The Two Christmases
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The Two Christmases
Updated Mar 10, 2025
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AncientFaces
380k+ followers 411 favorites
01/11/2012
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AncientFaces
380k+ followers 411 favorites
12/17/2018
145 years ago, this drawing was done of real life for the cover of a popular publication. On one side, a rich family buying Christmas dinner. On the other side, a poor family. Not much changes, does it? :(
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I believe this is a picture of a middle class family & a lower income family. The rich don't grocery shop. They have hired help to do that.
KellieAnne Foreman
7 favorites
12/17/2018
the poor family is buying extras as they raised their own goose in their tenement
Jan Kurth
9 favorites
12/17/2018
One of the more moving illustrations from Christmas 1913. This ran in the Pittsburgh Press.
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One family may be better off than the other, but neither of the families appears to be particularly poor. Both families are warmly dressed and both families have the ability to buy food.
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It is not a photo it is a illustration. One table its stacked with goods the other is almost bare. The children are different too. One is Plump and well wrapped the other child thing with a sour look on its face.
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Linda Rushing, I think maybe the sour look is given after being taunted by the other child who looks to be holding a stick of some sort?
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You can also tell the economic difference by the childrens clothing. Coat with fur collar and fur hat. Thin coat vs thick coat. The other clothing gives clues also. The top hat and coat vs the shawl and small bonnet. This time period an upper class women's bonnet would have been much fancier and larger. oh and food. A whole goose or duck probably goose in that time frame vs the small pieces of meat .
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As I said, one family is better off than the other. But both families are eating, even if not the same things. Both families are dressed warmly, although one has much nicer things. A poverty stricken family, of the era, would have been wearing rags and would not be purchasing meat at all. Yes, the woman has a simple bonnet (appropriate to shopping) and not an oversized, fancy hat with ostrich plumes, but it is neat and serviceable.
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"Not much changes, does it?" Yes it has. I don't hear of people dying of starvation in this country. Some could afford fowl, so what?
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they die from lack on medical attention in rural towns every day in australia - they die driving hundreds of killometres to specalists cause they cant find doctors who will travel or work in the outback
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Many go hungry. I am a teacher I see it everyday. 😞
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Jennifer Pifer Durkin Wouldn't doubt it...I am aware of that here in Fairfax County VA. That said...it isn't lack of food or funding here, it is parents using those funds for other "wants".
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The cover illustration show the Haves and the Have Nots. That most certainly has not changed.
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Shelley Howard Haves and haves...just different levels is what I see. That has been cyclical for ever. probably always will be.
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It is fast going back to the picture. There are more and more people who struggle to put decent food on the table. If you have two incomes then you are ok but if one of you can't work you are most certainly not ok. Speaking from experience. Yes, I am on the internet as housebound BUT $35 a month wouldn't make much difference as far as buying food, purchasing needed clothes etc goes. It's a two pay check world now.
Not everyone is on drugs or boose.
Not everyone is on drugs or boose.
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A moral point of what? That there are poor people in the world? That there will, always, be people better off than others? That some are educated & get better paying jobs? Or that some men are lazy? Thus, providing poorly for their families? There are many ways to interpret this picture.
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Anna you are one crusty old cranky lady now aren't you? Obviously your parents never taught you to keep your stinking negative thinking to your own god damned self.
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2020 marks 20 years since the inception of AncientFaces. We are the same team who began this community so long ago. Over the years it feels, at least to us, that our family has expanded to include so many. Thank you!
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