The Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving (SPUG) was a campaign group in New York against pointless gifts at Christmas, and particularly against the exploitation of junior employees by their supervisors.
The SPUG was established in response to what the women perceived to be unnecessary Christmas-related materialism, as well as the era’s custom of employees giving gifts to bosses and higher-ups in exchange for workplace favours.
Rallies were held by the SPUG, and promoted female solidarity, even if class divisions lingered, giving the occasions an air of maternalistic charity and sisterhood.
[6] SPUG membership was initially restricted to women, however men were later permitted to join, primarily as a result of President Theodore Roosevelt,[7] who, in December 1912, became the first “man Spug”, promoting hundreds of others to join the movement to reduce Christmas gift giving.
[6] “I believe the group can accomplish what the individual cannot—namely, the gradual substitution of the right spirit of Christmas giving, in place of the custom of ‘collective’ and ‘exchange’ presents which exists to-day,” read the society membership card Roosevelt signed.