Kris Kringle Nabs Cash! A Cunning Christmas Crime

Guest: Alex Palmer, author of "The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York," published in 2016, but the paperback version just came out on November 1st of this year.

John Duval Gluck started the Santa Claus Association, which answered children’s Christmas letters to the fat man and connected them with philanthropists who could help. But corruption was the downfall of this Progressive-Era showman.

 

Johnny Appleseed: The Eccentric Man Behind the Great American Legend

Guest: Howard Means, journalist and author, "Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story"

Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman, was a pioneer of the American frontier, and an eccentric one at that. He's a larger-than-life figure with a story we've all helped to promote and expand. His history, though, is a bit more complicated than the Disney biopic lets on.