Pollyanna

[Michael Quinion]

Douglas Wilson wrote:

> In the novel _Pollyanna_ there was an instance of Pollyanna conveying
> a gift whose donor had explicitly disavowed it: perhaps "anonymous
> gift" was originally the idea. Another incident in the book had
> Pollyanna receiving a useless gift and being told to be glad for it by
> her positive-thinking father. Alternatively, the "Pollyanna gift
> exchange" might have been named after some "Pollyanna Society" or so
> which had such an event: there were apparently clubs or groups with
> this name pre-1930, named after the Pollyanna in the novel. Pollyanna
> was of course a naive saccharine irrationally optimistic little girl,
> now 'immortalized' in the noun "Pollyanna" = "blindly optimistic or
> irritatingly cheerful person".

Many thanks for those leads. Further delving in newspaperarchive.com
turns up lots of references to Pollyanna(s) clubs/societies from
about 1916 onwards, always associated with churches, especially the
Church of Christ, the Lutheran Church and the Baptist Church, in
various states. Their function seems from context to have been social
and to entertain at gatherings. A search on Google shows that such
clubs still exist in some places.

There is one further example that gives a clue to their function:

1922 Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) 9 July B3/4 A group
of Pollyannas met Friday morning from 10 to 1 o'clock at the home of
Ruth Barnard for a shower in honor of Miss Ola Kallenberger who is
soon to become the bride of Charles Spacht. Two hours were spent
pleasantly with games, during which Miss Kallenberger was  showered
with a large assortment of towels, holders and recipes.

I can find nothing that suggests why they should have been so named,
though the absence of references before 1916 may indicate they were
named in direct reference to the Pollyanna stories, the first one of
which was published in 1913. Presumably, the reference is to the
"glad game" of the book, in which Pollyanna tries to find cause for
happiness in the most disastrous situations.

Any further information anyone can turn up will be most welcome!

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <wordseditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>