The Man Who Reinvented Christmas: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and Victorian Social Reform by Historian Kathy Wilson

Would you believe Christmas used to be a very low-key affair? It’s true! Until the mid-19th Century, people did little to mark it & businesses didn’t consider it a holiday. Yet by 1900 it was our largest & most popular annual celebration. What changed society’s view of Christmas? The answer may be Charles Dickens & "A Christmas Carol". Historian Kathy Wilson investigates how a novel about social reform transformed Christmas from a date on the church calendar into the holiday we know today.

A professional historian and educator, Kathy Wilson believes learning about the past can be fun as well as interesting. To prove that point, she draws on more than 20 years of experience to create programs that engage and entertain as well as educate her audiences. Ms. Wilson received her BA in History from Bemidji State University in Minnesota, before traveling to England where she completed her Masters at the University of York. She is a former PhD candidate at the University of Iowa and specializes in 18th and 19th-century British-American cultural history.