Santa Claus Museum and Village Collection

Contents: About the Collection | The Letters | About the Data | Rights | Created By

About the Collection

Context Overview:

The Santa Claus Museum & Village is home to the history of Santa Claus, Indiana and the families that founded Santa Claus Land (now Holiday World and Splashin’ Safari) and built up the local town. The museum’s artifacts range from historical documents to antique dolls and toys. Selected items within the collection currently can only be viewed on-site in Santa Claus, this repository has been created to help make the collection more accessible.

In More Detail:

At the Santa Claus Museum & Village you can find a wide variety of artifacts focused around the local town history and the families that made Santa Claus Land (now known as Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari) and the town of Santa Claus, Indiana what it is today. Within the museum you will also see a large collection of trains, dolls, Santa Claus memorabilia, Santa Claus Land souvenirs, and the famous letters to Santa - written by children dating back to the 1930s.

This digital collection is comprised of a tiny fraction of total artifacts and items you can find at The Santa Claus Museum & Village. The items you’ll find here were chosen to be a representative sample of the types of artifacts you will find in person at the museum, but it by no means is meant to be the only types of items you will find within the collection.

As you look through the collection you will find a lot of artifacts that are souvenirs. The collection consisters of Schoenut Circus toys, various souvenir items like pennant flags, flutes, and salt and pepper shakers, as well as letters written by children to Santa.

Please note: The quality of images of the artifacts varies. The images were taken at various times and majority not by the creator of this digital repository but by museum staff.

The Letters

The Dear Santa letters that have been included for this digital collection are some of the earliest letters that were saved and in relatively okay condition (1930s-1949). They are all worth the time reading through! It is really fascinating to read letters from children during such a tumultuous and grim time in America. One popular item for young girls was a “rubber doll that wets itself,” while for the young boys they would like mouth organs and air riffles. Meanwhile there is one young girl who asks for a bed to sleep on. There can be a lot found within these letters to Santa. Some write quick messages, simply stating what they want for Christmas. While others seem to need a writing outlet to describe happenings in their life. They also come from children (and adults) outside of Indiana and the United States. A group of children from South Africa took the time to draw what they would like Santa to bring them. (Seen above.)

Children from all over the world still write to Santa to this day. Santa’s Elves work hard to make sure every child gets a response - as long as they include their return address!

About the Data

The metadata used was chosen to help describe a broad range of information, but the information available also created limitations to the usable metadata. The content of this collection will include a combination of born-digital images of the artifacts that were taken with a digital camera by museum staff and the archival assistant, as well as digitized Dear Santa letters from children dating back to the 1940s. The main metadata fields used include: objectid, title, description, type of material used, date, location (place of origin/creation as well as local location in the museum - if an item is on disply or in storage), and creator. Please see the Metadata Application Profile for more information.

Rights

All items in the collection are either property of the Santa Claus Museum & Village, Santa Claus Land (Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari), donated by individuals for the museum to own and use as the museum sees fit, or purchased by parties associated with the museum. Copyright status is unknown, overall. See the rights statement for more information. If you would like to use any information from this collection, please contanct The Santa Claus Museum & Village and they can better assist you.

Created By

This digital collection has been created by Brittany Eckler, a graduate student in Library Science at Indiana Unviversity Bloomington. She works as a Rural Archives Intern for the Santa Claus Museum & Village in partnership with The Center for Rural Engagement on their Sustaining Hoosier Communities project. Images of collection items belong to the Santa Claus Museum & Village.

Brittany would like to thank the Director of Student Engagement for the Center for Rural Engagement - Colleen Rose, Santa Claus Museum and Village Director - Kathleen Crews, and also the remarkable Mrs. Koch for their assistance, knowledge, and kindness.

You can visit the Santa Claus Museum & Village! Located at 69 N State Road 245, Santa Claus, IN 47579-6363.

Visit their website here for more information and hours of operation. Also check out their Facebook page for more updates.