1919, Syracuse celebrates the holidays missing a key ingredient: Sugar

One of the best parts of the holiday season is the food, especially the desserts.

Visions of cookies, pies, candies and cakes, like the sugarplums in the famous poem, dance through our heads during the entire month of December.

Now imagine, a Christmas without these treats. Unthinkable, right?

But Syracuse endured a holiday sugar shortage in 1919 that threatened to put a damper on the festivities.

Americans had seen a shortage of sugar during World War I but now with the war over, supplies were still very low.

The war had disrupted beet sugar production in Europe resulting in a shortage of refined sugar across the continent, which later spread to the U.S.

Supplies were low and prices were high.

In November, the “Farmer’s Advocate and Home Journal” had another theory:

“The spread of prohibition, which naturally results in the eating of many more sweets by many more people, has increased the demand (of sugar) to the point where the normal supply is unable to satisfy it.”

On Nov. 30, 1919, the Sunday following Thanksgiving, the people of Syracuse woke up to the bad news; the city was facing a “sugar famine,” its supply nearly exhausted.

What’s more, Gates Thalheimer, a prominent local wholesaler, had no idea when more sugar would be on the way.

“There appears to be no chance for securing any kind of sugar during the month of December,” Thalheimer predicted.

To bakeries, candy-makers and households seeking the sweet stuff, grocers and wholesalers had a simple message, “get it wherever you can.”

The few groceries that did have it, were guarding it closely and no longer would sugar be obtainable in one-pound bags.

“Half-pound lots are being doled out with the greatest of care,” the Herald reported.

Thinking that hoarding was a cause of the shortage, on December 2, Police Chief Martin Cadin took drastic action against suspected sugar hoarders, ordering every officer in his department to “use every means permitted him by the law” to seek out hoarded sugar.

No hoarding was discovered because there was no sugar to hoard.

With Christmas quickly approaching, demand for cookies, cakes and pies from city bakeries was high. But they did not have enough sugar to meet it.

“Many shops have been forced to cut production of cakes, cookies and other bake stuffs containing sugar,” the Herald reported. “This situation has resulted in increased prices of goods containing sugar. Cakes requiring granulated sugar in the making have practically disappeared, and only those which can be made of syrup are being manufactured.”

Baker John Murphy said his company was ending its wholesale business of some its cakes and cookies and John Rausch called the situation “worse than in war times.”

Syrups were used to make cakes; frostings were increasingly scarce and sugarless cookies began making an appearing on bakery shelves.

Candy manufacturers were also hard hit.

Patrick Coughlin, owner of Coughlin Crothers, was an example.

On Dec. 8, 1919, he said he had only a two-day supply of sugar and that would be stretched as far as possible.

“We have only had one-third of a normal supply this year,” he said, when he was asked about his Christmas inventory. “Normally, we turn 15 brands of candy for the Christmas trade, but this year we have cut to two.”

Folks at home did the best they could.

Families dusted off the rationing recipes they had used during the war, using syrups to sweeten their baking and old hard candy to sweeten coffee and tea.

Local newspapers began running recipes with less sugar.

On November 25, the Herald ran a recipe for a chocolate cake which required just three tablespoons of sugar and oatmeal drop cookies that did not call for any, relying instead on molasses and corn syrup.

“The cakes made with syrup are not just like those made with sugar,” the newspaper admitted. “In most cases they are less sweet. They do fill an emergency need for cake however.”

The Post-Standard carried the words of Dr. Harvey Wiley, the noted chemist and father of the Pure Food and Drug Act. He was overjoyed by the shortage, arguing from Washington that the shortage was “the greatest blessing that has come to the nation. Every grain of sugar one puts into the system injures it.”

He recommended a Christmas Day dessert of a baked apple with cream, black coffee and peanuts.

(Apples, Wiley said, were the “best kind of dessert.” They clean the teeth while being chewed.)

Desperate households began relying on so-called “rainbow sugar,” which was really poorly refined sugar that had traces of brown, pink and blue coloring in it.

Sugar as a Christmas gift was not an entirely crazy idea.

When a Syracuse reporter asked young men about what they should get their sweethearts for Christmas, two of them, Alexander Bund of the Syracuse Rubber Company and J.W. Weed of the Postal Telegraph Company, both answered that five pounds of sugar would be perfect. (For more, see below!)

In a December 26 cartoon, a businessman boasts that he has just purchased a “fine motor car.”

When asked by a friend what kind, he replied:

“A Dashing Demon Six. Now if I could only get a half pound of sugar somewhere the whole family would be happy.”

Even the bears at the Burnet Park Zoo suffered.

The keepers withheld sugar and instead squirreled it away for Christmas. On the big day, sugar and some “sweet syrups” made a “real fete day for the bear family.”

By December 17, just 190,000 pounds of sugar had arrived in Syracuse over the previous two weeks, an amount that nowhere met demand.

On December 29, a train brought a load of Federal beet sugar to Syracuse and 36,000 pounds of tablet sugar.

It was hoped that was the beginning of a sweeter 1920.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS!

When a Syracuse Herald reporter asked people on the street in 1919 what a young man should buy his sweetheart for Christmas, two, hopefully in jest, answers were “sugar,” reflecting worries over the serious shortage of the precious commodity.

But most of the rest of the answers were a hoot.

Here are some of the best:

H.B. Sullivan, manager, Racine Rubber Tire Company: “Depends altogether on what he expects to get from her. Christmas is always based on that percentage.”

Edward Vezina, manager: “In these days of silk, if a fellow has the price and knows the size, I’d think silk limb coverings would make a mighty good present.”

Ernest Frost, jeweler: “I would suggest a diamond. I have never seen a girl that doesn’t want one.”

Miss Alma Millard, North High School: “It depends, of course, upon how long she has been his girl. If the friendship has covered some time, I suggest five pounds of sugar and two lumps of coal. If she hasn’t been his steady for long, I think he should decide upon a book.”

John R. Clancy, former Congressman: I think he should hit somewhere in the vicinity – say, the least common multiple – of what he can afford, what he would like her to think he can afford, and what she believes her charms entitle her to, he won’t go far wrong. Once he has decided upon the value it should be easy.”

Fred Hill, student at university: “The young man’s circumstances and his acquaintance with the young lady would have to be considered. Probably the safest Christmas present is a nice box of candy.”

Paul L. McAuliffe, secretary and treasurer of the McAuliffe Paper Company: If I had one, I’d give her my Ford and have a good laugh watching her start it some morning when the thermometer registered zero.”

READ MORE

1959: No money for a turkey, his dog hit by a car, neighbors save Thanksgiving for a boy named Kevin

Love doughnuts? Read about Central New York’s role in the beloved treat

This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at [email protected] or call 315-427-3958.

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.