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Historical Review The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI On display until late summer 1971, in the Society's corridor gallery are hand colored engravings by Karl Bodmer (1809- 1893). This magnificent collection was drawn, in the field, to illustrate Prince Maximilian of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, 1832-34, published in the early 1840s with editions in French, German and English. The front cover illustration "Bellvue" was Bodmer's depiction of John Dougherty's In­ dian agency-post, a trading post on the Mis­ souri River near the mouth of the La Plata River. Bodmer drew the sketch of "Bellvue" in May 1883. Dougherty, at the time, was the agent for the Omaha, Otoe and Mis souri Indians. MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI RICHARD S. BROWNLEE EDITOR DOROTHY CALDWELL ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAMES W. GOODRICH ASSOCIATE EDITOR The MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 201 South Eighth Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communi­ cations, business and editorial correspondence and change of address to The State Historical Society of Missouri, corner of Hitt and Lowry Streets, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. The REVIEW is sent free to all members of The State Historical VOLUME LXV Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $2.00 a year or $40 for an individual life membership. The Society assumes NUMBER 2 no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. JANUARY 1971 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of the State, shall be the trustee of this State—Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1959, Chapter 183. OFFICERS 1968-71 T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield, President L. E. MEADOR, Springfield, First Vice President LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia, Second Vice President RUSSELL V. DYE, Liberty, Third Vice President JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry, Fourth Vice President MRS. AVIS TUCKER, Warrensburg, Fifth Vice President REV. JOHN F. BANNON, S.J., St. Louis, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary Emeritus and Consultant RICHARD S. BROWNLEE, Columbia, Director, Secretary, and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1971 LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia R. I. COLBORN, Paris ROBERT A. BOWLING, Montgomery City RICHARD B. FOWLER, Kansas City FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon VICTOR A. GIERKE, Louisiana HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence ROBERT NAGEL JONES, St. Louis Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1972 GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis RONALD L. SOMERVILLE, Chillicothe L. E. MEADOR, Springfield JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry W. WALLACE SMITH, Independence HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre ROBERT M. WHITE, Mexico Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1973 WILLIAM AULL, III, Lexington GEORGE FULLER GREEN, Kansas City WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton * GEORGE H. SCRUTON, Sedalia ELMER ELLIS, Columbia JAMES TODD, Moberly ALFRED O. FUERBRINGER, St. Louis T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-nine Trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the University of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. FINANCE COMMITTEE Four members of the Executive Committee appointed by the President, who by virtue of his office constitutes the fifth member, compose the Finance Com­ mittee. ELMER ELLIS, Columbia, Chairman WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City T. BALLARD WATTERS, Marshfield * Deceased MMM$MMlMMMfflMM\MMfflMMMmmm NEW SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS The State Historical Society of Missouri is always interested in obtaining new members. For more than seventy years thousands of Missourians who have be­ longed to the Society have been responsible primarily for building its great research collections and libraries. They have given it the support which makes it the largest organization of its type in the United States, The quest for interested new members goes on continually, and your help is solicited in obtaining them. In every family, and in every community, there are individuals who are sincerely interested in the collection, preservation and dissemination of the his­ tory of Missouri. Why not nominate these people for membership? Annual dues are only $2.00, Life Memberships $40.00. Richard S. Brownlee Director and Secretary State Historical Society of Missouri Hitt and Lowry Streets Columbia, Missouri 65201 [SOT§ISIS[§[SIMSIM§I§^ CONTENTS CHRISTMAS IN EARLY MISSOURI. By Dorothy J. Caldwell 125 His "RADICAL REVERENCE" JOHN H. Cox. By Leslie Anders 139 POPULISM AND SOCIALISM IN THE SOUTHEAST MISSOURI LOWLANDS. By Leon Parker Ogilvie 159 FIGHTING FOR IRISH FREEDOM, ST. LOUIS IRISH-AMERICANS, 1918-1922. By Margaret Sullivan 184 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Society Holds Annual Meeting 207 Errata 209 Views from the Past: Missouri Holidays 210 News in Brief 212 Local Historical Societies 215 Gifts 229 Missouri History in Newspapers 234 Missouri History in Magazines 238 Graduate Theses Relating to Missouri History 241 In Memoriam 242 BOOK REVIEW 244 EDITORIAL POLICY 246 ICE AND SPRING HOUSES USED BY PIONEERS IN PRESERVING FOOD, DRINK—Early-Day Recollections on Refrigeration. By Robert S. Withers 247 FANNIE HURST Inside Back Cover iv Christmas in Early Missouri BY DOROTHY J. CALDWELL* Yuletide celebrations in early Missouri were patterned after time-honored traditions, many of them of European origin. Christ­ mas, however, as Missourians had known it in their former homes in the South, East or North, had to be adapted to the frontier en­ vironment. Christmas in early Missouri was celebrated in as many different ways as cultural background, economic status, religious beliefs, environmental limitations and individual preferences dic­ tated. For some, observances were rowdy; for others the spiritual meaning of the season was predominant. For most, Christmas was a time of family reunion and the indulgence in some form of gaiety. To the Roman Catholic French, the first white settlers in Mis­ souri, Christmas was primarily a religious festival. Henry Marie Brackenridge, a boy who lived in Ste. Genevieve in the late eighteenth century, sat in the Ste. Genevieve church for an hour awaiting midnight Mass. Seated on a high stool with a cross in his hand he faced a lavishly decorated altar lighted with the largest wax candles the village could afford. He observed that the entire populace attended Mass and that all thronged to the altar to partake of the sacrament without distinction of color.1 Great was the delight of the people of St. Louis in 1808, when *Dorothy J. Caldwell is an associate editor of the MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW. 1 H. M. Brackenridge, Recollections of Persons and Places in the West (Philadelphia, 1834), 26. 125 126 Missouri Historical Review Father Joseph Marie Dunand, a French Trappist monk newly ar­ rived from Kentucky, sang midnight Christmas eve Mass in the palisadoed log church, for they had been without a resident priest for almost a year.2 A similar spirit of religious devotion was dis­ played at the newly built convent of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1819 on Christmas eve at Florissant. During the afternoon of De­ cember 24 Mother Philippine Rose Duchesne and Mother Eugenie Aude completed the transfer of their possessions from the farm of Bishop Louis William Valentine DuBourg, where the convent had been temporarily quartered, to the new quarters. Wading knee deep in snow and driving their cow before them, they made their way with great difficulty from the farm to the village. Mother Du­ chesne's account of their journey is graphic: The cold deprived us almost of the power of motion. Having tried in vain to lead with the rope one of our cows, I hoped to make her follow us out of her own inclination by filling my apron with maize with which I tried to tempt her on. But she preferred her liberty and ran about the fields and lowlands, where we followed her, sinking deep into the snow and tearing our habits and veils among the bushes. At last we were obliged to let her have her own will and make her way back to the farm. I carried in my pocket our money and papers, but the strings broke and everything, including a watch, fell into the snow. The wind having blown the snow in my gloves, they were frozen on my hands and I could not take hold of anything. Eugenie had to help me pick up my bag and alas my pockets which I was obliged to carry under my arm.8 It was late on Christmas eve when the two nuns arrived at the convent, but after supper they helped to clear the chapel of piled up lumber, hung a sheet over the bare wall and decorated the altar. At eleven o'clock on that Christmas eve the nuns recited Matins and the midnight Mass was followed by a second one, both at­ tended by the Irish workmen who were building the convent. A third Mass on Christmas morning, and Vespers in the afternoon completed the observance.4 After the midnight Mass it was the French custom for all mem­ bers of the family to assemble at the home of the head of the family for reveillon or Christmas breakfast. The French adults did not ex­ change gifts on Christmas day, but the children placed their shoes 2 Gilbert J. Garraghan, Saint Ferdinand de Florissant (Chicago, 1923) , 104. 3 Ibid., 132-133. 4 Ibid. Christmas in Early Missouri 127 on the fireplace hearth to be filled with toys and sweets by the Petit Noel (Christ Child).

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