Sweetest Day?

Sweetest Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States (with Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities) on the third Saturday in October. It is described by Retail Confectioners International as an "occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed." Critics call Sweetest Day an artificial holiday created solely to boost the revenues of candy and greeting card companies.

Origin of Sweetest Day
The origin of Sweetest day is frequently attributed to candy company employee Herbert Birch Kingston as an act of philanthropy. However Bill Lubinger, a reporter for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, contends that "...Cleveland's top candy makers concocted the promotion 84 years ago and it stuck, although it never became as widely accepted as hoped." This claim is based on the The Cleveland Plain Dealer October 8, 1921 edition, which chronicles the first Sweetest day in Cleveland. According to the newspaper it was planned by a committee of 12 confectioners, who distributed 19,500 boxes of candy to newsboys, homeless people, orphans, and others who had fallen on hard times in Cleveland, Ohio. The Sweetest Day in the Year Committee was assisted in the distribution of candy by some of the biggest movie stars of the day including Theda Bara and Anne Pennington. Leigh Eric Schmidt traces the origin back to 1910 in his book Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays, where he argues that "Sweetest Day" is a later incarnation of the failed attempt to create a "Candy Day" holiday.

Sweetest Day Today
This tradition now largely involves giving small presents such as greeting cards, candy, and flowers to loved ones. While it is not as large or widely observed as Valentine's Day, it is still celebrated in parts of the United States; despite persistent allegations of being a Hallmark holiday.

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