Figure 1.--Here we have a Thanksgiving post card. We suspect it was published before World war I, presumably in America, but are not sure.
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Figure 1.--Here we have a Thanksgiving post card. We suspect it was published before World war I, presumably in America, but are not sure. |
Thanksgiving like the Fourth of July are the two major American national celebrations not shared with the rest of the world. Unlike the independence day (4th of July) which manu countries just celebrate on a different day, Thanksgiving is a destinctly American celebration.
The Pilgrims are credited with originating Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. They were not the first English colonists in North America, but they generally are better covered in the popular literature. Their first winter was devastating. By the beginning of the following
fall, they had lost 46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower. The harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one, largely to the support nad assistance from the Native Ameicans. The remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast--including 91 Indians who had helped the Pilgrims survive their first year. The feast was more of a traditional English harvest festival than a true "thanksgiving" observance. The harvest festival was well established in England, combining both devotional observations and a rolicking good village festival. The pilgrims of course frowned on the party-like atmosphere of the harvest festival. Yet they were truely releaved over the reversal of their fortunes and the first Thanksgiving did last 3 days.
The actual meal was substantially different than that generally assumed today. Governor William Bradford sent "four men fowling" after wild ducks and geese. It is not certain that wild turkey was part of their feast. However, it is certain that they had venison. The term "turkey" was used by the Pilgrims to mean any sort of wild fowl. Another modern staple at almost every Thanksgiving table is pumpkin pie as sugar and mollases was in short supply. But it is unlikely that the first feast included that treat. The supply of
flour had been long diminished, so there was no bread or pastries of any kind. All the flour they had was brought from England, they did not yet have a successfulmwheat harvest. They did have several vegetables which they called herbsm including onions, carrots, parsnips, lettuce, spinach, pumpkins, and maize (corn). They ate the pumpkin and many other vegetables boiled. They also produced a type of fried bread from their corn crop. There was also no milk, cider, potatoes, or butter. There was no domestic cattle for dairy products, and the newly-discovered potato was still considered by many Europeans to be poisonous. But the feast did include fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison, and plums.
This "thanksgiving" feast was not repeated the following year. But in 1623, during a severe drought, the pilgrims gathered in a prayer service, praying for rain. When a long, steady rain followed the very next day, Governor Bradford proclaimed another day of
Thanksgiving, again inviting their Indian friends. It wasn't until June of 1676 that another Day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed.
The appropriate date for Thanksgiving was not at first fixed. The governing council of harlestown, Massachusetts, on June 20, 1676, held a meeting to determine how best to express thanks for the good fortune that had seen their community securely established. By unanimous vote they instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk, to roclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving. The tradition of Thursday was established at an early date. The Pilgrims believed in a mid-week sermon or devotional and this was usually selected as the appropriate day for Thanksgiving. Gradually November, after the crop was in, became the most common month.
Thanksgiving was in the 18th century still not an exclusively harvest celebration. Local officials might proclaim a day of thanksgiving to mark some notable event. The first national thanksgiving day was proclaimed by George Washington to mark possibly the most important American victory of the war. Washington's proclamation in October 1777 marked the first time that all 13 colonies joined in a
thanksgiving celebration. It commemorated the patriotic victory over the British at Saratoga. But it was a one-time affair. George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, although some were opposed to it. There was discord among the colonies, many feeling the hardships of a few Pilgrims did not
warrant a national holiday. And later, President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea of having a day of thanksgiving.
It was Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, whose efforts eventually led to what we recognize as Thanksgiving. Hale was the most widely read woman journalist of her day. She wrote many editorials championing her cause in her Boston Ladies' Magazine, and later, in Godey's Lady's Book. Goodey's was the most influential woman's magazine of the day aand was extremely influential in shaping the opinion of American women, especially with fashions, but many other areas as well. She engaged in a 40-year campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Interestingly it was not a commercial enterprise, but she was convinced that a single national day of thanksgiving might be a powerful unifying factor in an America that in by the 1840s was steadily spiraling toward regional dissension and Civil War. She conducted a steady campaign of writing editorials and letters to governors and presidents. Many Southerners were, however, even before the Civil War skeptical of this strong-willed northern lady.
Hale's obsession became a reality when, in 1863, after the Battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. Lincoln saw such a holiday as a ray of hope for a country mired in a horendous Civil War. Lincoln's proclamation helped establish Thanksgiving in the North, but probably impeded the acceptance of the holiday in the South for several years.
Thanksgiving was proclaimed by every president after Lincoln. The
date was changed a couple of times, most recently by Franklin Roosevelt, who at the request of merchant groups, set it up one week to the next-to-last Thursday to create a longer Christmas shopping season which he hoped might help stimulate the economy. The American public by the 1930s had widely accepted the last Thursday in November. Public uproar
against this decision caused the president to move Thanksgiving back to its original date only 2 years later. Congress in 1941 finally sanctioned Thanksgiving as a legal national holiday, as the fourth Thursday in November.
The view of that first thanksgiving evolved over time. It is clear that the success of the first English colony at Plimouth Plantation in Masssachusetts was in large part to the good will of the indians. A Wampanoag man, Squanto, taught the pilgtims how to plant maize using fish to fertalize the soil. The pilgrims did not have a lot of manure to fertilize the soil since they were able to bring so few animals with them on the Mayflower. But as bitter conflicts were fought with the indians through the 19th century, the figure of the beneloent Squanto and friendly indians in general has been played down. In the 20th century the role of the indians has been given much more positive treatment.
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