Sunday Candy, Round Two
February 8, 2011 at 10:24 am Leave a comment
Thanks to everyone who shared their recollections of Sunday treats, candy and otherwise.
These days, Sunday is just another day in most cities. Stores are open, brunch is in full swing, and the newspapers are fat enough to last the day long. But there was a time when some people believed Sunday should be set aside for the Lord’s Work.
Reformers back in the day looked askance at every form of Sunday pleasure. Candy was an easy target. Here is a satirical newspaper item from 1904 recounting a Sunday Candy controversy in East Orange, NJ:
DOWN WITH SUNDAY CANDY!
Just when we had all settled down comfortably to the belief that there wasn’t anything in East Orange to be reformed, a few faithful and lynx-eyed guardians of the city’s morality come along and discover that open candy stores on Sunday are playing havoc by tempting the youngsters to spend their pennies. That can never be tolerated. How are we to expect boys and girls to grow up into clean, healthy men and women if they succumb to the temptation to buy candy on Sunday? And ours is the fault if the temptation be there.
Let us to work at once! Introduce into the textbooks of the schools lessons setting forth the wretchedness and degradation which must inevitably follow the vicious habit of spending pennies for candy on Sunday. Give the youngsters overdoses of candy six days of the week, but on the seventh make them hold their appetite—and their pennies.
If there’s no other way of effecting this glorious reform we can make it an issue at the next election. “No Sunday Candy” would sweep the city.
Truth (Newark NJ weekly) , Sunday Feb 20, 1904
Entry filed under: 1890 to WW I, Candy Humor, Children and Candy.
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