Everything old is New Again: Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving
Have you heard about The Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving? Well, according to this great article from Treehugger, an awesome group of people got together in 1911 to, “eliminate, by co-operative effort, the custom of giving indiscriminately at Christmas, and to further in every way the true Christian spirit of unselfishness and independent thought, good-will, and sympathetic understanding of the real needs of others.”And this was not a group of radicals- the former president Theodore Roosevelt and Margaret Wilson, daughter of President Wilson, were active members of this group, which had chapters across the county.
So even though we fight the green fight every year to let people know about the wastefulness of the holiday season, and people try hard to share great homemade gifts, this consumerism still overtakes us during the month of December- which means we’ve been fighting this for 100 years! Check out this article from Treehugger and start your own local chapter of SPUGs!
In 1912, Americans Waged War Against the Giving of Useless Xmas Gifts : TreeHugger.
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