The Life and Adventures Of Santa Claus by author of The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, with its elaborations and much added detail went a long way to popularizing the legend of Santa Claus in North America. However, in the cover to the 1902 first edition of Baum’s book we see the red of his suit is still yet to be consistently in vogue. You can read the entire Baum version of Santa’s origin story right here .
Travel Between The Pages 
I thought that Santa became only a cult feature in the US after the Coca-Cola company used him in a mega publicity campaign somewhere around 1930.
A German immigrant named Thomas Nast popularized the Santa image during the 1860s.