The First Department Store Santa Claus
James Edgar (1843–1909) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. As a young boy, he apprenticed for a Scottish cloth merchant and worked hard, long hours only to make $50 a year. When he was 22, he immigrated to St. John, New Brunswick, in Canada. His financial returns, however, were not to his liking, which led him to believe that he would fare better in America. He pawned his watch for a ticket to Boston, where his fortunes immediately changed. Earning $12 a week, he had never made so much money.
And after enduring long hours and low pay early in his life, he vowed to take care of his employees if he ever had the opportunity.
Douglas Rahden. (DR04/Douglas Rahden)
In 1878, after working in Boston and in Providence, Rhode Island, he and a friend opened a dry goods store (known now as a department store) in Brockton, Massachusetts. He paid all of his employees well and closed early four nights of the week so employees could spend more time with their families. He eventually earned the reputation as the city’s “grand old man” who not only loved and appreciated his employees, but also his customers, his city, and those who lived in it by providing jobs for teenagers, paying for children’s medical bills, and sponsoring local homeless shelters. Year round, Edgar exuded the Christmas spirit.
Every Christmas, he would dress up like a clown and walk through his department store, greeting customers and handing out a gift or two to children. But in 1890, he decided to dress a little differently. Taking inspiration from Thomas Nast’s 1862 drawing of Santa Claus, he showed up in full red-and-white garb. Word quickly spread throughout the city and neighboring areas that Santa had officially come to town and that he was located at The Boston Store in Brockton. Soon, parents were bringing their children all the way from Boston, Providence, and even New York.
Edward Lowery Pearson remembered the day he met Santa Claus at The Boston Store as a little boy. “You just can’t imagine what it was like,” he told Modern Maturity magazine in 1976. “I remember walking down an aisle and, all of a sudden, I saw Santa Claus. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and then Santa came up and started talking to me. It was a dream come true.”
Edgar had become the first department store Santa Claus, and the success it brought to business and the joy it brought to children encouraged numerous other department stores in the area to follow suit. By the turn of the 20th century, department stores across the country had a department store Santa. Ever since, the department store Santa Claus has remained a holiday tradition.
“Without his persona, the millions and millions of happy memories may have never been a reality,” John Merian, president of the Downtown Brockton Association, said in an online newspaper The Enterprise. “He captured the very essence of Christmas.”
In 2008, Edgar was remembered by the City of Brockton with a bronze plaque that was placed at the intersection of Main and Crescent streets. Two years later, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame.
