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SOCIAL SCIENCE SPRING 2009 LECTURE

Ellen Litwicki, Professor of History

State University of New York at Fredonia

“Be a SPUG”: The History of

Useless Gift Giving”

In 1912 a coalition of wealthy and working-class women in New York created an organization they dubbed the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving, which became more popularly known by its acronym of SPUG. The initial goal of this characteristically progressive cross-class alliance was to abolish the custom that coerced workers in shops and factories into contributing money for Christmas presents for their supervisors. The group soon added the larger mission of ending all perfunctory Christmas gift exchanges. SPUG received massive publicity, in part because the novelty of its name and goals caught the nation’s fancy, and in part because of the status of some of its proponents, who included Anne Morgan (daughter of financier J. P.), Margaret Woodrow Wilson (daughter of the president), and Theodore Roosevelt, who became the first male SPUG. Some commentators ridiculed the movement; others praised it. Supporters formed local clubs, while critics satirized SPUG in poetry, cartoons, and stories. Stores even advertised “useful” Christmas presents suitable for SPUGs. Although it was short-lived (like so many other progressive-era reforms, the onset of the First World War precipitated its decline) and its long-term impact was decidedly mixed, SPUG nevertheless holds a historical place as a peculiarly progressive effort to reform the excesses of Christmas gifting.