The History of the Snowman: From the Ice Age to the Flea Market

The snowman appears everywhere on practically everything — from knickknacks to greeting cards to seasonal sweaters we plan to return. Whenever we see big snowballs our first impulse is to deck them out with a top hat. Humorist and writer Bob Eckstein has long been fascinated by this ubiquitous symbol of wintertime fun — and finally, for the first time, one of the world's most popular icons gets his due.

A thoroughly entertaining exploration, The History of the Snowman travels back in time to shed light on the snowman's enigmatic past — from the present day, in which the snowman reigns as the King of Kitsch, to the Dark Ages, with the creation of the very first snowman. Eckstein's curiosity began playfully enough, but soon snowballed into a (mostly) earnest quest of chasing Frosty around the world, into museums and libraries, and seeking out the advice of leading historians and scholars. The result is a riveting history that reaches back through centuries and across cultures — sweeping from fifteenth-century Italian snowballs to eighteenth-century Russian ice sculptures to the regrettable "white-trash years" (1975-2000).

The snowman is not just part of our childhood memories, but is an integral part of our world culture, appearing — much like a frozen Forrest Gump — alongside dignitaries and celebrities during momentous events. Again and again, the snowman pops up in rare prints, paintings, early movies, advertising and, over the past century, in every art form imaginable. And the jolly snowman — ostensibly as pure as the driven snow — also harbors a dark past full of political intrigue, sex, and violence.

With more than two hundred illustrations and a special section of the best snowman cartoons, The History of the Snowman is a truly original winter classic — smart, surprisingly enlightening, and quite simply the coolest book ever.

Contents

Introduction
The Search for the First Snowman

Part 1
THE MODERN SNOWMAN

Chapter One
The Age of Expansion: The Twenty-first Century

Chapter Two
The White Trash Years: 1975-2000

Chapter Three
The Hollywood Years: There's No Business Like Snow Business

Chapter Four
The Golden Age of Advertising Since the Early Twentieth Century: Snow Sells

Chapter Five
The Dean Martin Years: Drunken Debauchery and Other Misgivings

Chapter Six
Snowman Deconstructionism: Literary Circles

Chapter Seven
The Birth of a Media Star: 1870s-1910s

Chapter Eight
Snowman Photography since the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Mr. Sound Bite

Intermission
A Comic Interlude of the Best Snowmen Cartoons

Part 2
THE RENAISSANCE SNOWMAN

Chapter Nine
The Revolution of 1870: The Snowman's French Roll

Chapter Ten
Made in America: The Snow Angel of 1856

Chapter Eleven
Eighteenth-Century Snow and Ice Sculpture: From Russia with Love Handles

Chapter Twelve
Early American Snowmen in the Seventeenth Century: New World, Fresh Snow

Chapter Thirteen
Snowman Exploration in the Late Sixteenth Century

Chapter Fourteen
Belgian Expressionism: The Miracle of 1511

Chapter Fifteen
Early Classism in Snow Sculpture: Politically Incorrect Fun

Chapter Sixteen
Italian Snowballs from the Fifteenth Century: The Two-Ball Theory

Chapter Seventeen
The First Snowman

Chapter Eighteen
The Ice