Material Christianity by Colleen McDannell Consumer Rites by Leigh Eric Schmidt

...It is important to remember, then, that while the commercial refashioning, and at times, subversion, of the original meanings of various holy days was a merchant-driven element of mass production more generally, the messages peddled-whether an insulting valentine, a feminized Jesus Easter souvenir card, or Mother's Day flowers- resonated with people's fantasies and fears...

...the less fortunate came for "park" visits and to beg...

...Catholics, too, know how to harmonize commerce and devotion...

...Schmidt's richly textured story is, in short, about how the initial economic opposition between religious and public holidays was transformed between the late-eighteenth and early-twentieth centuries into what is now normal: holy days as sales events...

...Within the household, influenced by assumptions that women's sensibility was naturally virtuous, it was mothers who had responsibility for religious education...

...Readers may be interested to know, for example, that in 1809, Santa Claus was represented as a "sober Republican," in 1810 as a "saintly bishop in episcopal regalia," and in 1848 as a peddler...

...He also discusses the personal ambivalence long experienced toward Christmas as recorded in nineteenth-century diaries- the contentment of shopping and gift-giving coupled with weariness and disappointment over gifts not received...

...Nor were churches out of the merchandising loop...

...A different perspective on the body is offered by McDannell's discussion of the wearing of "garments" (undergarments) by contemporary Mormons...

...From thirty-seven in-depth interviews, McDannell discovers that physical discomfort and occasional personal embarrassment aside, garments remind Mormons of their covenant with God, and, especially for the religiously ambivalent, indicate communal loyalty...

...This methodological caution aside, however, the seamlessness between sacred and profane leaves us to ponder the place of the transcendent in contemporary lives...

...Photographs of home and store interiors, for example, while fascinating and telling us a lot, are interpretively ambiguous...

...Although the primary function of religious objects historically, as today, may have been devotional for some people and decorative for others, what impresses McDannell is that as they pervade commercialized "secular" culture, they retain religious connotations...

...Consumer Rites The Buying and Selling of American Holidays Leigh Eric Schmidt Princeton University Press, $2435, $1935 paper, 363 pp...

...Whereas garments on a man returned from a two-year proselytizing mission signal maturity and availability for marriage, they make the "older" woman "less desirable...

...This is further illustrated by Mc-Dannell's discussion of the stress by Catholic and Protestant commentators, as recently as the 1980s, on the necessity of emphasizing the manliness of Christ in church art and devotions...

...Photographs of home interiors taken by the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and '40s illustrate that Catholics and Protestants alike, for example, displayed religious prints and built home shrines...

...Michele Dillon These two books provide a refreshing rejoinder to critics who decry the secular materialism of contemporary society...

...Lavishly decorated, it displayed candlesticks, statues, and religious tapestries and flags to create an awe-inspiring gothic cathedral ambience, aided by having what was then the largest pipe organ in the world, and its own musical director and hymnals...

...Schmidt documents their participation in the late-nineteenthcentury proliferation of Easter holy cards and souvenirs, and similar activity in behalf of Mother's Day, despite the greater tensions between commercialisation and the domestic space of motherhood aroused by the occasion...

...yet her main emphasis is that "diverse peoples use religious objects in very similar ways...

...Along with recent research in cultural studies, McDannell acknowledges that people impute multiple meanings to the same artifact or text...

...People interested in merchandise can turn to Leigh Eric Schmidt's Consumer Rites...

...Mid-nineteenth century Valentine cards, while smoothing the awkwardness of courtship, also lampooned all who were in any way marginal or different, and were particularly harsh in their depictions of men and women who deviated from expected gender roles...

...The naturally beautiful Laurel Hill Cemetery outside Philadelphia, founded in 1835 by John Jay Smith, a bereaved Quaker parent, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and amateur botanist, became an exclusive and sacred place wherein only the "proper" Phila-delphians were buried...

...Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the blending of religion and commerce comes from Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia...

...Focusing on the symbolic importance of the family Bible as a treasured possession, McDannell uses nineteenth-century probate records to show that Bibles were common across diverse social class and ethnic Protestant households...

...Although disposed toward the civic celebration of Christmas made possible by the fusion of commercial and Christian interests, Schmidt is nonetheless sensitive to its exclusive religious foundations, and to the ways in which its consumer motifs exclude the poor...

...As with all interpretive research, questions concerning the choice of examples, the selectivity and representativeness of the voices presented, and the generaliz-ability of personal meanings to a broader gendered, social class, ethnic, or national meaning linger...

...Concerned with understanding the association of women with consumption and festivity in American culture, Schmidt analyzes the evolution of Valentine's Day, Christmas, Easter, and Mother's Day as major celebratory occasions...

...Gender stratification may be less difficult to maintain when it comes to burying the dead, but class differences clearly endure to the end of life...

...While the dismantling of boundaries is to be welcomed as democratic, isn't there still something sacred, and even emancipatory, about the sacred...

...An active Presbyterian businessman, John Wanamaker transformed his store's interior court into a religious spectacle for Christmas and Easter...

...Focusing on different historical blendings of Christianity and American popular culture, both authors highlight that religion is not confined to churches or private acts of piety...

...Customers' letters thanked Wanamaker for honoring Jesus Christ, and for inspiring a feeling of communal togetherness...

...The garments also play a significant role in courtship rituals, and here there are gender differences...

...Both authors provide convincing evidence that the sacred and the secular constitute popular culture...

...Clearly, the cult of femininity dies hard...

...Letters written between 1872 and 1879 suggest that men and women equally believed in the holy water's healing power on the body...

...Colleen McDannell uses an historical case-study approach to argue for the importance of the shared meanings people derive from their religious material culture, an interest driven by her desire to scramble the artificial division between sacred and profane...

...The same diaries also testify to the melding of church and commerce evident in the public domain...

...McDannell presents a fascinating account of how the industriousness and devotional vision of Father Edward Sorin, the founder of the University of Notre Dame, was instrumental in establishing Marian devotion and a successful "mail-order" Lourdes water business in America...

...A less engrossing read is the book's final chapter, which traces the evolution of Christian retailing of religious goods from 1840...

...Michele Dillon teaches sociology at Yale University...

...A primary theme that emerges from Schmidt's discussion is the historical flexibility of images, and their manipulative capabilities depending on the context in which they are used...