmas tree nothing more than coal in their (Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Al- stockings. bert was German) proved influential, it became a trend in Kids Sending Their Letters So that promoted the United States to have writing letters to such a thing in their Santa which behomes. came a thing for the burgeoning Political cartoonist US postal service Thomas Nast was credit- to deal with. The ed with the creation of the Post Office had reimage of Santa Claus that is cently begun door-tovery much door delivery of the mail in cities, and as we know him today in 1863. Be by 1913, started fore then he was an elf-like character offering parcel post. This meant that but now was older and quite full- people had the opportunity to send figured. THINGS not just letters and postcards, and that holiday season, presents Clever farmers up river would cut ev- were sent in abundance. Yet what ergreens and sent them down the can the post office do with all those Hudson River to the Washington letters to Santa? In the past, they deMarket, so city dwellers could have stroyed them, but in 1913, they decidtrees brought to them. After all, who ed to make them available for any

charitable organization, but there were no takers in New York City. Gluck, who by coincidence was born on Christmas Day, connected that dot.

He created the “Santa Claus Association” made up of volunteers who would read these letters and determine who was needy, and then match them with wealthy New Yorkers to give each child a present. It was a process similar to today’s “Giving Tree” promotions. With volunteers, there was little to no overhead, but he began an appeal for money to pay for odds and ends.

Many donors didn’t want to deliver gifts themselves, so they just gave cash and the volunteers took care of the shopping, wrapping, and delivery. Who could handle the delivery, Gluck wondered.

Another dot: enter the US Boy Scout, a New York organization that was a rival to the more widely-known Boy Scouts of America. The scouts would help with the mail, then take the packages and deliver them to the needy children.

Gluck worked his way into the leadership ranks of the US Boy Scout group and began fundraising for them. In so doing, he was able to tap the same group of donors for raising funds for his organization. Some of his methods were dubious but he was successful in bringing in the money.

The Santa Claus Association got a lot of good press, since who wouldn’t want to cover a human-interest story like this during the holiday season? Celebrities stopped by to have their picture taken wrapping a gift.

Broadway shows hosted benefit nights where the entire take was donated to the Association.

Christmas was continuing to evolve as a family holiday, as New York set up

Santa Claus Assn. Volunteers Gluck Scrapbook

its first community Christmas tree in Madison Square park in 1912.

They had a “tree lighting ceremony” on Christmas Eve, which was a party with music and caroling and everyone was invited. One year later, many cities did the same, including Detroit.

The New York tree would eventually move to Rockefeller Center.) Electric lighting for home trees would replace dangerous candles in the 1920s, and even homes without children started having a Christmas tree by then.

Another dot was connected in 1914: World War I began in Europe. It was on everyone’s mind as the US prepared for its eventual entry into that war by 1917. Fundraising reached a fever pitch during these years, all types of “charitable” associations and groups popped up, and many were of a suspicious nature.

The Santa Claus Association grew and took advantage of free rent offered at fancy hotels and the new Woolworth Building. Meantime, established charity groups grew resentful of the association. They were better equipped to assess need and disbursement of funds. Yet for a strictly “volunteer” association, why was there so much fundraising going on? How come Gluck was always fashionably dressed and lived a lavish lifestyle, though he protested he was always short of cash?

New dots were connected, this time by City investigators. Could the Santa Claus Association, born as a gesture of good will, actually be front for making money from charitable donations?

They took down the US Boy Scout group, and the Post Office stopped releasing its Santa mail once they got wind of scandal. Gluck could not properly account for the donated funds. The final dot connected a full picture, one of fraud. The Santa Claus

The Madison Square Christmas tree, about 1912. Photo: MetLife Archives.

Association ceased operations.

As sort of a happy ending, Gluck did not go to jail, but lived the rest of his life out of the public eye. He was happily married and was a loving uncle. Another more reputable group did provide presents for poor children in the mid1920s. Some one hundred years after Santa Claus as we know him began, he was ready to take on the challenges of the 20th century. He is so ingrained into American culture—both social and economic--that it is hard to imagine how life would be without him. Or how charitable fundraising would be successful without his plea for good will, especially during the holiday season.

The man who really connected the dots is author, Alex Palmer. To construct a true story that is as vivid as a fictional page-turner suspense novel, he had to comb through archives, libraries, micro film and other primary sources to learn about a man who was not particularly famous or well-known outside of his time and place. He had to interview distant relatives for their recollections, comb through scrapbooks and ultimately fashion a tale that also tells the story of what city life was like in the early twentieth century.

While acknowledging his insightful effort, we also need to commend libraries for keeping information alive so that it can be discovered by intrepid researchers even one hundred years or more later. Without libraries and researchers, we would not know about our rich history.

Thomas Nash

John Duval Gluck

Review by Gary R. Cocozzoli, Director of the LTU Library, Christmas hobbyist and holiday historian gcocozzol@ltu.edu