Honorable Mention for the 1996 Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Book in Popular Culture "Conceptually sophisticated, wide ranging; [Schmidt] treats Valentine's Day, Easter, and Mother's Day as well as Christmas all within a delicately balanced framework of tensions between market rationality and romantic sentiment... [A] fresh and timely alternative to contemporary academic fashion."
Jackson Lears, The New Republic "Filled ... Read morewith interesting facts and nascent ideas."
Fred Miller Robinson, The New York Times Book Review "[A] richly documented, smoothly narrated, and lavishly illustrated [study] by a cultural historian who knows his stuff and tells it with panache. Consumer Rites is good history and good reading... A brilliant chronicle of the American tale where domesticated remnants of Protestant religion, not nationalist identity alone, drove developments, and where capitalist expansion was in the driver's seat."
Lawrence A. Hoffman, Cross Currents "Its that time of year again: holiday shopping, and lots of it. Ever wonder how this American tradition got started? In this enlightening book, Leigh Eric Schmidt looks at holidays in our country and how they've evolved over the past 150 years into highly commercialized events... Consumer Rites is without question a true holiday gift, and it makes for fascinating reading."
Washington Post Book World "Consumer Rites is good history and good reading... a terrific story terrifically told... richly documented, smoothly narrated, and lavishly illustrated by a cultural historian who knows his stuff and tells it with panache... Give it as a gift next Christmas, Mother's Day or Father's Day! It's the American thing to do."
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