Sweetest Day Reconsidered
October 12, 2011, By Jack Heffron 0 comments
The third Saturday of October looms before us. Yes—it's Sweetest Day. Now, before you start strutting around proclaiming your refusal to acknowledge these bogus "Hallmark Holidays," an understandable response, here are a few things to consider.
First of all, Hallmark had nothing to do with it. No doubt the greeting-card company—and its industry rivals—enjoys a bump in the bottom line as a result of Sweetest Day, but the occasion actually was created by an enterprising bunch of Cleveland confectioners in 1922. Thus the name: it was about giving sweets (not greeting cards or flowers or a fancy dinner) to acknowledge someone sweet.
The confectioners, without question, created the holiday to sell more of their products, but they did add a touch of altruism to the plan. On Sweetest Day you were entreated to give a candy treat to those less fortunate—people in hospitals and rest homes or the under-priviledged. In fact, the website of Retail Confectioners International still proclaims, "It is an occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed." A nice idea.
To honor the first Sweetest Day, movie stars Theda Bara and Ann Pennington gave candy to newsboys and to kids in orphanages and hospitals. Sweetest Day remained a Midwestern tradition until the late 1930s, when confectioners on the East Coast woke up and realized they were missing out on a Big Idea. Since then, the occasion has evolved into a more romantic one—autumn's version of Valentine's Day. So if you happen to neglect any particularly charming orphans, they'll get over it. Your sweetie pie, however, might not.
As for why the day occurs in October, that's an interesting story, too. Candy makers, one would assume, enjoy their best sales for Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day and the Christmas season. The fall sales line clearly needed a boost. It now gets a huge lift from Halloween, of course, but candy's front-and-center involvement in that holiday didn't hit stride until after World War II. The website candyprofessor.com says that's when candy makers started pushing their products hard for trick-or-treating. Before then, apples (candied and natural), popcorn balls and pennies were the common treats. "Life" magazine, adds the prof, ran its first ad connecting Halloween and candy in 1953.
