What is a Hamburger?

The hamburger is one of the world’s most popular foods, with nearly 50 billion served up annually in the United States alone. Although the humble beef-patty-on-a-bun is technically not much more than 100 years old, it’s part of a far greater lineage, linking American businessmen, World War II soldiers, German political refugees, medieval traders and Neolithic farmers.

The groundwork for the ground-beef sandwich was laid with the domestication of cattle (in Mesopotamia around 10,000 years ago), and with the growth of Hamburg, Germany, as an independent trading city in the 12th century, where beef delicacies were popular.

1121 – 1209 – Genghis Khan (1162-1227), crowned the “emperor of all emperors,” and his army of fierce Mongol horsemen, known as the “Golden Horde,” conquered two thirds of the then known world. The Mongols were a fast-moving, cavalry-based army that rode small sturdy ponies. They stayed in their saddles for long period of time, sometimes days without ever dismounting. They had little opportunity to stop and build a fire for their meal.

The entire village would follow behind the army on great wheeled carts they called “yurts,” leading huge herds of sheep, goats, oxen, and horses. As the army needed food that could be carried on their mounts and eaten easily with one hand while they rode, ground meat was the perfect choice. They would use scrapings of lamb or mutton which were formed into flat patties. They softened the meat by placing them under the saddles of their horses while riding into battle. When it was time to eat, the meat would be eaten raw, having been tenderized by the saddle and the back of the horse.

1238 – When Genghis Khan’s grandson, Khubilai Khan (1215-1294), invaded Moscow, they naturally brought their unique dietary ground meat with them. The Russians adopted it into their own cuisine with the name “Steak Tartare,” (Tartars being their name for the Mongols). Over many years, Russian chefs adapted and developed this dish and refining it with chopped onions and raw eggs.

5th Century
Beginning in the fifteenth century, minced beef was a valued delicacy throughout Europe. Hashed beef was made into sausage in several different regions of Europe.

1600s – Ships from the German port of Hamburg, Germany began calling on Russian port. During this period the Russian steak tartare was brought back to Germany and called “tartare steak.”

18th and 19th Centuries

Jump ahead to 1848, when political revolutions shook the 39 states of the German Confederation, spurring an increase in German immigration to the United States. With German people came German food: beer gardens flourished in American cities, while butchers offered a panoply of traditional meat preparations. Because Hamburg was known as an exporter of high-quality beef, restaurants began offering a “Hamburg-style” chopped steak.

Hamburg Steak:
In the late eighteenth century, the largest ports in Europe were in Germany. Sailors who had visited the ports of Hamburg, Germany and New York, brought this food and term “Hamburg Steak” into popular usage. To attract German sailors, eating stands along the New York city harbor offered “steak cooked in the Hamburg style.”

Immigrants to the United States from German-speaking countries brought with them some of their favorite foods. One of them was Hamburg Steak. The Germans simply flavored shredded low-grade beef with regional spices, and both cooked and raw it became a standard meal among the poorer classes. In the seaport town of Hamburg, it acquired the name Hamburg steak. Today, this hamburger patty is no longer called Hamburg Steak in Germany but rather “Frikadelle,” “Frikandelle” or “Bulette,” orginally Italian and French words.

According to Theodora Fitzgibbon in her book The Food of the Western World – An Encyclopedia of food from North American and Europe:

The originated on the German Hamburg-Amerika line boats, which brought emigrants to America in the 1850s. There was at that time a famous Hamburg beef which was salted and sometimes slightly smoked, and therefore ideal for keeping on a long sea voyage. As it was hard, it was minced and sometimes stretched with soaked breadcrumbs and chopped onion. It was popular with the Jewish emigrants, who continued to make Hamburg steaks, as the patties were then called, with fresh meat when they settled in the U.S.

The cookbooks:

1758 – By the mid-18th century, German immigrants also begin arriving in England. One recipe, titled “Hamburgh Sausage,” appeared in Hannah Glasse’s 1758 English cookbook called The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. It consisted of chopped beef, suet, and spices. The author recommended that this sausage be served with toasted bread. Hannah Glasse’s cookbook was also very popular in Colonial America, although it was not published in the United States until 1805. This American edition also contained the “Hamburgh Sausage” recipe with slight revisions.

1844 – The original Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln (Mary Bailey), 1844 had a recipe for Broiled Meat Cakes and also Hamburgh Steak:

Broiled Meat Cakes – Chop lean, raw beef quite fine. Season with salt, pepper, and a little chopped onion, or onion juice. Make it into small flat cakes, and broil on a well-greased gridiron or on a hot frying pan. Serve very hot with butter or Maitre de’ Hotel sauce.

Hamburgh Steak – Pound a slice of round steak enough to break the fibre. Fry two or three onions, minced fine, in butter until slightly browned. Spread the onions over the meat, fold the ends of the meat together, and pound again, to keep the onions in the middle. Broil two or three minutes. Spread with butter, salt, and pepper.

1894 – In the 1894 edition of the book The Epicurean: A Complete Treatise of Analytical & Practical Studies, by Charles Ranhofer (1836-1899), chef at the famous Delmonico’s restaurant in New York, there is a listing for Beef Steak Hamburg Style. The dish is also listed in French as Bifteck Hambourgeoise. What made his version unique was that the recipe called for the ground beef to be mixed with kidney and bone marrow:

One pound of tenderloin beef free of sinews and fat; chop it up on a chopping block with four ounces of beef kidney suet, free of nerves and skin or else the same quantity of marrow; add one ounce of chopped onions fried in butter without attaining color; season all with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and divide the preparation into balls, each one weighing four ounces; flatten them down, roll them in bread-crumbs and fry them in a sautpan in butter. When of a fine color on both sides, dish them up pouring a good thickened gravy . . . over.”

1906 – Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American novelist, wrote in his book called The Jungle, which told of the horrors of Chicago meat packing plants. This book caused much distrust in the United States regarding chopped meat. Sinclair was surprised that the public missed the main point of his impressionistic fiction and took it to be an indictment of unhygienic conditions of the meat packing industry. This caused people to not trust chopped meat for several years.

Invention of Meat Choppers:
Referring to ground beef as hamburger dates to the invention of the mechanical meat choppers during the 1800s. It was not until the early nineteenth century that wood, tin, and pewter cylinders with wooden plunger pushers became common. Steve Church of Ridgecrest, California uncovered some long forgotten U. S. patents on Meat Cutters:
In mid-19th-century America, preparations of raw beef that had been chopped, chipped, ground or scraped were a common prescription for digestive issues. After a New York doctor, James H. Salisbury suggested in 1867 that cooked beef patties might be just as healthy, cooks and physicians alike quickly adopted the “Salisbury Steak”. Around the same time, the first popular meat grinders for home use became widely available (Salisbury endorsed one called the American Chopper) setting the stage for an explosion of readily available ground beef.

The hamburger seems to have made its jump from plate to bun in the last decades of the 19th century, though the site of this transformation is highly contested. Lunch wagons, fair stands and roadside restaurants in Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ohio, New York and Texas have all been put forward as possible sites of the hamburger’s birth. Whatever its genesis, the burger-on-a-bun found its first wide audience at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, which also introduced millions of Americans to new foods ranging from waffle ice cream cones and cotton candy to peanut butter and iced tea.

Two years later, though, disaster struck in the form of Upton Sinclair’s journalistic novel The Jungle, which detailed the unsavory side of the American meatpacking industry. Industrial ground beef was easy to adulterate with fillers, preservatives and meat scraps, and the hamburger became a prime suspect.

The history of the American burger:

The hamburger might have remained on the seamier margins of American cuisine were it not for the vision of Edgar “Billy” Ingram and Walter Anderson, who opened their first White Castle restaurant in Kansas in 1921. Sheathed inside and out in gleaming porcelain and stainless steel, White Castle countered hamburger meat’s low reputation by becoming bastions of cleanliness, health and hygiene (Ingram even commissioned a medical school study to show the health benefits of hamburgers). His system, which included on-premise meat grinding, worked well and was the inspiration for other national hamburger chains founded in the boom years after World War II: McDonald’s and In-N-Out Burger (both founded in 1948), Burger King (1954) and Wendy’s (1969).

Only one of the claimants below served their hamburgers on a bun – Oscar Weber Bilby in 1891. The rest served them as sandwiches between two slices of bread.

Most of the following stories on the history of the hamburgers were told after the fact and are based on the recollections of family members. For many people, which story or legend you believe probably depends on where you are from. You be the judge! The claims are as follows:

1885 – Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin – At the age of 15, he sold hamburgers from his ox-drawn food stand at the Outagamie County Fair. He went to the Outagamie County Fair and set up a stand selling meatballs. Business wasn’t good and he quickly realized that it was because meatballs were too difficult to eat while strolling around the fair. In a flash of innovation, he flattened the meatballs, placed them between two slices of bread and called his new creation a hamburger. He was known to many as “Hamburger Charlie.” He returned to sell hamburgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951, and he would entertain people with guitar and mouth organ and his jingle:

Hamburgers, hamburgers, hamburgers hot; onions in the middle, pickle on top. Makes your lips go flippity flop.

The town of Seymour, Wisconsin is so certain about this claim that they even have a Hamburger Hall of Fame that they built as a tribute to Charlie Nagreen and the legacy he left behind. The town claims to be “Home of the Hamburger” and holds an annual Burger Festival on the first Saturday of August each year. Events include a ketchup slide, bun toss, and hamburger-eating contest, as well as the “world’s largest hamburger parade.”

On May 9, 2007, members of the Wisconsin legislature declared Seymour, Wisconsin, as the home of the hamburger:

Whereas, Seymour, Wisconsin, is the right home of the hamburger; and,
Whereas, other accounts of the origination of the hamburger trace back only so far as the 1880s, while Seymour’s claim can be traced to 1885; and,
Whereas, Charles Nagreen, also known as Hamburger Charlie, of Seymour, Wisconsin, began calling ground beef patties in a bun “hamburgers” in 1885; and,
Whereas, Hamburger Charlie first sold his world-famous hamburgers at age 15 at the first Seymour Fair in 1885, and later at the Brown and Outagamie county fairs; and,
Whereas, Hamburger Charlie employed as many as eight people at his famous hamburger tent, selling 150 pounds of hamburgers on some days; and,
Whereas, the hamburger has since become an American classic, enjoyed by families and backyard grills alike; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the assembly, the senate concurring, That the members of the Wisconsin legislature declare Seymour, Wisconsin, the Original Home of the Hamburger.

1885 – The family of Frank and Charles Menches from Akron, Ohio, claim the brothers invented the hamburger while traveling in a 100-man traveling concession circuit at events (fairs, race meetings, and farmers’ picnics) in the Midwest in the early 1880s. During a stop at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, New York, the brothers ran out of pork for their hot sausage patty sandwiches. Because this happened on a particularly hot day, the local butchers stop slaughtering pigs. The butcher suggested that they substitute beef for the pork. The brothers ground up the beef, mixed it with some brown sugar, coffee, and other spices and served it as a sandwich between two pieces of bread. They called this sandwich the “hamburger” after Hamburg, New York where the fair was being held. According to family legend, Frank didn’t really know what to call it, so he looked up and saw the banner for the Hamburg fair and said, “This is the hamburger.” In Frank’s 1951 obituary in The Los Angeles Times, he is acknowledged him as the ”inventor” of the hamburger.

Hamburg held its first Burgerfest in 1985 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the hamburger after organizers discovered a history book detailing the burger’s origins.

In 1991, Menches and his siblings stumbled across the original recipe among some old papers their great-grandmother left behind. After selling their burgers at county fairs for a few years, the family opened up the Menches Bros. Restaurant in Akron, Ohio. The Menches family is still in the restaurant business and still serving hamburgers in Ohio.

On May 28, 2005, the town of Akron, Ohio hosted the First Annual National Hamburger Festival to celebrate the 120th Anniversary of the invention of the hamburger. The festival will be dedicated to Frank and Charles Menches. That is how sure the city of Akron is on the Menches’ family claim on the contested contention that two residents invented the hamburger. The Ohio legislature is also considering making hamburgers the state food.

1891 – The family of Oscar Weber Bilby claim the first-known hamburger on a bun was served on Grandpa Oscar’s farm just west of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1891. The family says that Grandpa Oscar was the first to add the bun, but they concede that hamburger sandwiches made with bread may predate Grandpa Oscar’s famous hamburger.

Michael Wallis, travel writer and reporter for Oklahoma Today magazine, did an extensive search in 1995 for the true origins of the hamburger and determined that Oscar Weber Bilby himself was the creator of the hamburger as we know it. According to Wallis’s 1995 article, Welcome To Hamburger Heaven, in an interview with Harold Bilby:

The story has been passed down through the generations like a family Bible. “Grandpa himself told me that it was in June of 1891 when he took up a chunk of iron and made himself a big ol’ grill,” explains Harold. “Then the next month on the Fourth of July he built a hickory wood fire underneath that grill, and when those coals were glowing hot, he took some ground Angus meat and fired up a big batch of hamburgers. When they were cooked all good and juicy, he put them on my Grandma Fanny’s homemade yeast buns – the best buns in all the world, made from her own secret recipe. He served those burgers on buns to neighbors and friends under a grove of pecan trees . . . They couldn’t get enough, so Grandpa hosted another big feed. He did that every Fourth of July, and sometimes as many as 125 people showed up.”

Simple math supports Harold Bilby’s contention that if his Grandpa served burgers on Grandma Fanny’s buns in 1891, then the Bilbys eclipsed the St. Louis World’s Fair vendors by at least thirteen years. That would make Oklahoma the cradle of the hamburger. “There’s not even the trace of a doubt in my mind,” say Harold. “My grandpa invented the hamburger on a bun right here in what became Oklahoma, and if anybody wants to say different, then let them prove otherwise.”

In 1933, Oscar and his son, Leo, opened the family’s first hamburger stand in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called Weber’s Superior Root Beer Stand. They still use the same grill used in 1891, with one minor variation, the wood stove has been converted to natural gas. In a letter to me, Linda Stradley, dated July 31, 2004, Rick Bilby states the following:

My great-grandfather, Oscar Weber Bilby invented the hamburger on July 4, 1891. He served ground beef patties that were seared to perfection on a open flame from a hand-made grill. My great-grandmother Fanny made her own home-made yeast hamburger buns to put around the ground beef patties. They served this new sandwich along with their tasty home-made rood beer which was also carbonated with yeast. People would come for all over the county on July 4th each year to consume and enjoy these treats. To this day we still cook our hamburger on grandpa’s grill, which is now fired by natural gas.

On April 13, 1995, Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma proclaimed that the real birthplace of the hamburger on the bun, was created and consumed in Tulsa in 1891. The State of Oklahoma Proclamation states:

Whereas, scurrilous rumors have credited Athens, Texas, as the birthplace of the hamburger, claiming for that region south of the Red River commonly known as Baja Oklahoma a fame and renown which are hardly its due; and
Whereas, the Legislature of Baja Oklahoma has gone so far as to declare April 3, 1995, to be Athens Day at the State Capitol, largely on the strength of this bogus claim, and
Whereas, while the residents, the scenery, the hospitality and the food found in Athens are no doubt superior to those in virtually any other locale, they must be recognized. In the words of Mark Twain, as “the lightning bug is to the lightning” when compared with the Great City of Tulsa in the Great State of Oklahoma; and
Whereas, although someone in Athens, in the 1860’s, may have place cooked ground beef between two slices of bread, this minor accomplishment can in no way be regarded comes on a bun accompanied by such delight as pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato, cheese and, in some cases, special sauce; and
Whereas, the first true hamburger on a bun, as meticulous research shows, was created and consumed in Tulsa in 1891 and was only copied for resale at the St. Louis World’s Fair a full 13 years after that momentous and history-making occasion:
Now Therefore, I, Frank Keating, Governor of the State of Oklahoma, do hereby proclaim April 12, 1995, as THE REAL BIRTHPLACE OF THE HAMBURGER IN TULSA DAY.

1900 – Louis Lassen of New Haven, Connecticut is also recorded as serving the first “burger” at his New Haven luncheonette called Louis’ Lunch Wagon. Louis ran a small lunch wagon selling steak sandwiches to local factory workers. A frugal business man, he did not like to waste the excess beef from his daily lunch rush. It is said that he ground up some scraps of beef and served it as a sandwich, the sandwich was sold between pieces of toasted bread, to a customer who was in a hurry and wanted to eat on the run.

Kenneth Lassen, Louis’ grandson, was quoted in the September 25, 1991 Athens Daily Review as saying;

“We have signed, dated and notarized affidavits saying we served the first hamburger sandwiches in 1900. Other people may have been serving the steak but there’s a big difference between a hamburger steak and a hamburger sandwich.”

In the mid-1960s, the New Haven Preservation Trust placed a plaque on the building where Louis’ Lunch is located proclaiming Louis’ Lunch to be the first place the hamburger was sold.

Louis’ Lunch is still selling their hamburgers from a small brick building in New Haven. The sandwich is grilled vertically in antique gas grills and served between pieces of toast rather than a bun, and refuse to provide mustard or ketchup.

Library of Congress named Louis’ Lunch a “Connecticut Legacy.” The following is taken from the Congressional Record, 27 July 2000, page E1377:

Honoring Louis’ Lunch on Its 105th Anniversary – Representative Rosa L. DeLauro:
. . . it is with great pleasure that I rise today to celebrate the 105th anniversary of a true New Haven landmark: Louis’ Lunch. Recently the Lassen family celebrated this landmark as well as the 100th anniversary of their claim to fame — the invention and commercial serving of one of America’s favorites, the hamburger . . . The Lassens and the community of New Haven shared unparalleled excitement when the Library of Congress named Louis’ Lunch a “Connecticut Legacy” — nothing could be more true.

1901 or 1902 – Bert W. Gary of Clarinda, Iowa, in an article by Paige Carlin for the Omaha World Herald newspaper, takes no credit for having invented it, but he stakes uncompromising claim to being the “daddy” of the hamburger industry. He served his hamburger on a bun:

The hamburger business all started about 1901 or 1902 (The Grays aren’t sure which) when Mr. Gray operated a little cafe on the east side of Clarinda’s Courthouse Square.

Mr. Gray recalled: “There was an old German here named Ail Wall (or Wahl, maybe) and he ran a butcher shop. One day he was stuffing bologna with a little hand machine, and he said to me: ‘Bert, why wouldn’t ground meat make a good sandwich?’”

“I said I’d try it, so I took this ground beef and mixed it with an egg batter and fried it. I couldn’t bet anybody to eat it. I quit the egg batter and just took the meat with a little flour to hold it together. The new technique paid off.”

“He almost ran the other cafes out of the sandwich business,” Mrs. Gray put in. “He could make hamburgers so nice and soft and juicy – better than I ever could,” she added.

“This old German, Wall, came over here from Hamburg, and that’s what he said to call it,” Mr. Gray explained. “I sold them for a nickel apiece in those days. That was when the meat was 10 or 12 cents a pound,” he added. “I bought $5 or $6 worth of meat at a time and I got three or four dozen pans of buns from the bakery a day.”

One time the Grays heard a conflicting claim by a man (somewhere in the northern part of the state) that he was the hamburger’s inventor. “I didn’t pay any attention to him,” Mr. Gray snorted. “I’ve got plenty of proof mine was the first,” he said.

so much more to read at https://whatscookingamerica.net/history/hamburgerhistory.htm

The Used Car Market Set to Grow?

The used car market in America is estimated to be around $350B. With more used cars flowing in – the discerning buyer is spoilt for choice. Hertz is going to have to sell around 200,000 cars from its fleet as part of its bankruptcy proceedings. While the number of cars might not make up a significant amount ( in comparision CarMax sells 1.3M vehicles a year and Carvana sell around 100,000 cars); the price of these vehicles is what might move the market towards the lower end of the spectrum. Most rental cars ( with an exception of a few numbers) are the base trims or one above the base trim (Chevy LS/LT, Ford SE, Nissan S/SV, Toyota LE, etc)- so the entry level buyer will have more options. The average cost of the used car is around $15,000, thus with the latest announcement from Honda – the used car market might be the next growth sector.

Read the Original Article

Honda Motor Co. became the latest manufacturer to abandon subcompacts last month when it announced plans to discontinue its low-end Fit hatchback in the U.S. General Motors Co. has dropped the Chevrolet Sonic, and Toyota Motor Corp. said it will stop U.S. sales of its Yaris. All three of these vehicles’ base models carry sticker prices less than $20,000 — among the most affordable new cars.

Cheap entry-level vehicles once were a must for full-line carmakers, if for no other reason than to attract first-time buyers and consumers with low credit scores. The hope was they’d eventually trade up and stay loyal to the brand. But razor-thin profit margins on low-cost sedans no longer justify the investment and marketing costs to keep them at a time when many drivers are opting for sport-utility vehicles and trucks.

Dying Breed

“The used car is almost becoming the entry-level vehicle for many consumers,” said Joe Vitale, lead global automotive analyst at consultant Deloitte. “Vehicles coming off of lease are quite desirable and have much of the new technology.”

The shift from small sedans to larger vehicles isn’t a new trend, but it has accelerated to the point that people looking for budget-priced models don’t have much of a choice these days. A generation ago, first-time car buyers could select from a number of products, ranging from the Dodge Colt to the Geo Metro. In recent years, the category has almost disappeared from the U.S., with GM canceling the Chevy Cruze, Ford Motor Co. ditching its Fiesta and Mazda Motor Corp. withdrawing the Mazda 2 model.

There still are a handful of smaller options on the market — such as the Nissan Motor Co. Kicks, Hyundai Motor Co. Accent and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV Jeep Compass — for drivers who eschew ample creature comforts and high levels of horsepower.

“As long as demand is still out there, it’s good to have a product that addresses those needs,” Randy Parker, head of Hyundai’s U.S. sales, said in an interview.

Even so, sales of new models under the $20,000 mark have been trending down for the past five years, dipping to just 1.3% of all new-car sales so far this year, based on Kelley Blue Book data. Deliveries in the $20,000-$30,000 range also have been dropping drastically, plummeting to 22% from 44%.

This means buyers are spending more for the privilege of driving out of a showroom. The average price paid for a new vehicle is close to $39,000, according to Kelley Blue Book data. That’s way above some buyers’ budgets, forcing them to look for heavily discounted new offerings or opt for used cars instead.

The pinch is coming at a time when more first-time buyers are shopping for cars, an unintended consequence of the coronavirus. The pandemic appears to be undoing a multiyear trend that saw younger people choosing public or shared transport over vehicle ownership. Analysts say the pendulum now is swinging back amid social-distancing orders and heightened fears of contagion.

“As they moved into cities, they viewed ownership as inconvenient and costly, but now we have young people who had never considered owning vehicles buying cars,” said Deloitte’s Vitale.

One positive development for buyers: more newly off-lease vehicles as some couples working from home give up a car, along with a flood of models from rapidly downsizing rental-company fleets. The growth in the past few decades of certified pre-owned programs with warranties and improvements in average quality also helps ease pressure to buy new.

“Younger people have always been attracted to used cars, and now they have better used cars to choose from,” said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at car-shopping researcher Autotrader.

Source: Bloomberg

AutoFinance – is it the next bubble?

While the economy was booming after the last downturn in 2009/10, the average loan being taken on by the consumer went up from around $25K to around $31K for a new car. All this while, adding about $1.2T ( Yes, Trillion) in auto loans.

I found an interesting article which can be read here:

Some Kind Of Auto Lending Crisis Is In The Making

Auto lending in the midst of an economic collapse is never pretty, as people stop paying on their car loans to divert money to more immediate necessities like food and shelter. This collapse is no different.

Exhibit A: Credit Acceptance, one of the biggest subprime lenders in the country (and one of the most unsavory). It had this to say in a report filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

In an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, state governments have implemented social distancing guidelines, travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter-in-place orders and shutdowns. These actions have caused economic hardship in the areas in which they have been implemented and have led to an increase in unemployment and resulted in many consumers delaying payments or re-allocating resources, leading to a significant decrease in our realized collections.

In short: an unspecified number of people have stopped paying on their car loans, the full extent of which Credit Acceptance can’t reveal yet.

If all of that is to be somewhat expected—Credit Acceptance’s business is lending money to people who might not be able to afford it long-term—a somewhat more alarming situation is in a different report out this week.

Exhibit B: Ally Financial, which was founded over a century as the lending arm of General Motors. It was known as GMAC until, er, the last economic crisis about a decade ago, a few years after GM sold a majority stake in the business. Today by volume it is one of the biggest auto-loan lenders in the country; Monday it said many of its more reliable borrowers weren’t so reliable anymore.

From Bloomberg:

Ally Financial Inc. said 25% of its auto-loan customers have asked for payment deferrals, and the vast majority have never been delinquent before.

Of the 1.1 million borrowers who requested forbearance, more than three-quarters have never asked for a deferral before and 70% have never had a late payment with Ally, Chief Financial Officer Jennifer LaClair told analysts during a conference call Monday.

Exhibit C: Lenders like Volkswagen Credit, which said last week it was waiving payments for six months for some people who have lost their job because of the virus. It’s a preemptive admission that you can’t get blood from a stone, I guess. But that also came with some stipulations:

To qualify, unemployment must not occur within the first 90 days of ownership. The customer must have lost their job because of economic reasons and must be collecting unemployment benefits. Customers also must have been employed full time at least 12 consecutive weeks before job loss. The offer is good for 12 months from the date of purchase.

The program does not cover leases, and it is not available in New York.

The lending arms of most of the other big automakers are also offering various deferment plans for borrowers, which delay payments until the end of the loan. Edmunds says that most lenders prefer to deal with customers on a case-by-case basis. The best thing you can do if you can’t make your payment is to reach out and try and strike a deal. I myself fear that increasingly many borrowers won’t even be able to afford that.

History of Christmas Tree

My son asked me about the Christmas tree and I realized – I didn’t know! So here goes – a little bit of history about the Christmas tree: Interesting fact:

In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

The history of Christmas trees goes back to the symbolic use of evergreens in ancient Egypt and Rome and continues with the German tradition of candlelit Christmas trees first brought to America in the 1800s. Discover the history of the Christmas tree, from the earliest winter solstice celebrations to Queen Victoria’s decorating habits and the annual lighting of the Rockefeller Center tree in New York City.

How Did Christmas Trees Start?

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.

The ancient Egyptians worshiped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from his illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes, which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.

Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon, farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.

In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.

Christmas Trees From Germany

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.

Who Brought Christmas Trees to America?

Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.

It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims’s second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event.” In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

Queen Victoria's Christmas Tree — An illustration from a December 1848 edition of the Illustrated London News shows Queen Victoria and her family surrounding a Christmas tree.

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived.

By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.

Christmas Trees Around the World

Christmas Trees in Canada

German settlers migrated to Canada from the United States in the 1700s. They brought with them many of the things associated with Christmas we cherish today—Advent calendars, gingerbread houses, cookies—and Christmas trees. When Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert, put up a Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1848, the Christmas tree became a tradition throughout England, the United States, and Canada.

Christmas Trees in Mexico

In most Mexican homes the principal holiday adornment is el Nacimiento (Nativity scene). However, a decorated Christmas tree may be incorporated in the Nacimiento or set up elsewhere in the home. As purchase of a natural pine represents a luxury commodity to most Mexican families, the typical arbolito (little tree) is often an artificial one, a bare branch cut from a copal tree (Bursera microphylla) or some type of shrub collected from the countryside.

Christmas Trees in Great Britain

The Norway spruce is the traditional species used to decorate homes in Britain. The Norway spruce was a native species in the British Isles before the last Ice Age, and was reintroduced here before the 1500s.

Christmas Trees in Greenland

Christmas trees are imported, as no trees live this far north. They are decorated with candles and bright ornaments.

Christmas Trees in Guatemala

The Christmas tree has joined the “Nacimiento” (Nativity scene) as a popular ornament because of the large German population in Guatemala. Gifts are left under the tree on Christmas morning for the children. Parents and adults do not exchange gifts until New Year’s Day.

Christmas Trees in Brazil
Although Christmas falls during the summer in Brazil, sometimes pine trees are decorated with little pieces of cotton that represent falling snow.

Christmas Trees in Ireland
Christmas trees are bought anytime in December and decorated with colored lights, tinsel, and baubles. Some people favor the angel on top of the tree, others the star. The house is decorated with garlands, candles, holly, and ivy. Wreaths and mistletoe are hung on the door.

Christmas Trees in Sweden
Most people buy Christmas trees well before Christmas Eve, but it’s not common to take the tree inside and decorate it until just a few days before. Evergreen trees are decorated with stars, sunbursts, and snowflakes made from straw. Other decorations include colorful wooden animals and straw centerpieces.

Christmas Trees in Norway
Nowadays Norwegians often take a trip to the woods to select a Christmas tree, a trip that their grandfathers probably did not make. The Christmas tree was not introduced into Norway from Germany until the latter half of the 19th century; to the country districts it came even later. When Christmas Eve arrives, there is the decorating of the tree, usually done by the parents behind the closed doors of the living room, while the children wait with excitement outside. A Norwegian ritual known as “circling the Christmas tree” follows, where everyone joins hands to form a ring around the tree and then walk around it singing carols. Afterwards, gifts are distributed.

Christmas Trees in Ukraine
Celebrated on December 25th by Catholics and on January 7th by Orthodox Christians, Christmas is the most popular holiday in the Ukraine. During the Christmas season, which also includes New Year’s Day, people decorate fir trees and have parties.

Christmas Trees in Spain
A popular Christmas custom is Catalonia, a lucky strike game. A tree trunk is filled with goodies and children hit at the trunk trying to knock out the hazel nuts, almonds, toffee, and other treats.

Christmas Trees in Italy
In Italy, the presepio (manger or crib) represents in miniature the Holy Family in the stable and is the center of Christmas for families. Guests kneel before it and musicians sing before it. The presepio figures are usually hand-carved and very detailed in features and dress. The scene is often set out in the shape of a triangle. It provides the base of a pyramid-like structure called the ceppo. This is a wooden frame arranged to make a pyramid several feet high. Several tiers of thin shelves are supported by this frame. It is entirely decorated with colored paper, gilt pine cones, and miniature colored pennants. Small candles are fastened to the tapering sides. A star or small doll is hung at the apex of the triangular sides. The shelves above the manger scene have small gifts of fruit, candy, and presents. The ceppo is in the old Tree of Light tradition which became the Christmas tree in other countries. Some houses even have a ceppo for each child in the family.

Christmas Trees in Germany
Many Christmas traditions practiced around the world today started in Germany.

It has long been thought that Martin Luther began the tradition of bringing a fir tree into the home. According to one legend, late one evening, Martin Luther was walking home through the woods and noticed how beautifully the stars shone through the trees. He wanted to share the beauty with his wife, so he cut down a fir tree and took it home. Once inside, he placed small, lighted candles on the branches and said that it would be a symbol of the beautiful Christmas sky. The Christmas tree was born.

Another legend says that in the early 16th century, people in Germany combined two customs that had been practiced in different countries around the globe. The Paradise tree (a fir tree decorated with apples) represented the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. The Christmas Light, a small, pyramid-like frame, usually decorated with glass balls, tinsel and a candle on top, was a symbol of the birth of Christ as the Light of the World. Changing the tree’s apples to tinsel balls and cookies and combining this new tree with the light placed on top, the Germans created the tree that many of us know today.

Modern Tannenbaum (Christmas trees) are traditionally decorated in secret with lights, tinsel and ornaments by parents and then lit and revealed on Christmas Eve with cookies, nuts and gifts under its branches.

Christmas Trees in South Africa
Christmas is a summer holiday in South Africa. Although Christmas trees are not common, windows are often draped with sparkling cotton wool and tinsel.

Christmas Trees in Saudi Arabia
Christian Americans, Europeans, Indians, Filipinos, and others living here have to celebrate Christmas privately in their homes. Christmas lights are generally not tolerated. Most families place their Christmas trees somewhere inconspicuous.

Christmas Trees in Philippines
Fresh pine trees are too expensive for many Filipinos, so handmade trees in an array of colors and sizes are often used. Star lanterns, or parol, appear everywhere in December. They are made from bamboo sticks, covered with brightly colored rice paper or cellophane, and usually feature a tassel on each point. There is usually one in every window, each representing the Star of Bethlehem.

Christmas Trees in China
Of the small percentage of Chinese who do celebrate Christmas, most erect artificial trees decorated with spangles and paper chains, flowers, and lanterns. Christmas trees are called “trees of light.”

Christmas Trees in Japan
For most of the Japanese who celebrate Christmas, it’s purely a secular holiday devoted to the love of their children. Christmas trees are decorated with small toys, dolls, paper ornaments, gold paper fans and lanterns, and wind chimes. Miniature candles are also put among the tree branches. One of the most popular ornaments is the origami swan. Japanese children have exchanged thousands of folded paper “birds of peace” with young people all over the world as a pledge that war must not happen again.

Christmas Tree Trivia

Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since about 1850.

In 1979, the National Christmas Tree was not lighted except for the top ornament. This was done in honor of the American hostages in Iran.

Between 1887-1933 a fishing schooner called the Christmas Ship would tie up at the Clark Street bridge and sell spruce trees from Michigan to Chicagoans.

The tallest living Christmas tree is believed to be the 122-foot, 91-year-old Douglas fir in the town of Woodinville, Washington.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree tradition began in 1933. Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, brought the Christmas tree tradition to the White House.

In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony now held every year on the White House lawn.

Since 1966, the National Christmas Tree Association has given a Christmas tree to the President and first family.

Most Christmas trees are cut weeks before they get to a retail outlet.

In 1912, the first community Christmas tree in the United States was erected in New York City.

Christmas trees generally take six to eight years to mature.

Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states including Hawaii and Alaska.

100,000 people are employed in the Christmas tree industry.

98 percent of all Christmas trees are grown on farms.

More than 1,000,000 acres of land have been planted with Christmas trees.

77 million Christmas trees are planted each year.

On average, over 2,000 Christmas trees are planted per acre.

You should never burn your Christmas tree in the fireplace. It can contribute to creosote buildup.

Other types of trees such as cherry and hawthorns were used as Christmas trees in the past.

Thomas Edison’s assistants came up with the idea of electric lights for Christmas trees.

In 1963, the National Christmas Tree was not lit until December 22nd because of a national 30-day period of mourning following the assassination of President Kennedy.

Teddy Roosevelt banned the Christmas tree from the White House for environmental reasons.

In the first week, a tree in your home will consume as much as a quart of water per day.

Tinsel was once banned by the government. Tinsel contained lead at one time. Now it’s made of plastic.

In 1984, the National Christmas Tree was lit on December 13th with temperatures in the 70s, making it one of the warmest tree lightings in history.

34 to 36 million Christmas trees are produced each year and 95 percent are shipped or sold directly from Christmas tree farms.

California, Oregon, Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina are the top Christmas tree producing states.

The best-selling trees are Scotch Pine, Douglas Fir, Fraser Fir, Balsam Fir and White Pine.