Roar! This evening I went over to the New-York Historical Society on the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West to see an exhibit called It Happened Here: The Invention of Santa Claus. It was all about how New York City created the modern version of Santa Claus! As mythic a city as New York is, I had no idea the role it played in creating what is probably the largest of modern myths! This should be a great exhibit!
Here I am in front of the New-York Historical Society. Friday nights are pay what you wish and sometimes it can get a little crowded! They also have a great library and archive collection but it's by appointment only, I guess I'll have to come back here again sometime in the future!
The Santa exhibit turned out to be only a small display in the foyer. I was a little disappointed but there was still some really cool stuff to see! It turns out the modern Santa first appeared when New York's favorite author, Washinton Irving, published the manuscript for Knickerbocker's History of New York. Then in 1823 Clement Clarke Moore wrote "A Visit from St. Nicholas," now better know as "T'was the Night Before Christmas." Turns out this poem, which practically everyone has heard, is where the modern image of Santa as a jolly, fat human in a red suit comes from! Roar!
Here are some more of the cool things they had at the mini Santa exhibit. The first is a painting by Robert Walter Weir that he did in 1837 based off Moore's poem. The second is an engraving by Alexander Anderson from 1810 depicting the historical Saint Nicholas. What a huge difference! I think Washington Irving and Clement Moore must have been hitting the egg nog pretty hard because their depicitons of Santa are nothing like the real St. Nick! Roar!
One other thing I would have liked to see at the Santa Exhibit would have been a section about how the myth of Santa continues to evolve in the present day with the works of authors like Robert Devereaux. That would have been a pretty amazing exhibit to see! Roar!
Near the Santa Exhibit the New-York Historical Society also had this neat display about American Dreamers. Next to it was this screen with a camera on it that would take your picture and add your picture to the collection! Here I am getting my picture taken as well as the end result! Maybe I'll try dreaming of being Santa! Roar!
Woah! It totally worked! Now I'm a real Santa with a sweet beard and a red hat! I guess you really can be whatever you want in America so long as you dream hard enough! I wonder what I should call myself, Rex Cringle? Oh I got it, Santa Claws! I bet no one has thought of that before! Roar!
The second I turned into a Santa all the people in the museum started giving me cookies and sweets! Being a Santa is awesome! Roar!
Ugh... That was way too many cookies... Now I don't feel so well... roar... My blood sugar must be all out of whack!
Luckily for me the New-York Historical Society also had an exhibit all about the history of insulin!
Just what I needed! Some patented Lilly's Iletin! This should cure me right up! Roar!
The exhibit about the history of insulin was actually really cool! Overnight, insulin basically turned a deadly disease into something completely managable. That's pretty amazing! Here is a display featuring all the empty bottles of insulin that were used by one person for over 60 years! Though I'm not exactly sure how all this fits in with New York City it still was really cool to see! Roar!
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