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History As It Happens
Evolution of Thanksgiving
00:48:11
Over the centuries, Thanksgiving traditions have changed with political, cultural, and religious winds. The holiday's mythic origins were propagated in the mid-nineteenth century, and soon Americans were all celebrating Thanksgiving on the fourth...
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- [00:00]
Martin DeCaro
History as it happens. November 26, 2024 Evolution of Thanksgiving.
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David Silverman
This Thanksgiving Day, we have much to be thankful for.
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Ronald Reagan
I wish that all we have cause to be thankful.
- [00:15]
David Silverman
So thankful on this Thanksgiving Day.
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Ronald Reagan
350 years ago, a small band of pilgrims, after gathering in their first harvest Plymouth Colony invited their friends and neighbors who were Indians, to join them.
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Frank James
Well, today I can announce that the American people have spoken and we have two win. Their names are Honest and Abe. I confess that Honest looks like good eating, but this is a democracy. Abe is now a free bird.
- [00:44]
Martin DeCaro
Days of Thanksgiving have been around longer than America and well before Americans started to celebrate the holiday on the fourth Thursday every November. Long before Thanksgiving meant football and parades and the star of the Christmas shopping season. There were autumn harvest festivals, family feasts and mythic memories. That's next as we report history as it happened. I'm Martin DeCaro. Well, the time has finally arrived.
- [01:07]
David Silverman
The parade has led to this moment.
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Martin DeCaro
Santa Claus has come to town.
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David Silverman
The Pontiac Silver Dome.
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Ronald Reagan
Thanksgiving Day. The Chicago Bears against the Lions.
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David Silverman
How about we just lop off the myth of pilgrims and Indians and just have a holiday where we get together with friends and family and offer thanks for what's good in our lives? It's a very easy exercise.
- [01:33]
Martin DeCaro
When and how we celebrate Thanksgiving has as much to do with a mid 19th century writer and magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale as it does a pilgrim named Edward Winslow. Maybe you know Hale as the author of the children's poem Mary Had a Little Lamb. She was also the first female magazine editor in America, in charge of the influential women's magazine Godey's ladies book. In 1827, she published a novel, Northwood. In it, she described the scene of what she called a Thanksgiving supper. A man at the head of the table surrounded by children, she wrote. The roasted turkey took precedence on this occasion, being placed at the head of the table, and well did it become its lordly station, sending forth the rich odor of its savory stuffing, and finely covered with the frost of the basting. At the foot of the board, a sirloin of beef, flanked on either side by a leg of pork and joint of mutton, seemed placed as a bastion to defend innumerable bowls of gravy and plates of vegetables disposed in that quarter. A goose and pair of ducklings occupied side stations on the table, the middle being graced, as it always is on such occasions, by that rich burgomaster of the provisions called a chicken pie. The pie, wrote Sarah Josefa Hale, was an indispensable part of a good and true Yankee Thanksgiving. Historian Ann Bluewill says Hale was a crusader, using her magazine to promote causes like women's education and to raise a monument to honor those who fought and died at Bunker Hill. Thanksgiving was another of her big concerns, Will says. Every November, Hale would focus her monthly column on thank Thanksgiving, positioning the celebration as a pious, patriotic holiday that lived on in the memory as a check against temptation or as a comfort in times of trial. Hale and Godey's Ladies book led the way in creating a standardized celebration, which in turn created a standardized celebrant, a standardized and true American. And in Hale's view, that was a white Protestant Northerner. Sarah Josepha Hale lobbied Congress and presidents to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday. It was already celebr celebrated in state holidays, and her effort paid off in 1863 with Abraham Lincoln. So what comes to mind when you celebrate Thanksgiving? Maybe it's a religious holiday for you. At least that's what days of Thanksgiving used to be about. People would thank God for a good harvest, for example. Or maybe Thanksgiving evokes patriotic feelings about American origins. I remember being taught about the Pilgrims and Indians in kindergarten, as if those Pilgrims were Founding Fathers. Or as if all Americans had a connection to those English separatists who landed at Plymouth rock in late 1620. Or maybe Thanksgiving is simply a day off from work to watch football and overeat with your family.
- [04:25]
Ronald Reagan
Happy Thanksgiving from the heart of Texas.
- [04:29]
David Silverman
Texas Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys, sold out on this Thanksgiving Day.
- [04:35]
Martin DeCaro
Every Thanksgiving tradition has a story behind it, an origin and a purpose. For instance, the Macy's parade. It's supposed to get you to go shopping as your kids shout for Santa, bringing up the rear of the parade, making his first appearance of the year, Santa Claus rides in his colossal emerald and golden sleigh. The myth of the first Thanksgiving had a purpose, a political and cultural one, as do efforts to shatter that myth. Thanksgiving has evolved over the centuries, religiously, politically, and culturally. David Silverman is a historian at George Washington University. He is an expert on colonial America and Native American history and the author of this Land Is Their Land. David Silverman, welcome back to the podcast.
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David Silverman
I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.
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Martin DeCaro
We've discussed some of these issues before, so I'm happy to have you back to talk about this, because isn't Thanksgiving still evolving, and if so, how I think it is?
- [05:32]
David Silverman
It certainly has become a secular holiday over the decades, you know, didn't originate as such. You know, I think in that way, it's run parallel to Halloween, you know, which most people don't think of as having any religious origins, even though that certainly is its beginnings. You know, I think the main way that it's evolving today is that a growing portion of society is becoming more aware of that the mythical story of pilgrims and Indians can't hold up to the truth of history. And that that myth does real damage to Native people, at least in terms of their lived experience during the holiday season. As such, they're dropping that kind of symbolism from the holiday. Yeah. I happen to think that's a positive development. Others might not, but it is in progress. The way that I have a sense of that development is I work regularly with primary and secondary school teachers and, you know, I teach them about the actual history of Thanksgiving, from the. The actual feast between Wampanoags and Plymouth colonists to the way that the nation has understood the holiday over the. Over the centuries. And what they've told me is that increasingly they are not holding, for instance, these Thanksgiving pageants that I participated in as a kid where school age children dress up as pilgrim Indians and make friends in a play they are no longer having. School age children produce holiday decorations of friendly pilgrims and Indians holding hands.
- [07:15]
Martin DeCaro
And Thanksgiving is a quintessential American holiday. But what it means to be an American has been and still is contested. It's always contested. I mean, that's part of this too, right?
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David Silverman
Without question, Thanksgiving is supposed to represent, at least in the lived experience of you and I. I mean, you know, we're men of a certain age. Right?
- [07:39]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah.
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David Silverman
And as.
- [07:40]
Martin DeCaro
Just don't tell anyone my age, but go ahead.
- [07:42]
David Silverman
Yeah. You know, as we were coming up, the story of Thanksgiving and the purpose of the Wampanoag or, or pilgrim and Indian story was to communicate this country as a bastion of pluralism, a melting pot, a place where peoples from different backgrounds could come together. Right. Out of many. One, as I mentioned in passing, that story can't stand up to history. But I think the moral of that story is a very positive one. But it's. Yes, it is contested.
- [08:19]
Martin DeCaro
You mentioned how for Native peoples there are some painful connotations or painful implications of that myth, but even though it's a myth, it has a positive force, if you will, a unifying or, you know, our origin stories are contested now. Right. 16, 19 project, whatever it might be, because we're living through a very polarized and contentious period. So it's no surprise that our origins are coming back into play. And there's a Debate over our origins. And, you know, every nation has an origin story that's based in part on fact, in part on myth, maybe even more on myth. But that does have a unifying power, a unifying force.
- [08:55]
David Silverman
Let me just offer a mild corrective here, which is that the nation's origin stories have always been contested. The difference is that nowadays the people who contest those origin stories, their voices are heard. That's the difference. In centuries past, it was very difficult for minority groups, or even just folks who were contrarian and dissenters, to have their voices heard on the national stage. That's no longer the case. You know, the upside of that is we are confronted with historical truths, uncomfortable as they may be, and it makes us, as adults, consider where we want to ground our patriotism. And I, you know, I would contend that our patriotism should be grounded in truth and not in falsehood. You know, the downside is it leads to a lot of contention.
- [09:45]
Martin DeCaro
We're not like other countries, say, from Europe, that their nationalism is centered around a single ethnicity or race, a single religion, language, culture. America has always been this roiling, diverse place since the very beginning, an amalgam of, you might say, European, African and native cultures. So any origin story that papers over those divisions, I guess, is one that isn't worth holding onto.
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David Silverman
That's right. I mean, we're a country the size of a continent with 300 plus million people. It's hard to unite that kind of sprawling mass.
- [10:20]
Martin DeCaro
Happy Thanksgiving, by the way, in advance. So let's talk about Thanksgiving then. Before there was a national holiday on the fourth Thursday every November, days of Thanksgiving were commonplace in all cultures. Right. Let's talk about native and European or English culture. We're talking about the context here of Plymouth. Were these days of Thanksgiving typically held in the autumn, or could it happen any time of year?
- [10:47]
David Silverman
Well, if we're Talking about the 17th century, so the 1600s, the period where we normally associate with the first Thanksgiving. Thanksgivings were episodic. In other words, you know, they were usually declared by a political community in response to some event that made them think that they should offer thanks to their spirits, or in the case of Christians, to God. You're offering thanks for the end to a drought, you're offering thanks for a victory in war, or sometimes you're praying for those things to happen. And so, you know, in the case of English colonists, or for that matter, the English state in Europe, governments would declare days of, of thanksgiving whenever they felt they were necessary. In the case of, of native people, it's a very similar kind of. Of pattern. There were certain rituals that were part of the regular calendar, but there were other rituals that the people created spontaneously in response to their needs of the time.
- [11:50]
Martin DeCaro
So we equate Thanksgiving celebrations today in the United States with the meal. You see family members. Maybe that's the only time you're going to see your Uncle Howie all year long. We travel long distances, we watch football, we. We reconnect in person. But it's all about the meal coming together to have that. Dinner was a meal, a family meal or maybe a village feast, the centerpiece of some of the early days of Thanksgiving. I know you said that they varied. Sometimes it could be celebration of a victory in battle or what, you know, New Englanders would have feasts during the autumn. Right. So when does the family meal become a centerpiece of all this?
- [12:30]
David Silverman
It's hard to say exactly. Nobody wrote about these matters in. In real time, but by appearances, it's in the 18th century. So the 1700s, Thanksgiving appears to become regularly held in late autumn, early winter, when the account books closed for the year. And keep in mind, there wasn't a lot of currency in the colonies, and so you would carry book debt with the local merchant and with your. Your neighbors, and you anted up at the end of the year after the harvest. That appears to be when Thanksgiving became regularly held.
- [13:11]
Martin DeCaro
We'll return to Plymouth in a moment. Sometimes I like to bounce around the chronology a little bit to keep my guests on their toes. George Washington, the president of. He declared the first national day of Thanksgiving for Thursday, November 11th. I think this was in 1789. What was that for?
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David Silverman
He declared it for the same reason essentially that Abraham Lincoln declared it during the Civil War. He wanted to cultivate national unity at a time of great division. You know, 1789 is right after the Constitution has finally gone into effect. And that was a very controversial process. There were enormous portions of the American population that were not in favor of the Constitution. They thought it made the federal government too strong. And there were many features of that strengthening of the federal government that they opposed. So he was trying to say, okay, we've been through this tumultuous, divisive political process. Let's now rally together as a country. I will note that the anti federalist faction, which had opposed the Constitution, also opposed his declaration of the day, Thanksgiving, because they thought, once again, the federal government assuming too much power. And they thought it was akin to a European monarchy rather than a democratic republic.
- [14:32]
Martin DeCaro
And then the next day on Fox and Msnbc they debated it. How can anyone be so disrespectful to George Washington? I'm just kidding. The reason I wanted to bounce ahead to Washington just for a moment, because I bet he said nothing about the Pilgrims.
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David Silverman
Oh, no, that wouldn't have occurred to him at all. The myth of the first Thanksgiving involving Pilgrims and Indians making friends hadn't developed yet.
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Martin DeCaro
Yet. That famous painting of the first Thanksgiving. We think of that first Thanksgiving, at least I do. I always think of that famous painting of the Pilgrims. There actually was a feast right between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in 1621. After a brutal winter. Many if not most of those Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth had died. Most of the women had died, so there weren't many of them left.
- [15:18]
David Silverman
And let's be clear, they didn't start with many people to begin with. There's only about 100 passengers on the Mayflower, so they're down to about 50 people by the time their first harvest comes in.
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Martin DeCaro
Wow. So that's why they decided to hold the feast. They survived and they had a successful harvest. Take us through it.
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David Silverman
Well, yeah, I mean, those are two of the main factors. The other reason is they have forged a successful alliance with surrounding native people. These colonists understood already because there was a decades long pattern of colonies failing. If you didn't create productive relationships with surrounding native people, or at least one powerful group of Native people, you were cooked, so to speak. Everything depended on those relationships. Feeding yourself, defending yourself, and not least of all, turning a profit. Because these early colonies depend on the fur trade with indigenous people. So Plymouth had successfully achieved that end. It was time to stop working. And these folks have been working very, very hard for a very long time and celebrate a little bit.
- [16:29]
Martin DeCaro
The Pilgrims in the Wampanoag, they were not strangers. They didn't just get to know each other. There had been a century of contact between Europeans and Indians.
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David Silverman
That's exactly right. So the first documented case of European Wampanoag contact is in 1524. Let's keep in mind here, this is only 30 years after Columbus's first voyage. So this is very, very early. Now, what happens in the intervening 75 years is very, very cloudy. Many of the accounts of these European voyages have gone missing. But what we do know is that again, from 1602 to 1619, there are regular annual contacts between Europeans of various nations. English, French, Portuguese and the Wampanoags. Sometimes there are several contacts per summer. So the Wampanoags have gotten used to these people over the years. Furthermore, There were a number of Wampanoags who had been to Europe, and at least two of them managed to come back. What happens during these, these explorations is, you know, usually the Europeans are trying to get a sense of what the coast looks like, who the people are, what resources are available. But some of them decide they're going to kidnap some of these native people. In some cases, the intention is to bring them back to Europe to train them as interpreters and guides for future voyages. In other cases, the point is just to sell them into slavery. Given that in both scenarios you're talking about kidnapping people, the Wabanogs had developed a deep distaste for these people. They thought they were ruthless, they thought they were underhanded. And so, you know, they're quite guarded when it comes to the next ship coming over the horizon.
- [18:22]
Martin DeCaro
So they could have wiped out the remaining pilgrims if they wanted to.
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David Silverman
They could have. And quite a number of them, it's clear from the documentary record, favored that very approach. The anti colonial Wampanoag faction was saying is, look, we know who these people are. Those of us you know, the couple of Wampanoags who have been to Europe and back tell us this place is teeming with more people than we can possibly conceive. They have enormous resources at their disposal. Let's not give them a beachhead. But the Wampanoag Sachem, or Chief Usamiquin, probably better known to your readers by his title Massasoit, said, look, we can use these people to our benefit with an alliance.
- [19:07]
Martin DeCaro
Right, against the Narragansett.
- [19:09]
David Silverman
That's right. So two things had happened that put the Wampanoags in a really desperate strait before 1620, which is when the Mayflower arrives. One is they had been decimated by an epidemic disease between 1616 and 1619, probably smallpox, but it's hard to say. Contemporaries just called it a plague. It wiped out some communities altogether and depopulated the Wampanoags by a factor that is unknown to us. It would appear to be, at minimum, 50% of the population. That's almost impossible to conceive what it's like to live under those circumstances. So that's emergency number one. Emergency number two is that the Wampanoag's enemies to the west, the Narraganset Trail tribe, took advantage of this dire condition of the Wampanoags to try to reduce them to tributary status. So when the Mayflower arrives, the Wampanoag leader, USA Miquin, has a choice to make. He can drive them off or he can try to harness them to his own ends. He can try to acquire their metal tools, their weapons, which are enormously potent, and their trade items, which will make him a stronger chief. It will draw his people together. And if he can also enlist their men to Wampanoag military aims, perhaps he can fend off the Narragansett. In the short term, his gamble is correct.
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Martin DeCaro
So how did this dinner come about? Was it planned in advance? Were invitations sent out?
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David Silverman
Right. So this is one of the aspects of the myth of the first Thanksgiving that most of the public gets wr. They imagine that the English invited the Wampanoags to this event. That is not what happened. The English are celebrating on their own. By appearances, the men decided to engage in some gunfire, celebratory gunfire. Now, the Wampanoags have an alliance with these people. They're supposed to come to the colony's aid in the event that it's attacked. Wampanoag tradition is they heard the gunfire, thought the colony was under attack, and the next thing you know, USA Mequin, the leader, and 90 men, 90 armed men show up at this tiny little colony. Now, keep in mind, total population in Plymouth is down to 50 people, and half of them were women and children. So they could have been wiped out in one fell swoop. If this had been a hostile Wampadog.
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Martin DeCaro
Party, well, that painting would have looked a lot different that I referred to.
- [21:47]
David Silverman
Oh, you bet. You know, the Wampanoags arrive, they discover there is no emergency, and they decide to stay. You know how. I don't know how happy the English were about them staying, because that's going to put a lot of pressure on their food stores. But the Wampanoags contribute several venison to the feast and hang around for a couple of days.
- [22:06]
Martin DeCaro
Edward Winslow. December 11, 1621. As far as I know, this is the only contemporary description of this feast that survives. But it had no. I'm going to get to what Winslow wrote. But it had no significance, right?
- [22:20]
David Silverman
I mean, nobody invoked it in future diplomacy. And the reason we know nobody thought it was all that important is that when Native people think an event in two foreign people's history is important, when they sit down to conduct diplomacy with the other party in the future, they always address that event. Well, they don't do that. The Wampanoags don't do that in their relations with the English from this point forward. Now, in the broader spectrum of things, the first Thanksgiving, if you will, was important insofar as it represented what the Wampanoags expected to be the norm. Which is to say that if the English were going to settle in Wampanoag country, then they had to welcome Wampanoag visitors whenever they showed up and treat them to generous hospitality. Now, as it turns out, that is not what happened. But in that respect, the first Thanksgiving stands out as an unmet Wampanoag expectation. They expected this to become a pattern. The English do not expect this to be a pattern.
- [23:30]
Martin DeCaro
So this is what Edward Winslow wrote about that initial dinner that, as you say, did not become a pattern for future harmonious relations. Our harvest being gotten in. Our governor sent four men on fowling. No, they were not playing basketball. He means foul, I guess, hunting for foul.
- [23:47]
David Silverman
Foul with a w. Yes.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, that. So we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labors. So he's referring to the harvest. They four in one day killed as much foul as with a little help aside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms. Now, he's not talking about bench pressing there, right? They're firing off their guns.
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David Silverman
They're firing off their guns, which is what brings the Wampanoags to the colony.
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Martin DeCaro
That's funny. When I go to the gym, I exercise my arms. I do not fire a weapon in the gym. He says, don't get you arrested.
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David Silverman
In Washington, D.C.
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Martin DeCaro
We exercised our arms. Many of the Indians coming against us and among the rest, their greatest King Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor and among the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you were partakers of our plenty. Now, who's he speaking to there? We wish you were partakers. This was a letter that was then published in England. So he's kind of. Winslow is reporting back to the home country to a friend in England. Right about how the colony is going, is that it?
- [25:10]
David Silverman
I actually believe it is a friend in the Netherlands. So the separatists, who are the Pilgrims? These are folks who believe that the Church of England had become so hopeless that they had to break away from it entirely, had moved to Leiden in the Netherlands to practice their faith without persecution by the English Crown. Plymouth colonists are a faction of that greater separatist community, and they want the rest of the separatists to join them.
- [25:41]
Martin DeCaro
And then apparently this letter was published in a magazine or I don't even if you would call it a newspaper. Morts Relation. M O U R T relation as in your relating the news, the official name or the full name of Mort's relation. You ready for this? A relation or journal of the beginning and proceedings of the English plantation settled at Plymouth in New England by certain English adventurers, both merchants and others, with a difficult passage, their safe arrival, their joyful building of and comfortable planting themselves in the now well defended town of New Plymouth. Mercifully that was shortened to morts relation.
- [26:22]
David Silverman
These 17th century English titles could be a paragraph or more long. All colonies produced accounts like this and you know, they serve two major purposes. One is to recruit more colonists. As you might might imagine, most Europeans are quite hesitant to brave the Atlantic crossing to settle in a place that they don't know among indigenous people, who they have deep prejudices about. The other point is to keep the finances coming. You know, they want the sponsors of these colonies to believe that the colonies are going to survive and thrive, which is to say, produce a return on their investment. These are business ventures after all.
- [27:09]
Martin DeCaro
That's right. They're religious and business ventures to the New World. Right. So nothing really comes, as we've discussed here, nothing comes of this feast as far as, you know, establishing a routine or a holiday every year. Yet there are Thanksgiving celebrations, especially in New England. Right. And they tend to take place in the autumn and they begin to spread to other parts of the colonies and eventually the new United States. Right. So beyond New England to the Midwest after the War of 1812, and they catch on in the Upper south in the 1840s. You used the word before episodic. But did these fairly regular end of year Thanksgiving celebrations have any reference to what had happened in 1621?
- [27:55]
David Silverman
They're born out of an English tradition in old England of thanksgivings. So you know, this event in Plymouth has nothing to do with the routine of late autumn, early winter thanksgivings that develop in the colonies and then in the United States. There's no relation between the two whatsoever.
- [28:17]
Martin DeCaro
What were these celebrations or holidays really? They probably were holidays. What were they like? Were they centered around the meal? Were they different in different parts of the country?
- [28:26]
David Silverman
They usually involve a church service, you know, a day of prayer, and then you get together with family and friends and you gorge yourself.
- [28:37]
Martin DeCaro
Did states establish Thanksgiving holidays long before there was a Federal one?
- [28:43]
David Silverman
Yes. And indeed, when Abraham Lincoln finally declared a national day of Thanksgiving during the Civil War. There was some dissent over the matter because some Americans said, look, this is a state matter. It's always been a state matter. You know, governors declare days of Thanksgiving, not the President of the United States. Even Lincoln had some hesitation about it because he said, look, this is effectively a religious holiday. You know, we have a tradition of separation of church and state in this country. The president shouldn't be getting involved in such matters.
- [29:17]
Martin DeCaro
He was lobbied to make that declaration. We're going to talk about Sarah Josepha Hale. Do we know what people typically ate during these Thanksgiving feasts? I'm guessing that it would depend on which part of the country you're talking about. Right.
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David Silverman
And it would depend on what was in your lotteries. So, yeah, I mean, turkey sometimes, ham at other times. Right. Roast beef at others. You know, what we consider to be a traditional Thanksgiving me was not the norm.
- [29:45]
Martin DeCaro
We have that image in our head of what a Thanksgiving dinner is supposed to look like. We can almost picture a turkey on the table with the pilgrims in the Wampanoag.
- [29:53]
David Silverman
Let me stress, you know, the, the meal that would have been featured at that 1621 event would not resemble a modern day Thanksgiving whatsoever. Now, they did have turkeys, there's no question about that. But as in the account that you read, it would have featured other fowl as well, ducks and geese. I'm all in favor, by the way, of bringing this back. It would have featured enormous amount of shellfish, clams, oysters, maybe even lobster. That sounds terrific to me. Certainly other types of fish, wild foods. But look, there would have been no butter. There would have been no cream. They don't have any cows in Plymouth at this point. There's no sugar at all. There's no flour right there. You can wipe out most of our side dishes and desserts.
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Martin DeCaro
You know, I've flirted with the idea over the years of cooking something different on Thanksgiving, but I. I feel like I can't. Right. You're supposed to have a turkey. Sorry for that digression.
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David Silverman
Listen, if you want to bring back the 1621 meal, serve eel.
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Martin DeCaro
Okay. They didn't have lasagna, apparently. All right, so we've been talking here about how it seems to have originated in New England, this idea of having a fall feast or church service, etc. Spreading to the Midwest and the Upper south. But in 1841, the Reverend Alexander Young, he discovers Winslow's account in a rare copy of mort's relation from 1622. 220 years later is this when the Pilgrims re. Enter the picture?
- [31:31]
David Silverman
Yes and no. It's when the notion that the 1621 feast was the first Thanksgiving enters the picture. And the reason is. Young added a footnote to the passage that you read earlier, in which he asserted this was the first Thanksgiving, the harvest festival of New England. Now, it's hard to say if anyone else had had such a notion before. If they had, they didn't document it, or at least we haven't found that document yet. As far as historians can tell, this is the first assertion that the 1621 feast was some kind of model for the. The American holiday. Now, the Pilgrims, they're an obscure religious sect who found a colony that in the scheme of things is really unimportant. You know, it's a colony that does give the English a beachhead in New England. But Plymouth is very quickly eclipsed by Massachusetts to the north, which by the end of the 17th century has annexed it. It. Plymouth is underpopulated. It's economically unimportant. It doesn't establish any cultural norms that influence other colonies. But in the late 18th century, so after the American Revolution, the town of Plymouth tried to drum up tourism by touting these Pilgrims, as they called them, as colonial founding fathers. And, you know, they said, look, you know, they established American democracy. And they're citing the Mayflower compound pact, which, by the way, is not responsible for American democracy. But that doesn't matter here. They say the Mayflower Compact is responsible for American democracy, that the Pilgrims established a principle of American religious freedom. Let's be clear, Pilgrims were not in favor of religious freedom for anyone else. They want to set up, you know, effectively their faith, which they believed as the true faith, as the only faith. So these Plymouth boosters start touting the Pilgrims as colonial founding fathers. That segues with Young's introduction of the first Thanksgiving to create this myth that we know today.
- [33:41]
Martin DeCaro
1841. Reverend Alexander Young. Hey, this was the first Thanksgiving. We're talking about history and myth here. But there's also customs that get established as well. And this is where Sarah Josepha Hale comes in, right with Godey's Ladies Book, which was a very popular magazine. I think the subscription was $3 a year.
- [34:00]
David Silverman
You should think of Hale as the oprah of the mid 19th century. I mean, she has an enormous cultural influence with this, this magazine that she. She publishes. She kind of sets the tone for white women's culture of the era.
- [34:17]
Martin DeCaro
So it really did have that much of an impact. Godey's Lady's Book.
- [34:21]
David Silverman
No Question about it.
- [34:22]
Martin DeCaro
Wow.
- [34:22]
David Silverman
Very broad circulation and, you know, she's the first woman of her kind to be at the helm of a mass media production of this sort.
- [34:31]
Martin DeCaro
I don't know a lot about her. I only recently became familiar with her name in the last year or two. Surprising we don't hear more about her. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. There's also the role of Protestant culture here, Right. Infusing or equating that idea of Thanksgiving with the story of the Pilgrims at a time when people from other parts of Europe are starting to come to the United States.
- [34:52]
David Silverman
Yeah. So, you know, the myth of the Pilgrims and the Indians making friends and the Indians then handing over their country peacefully to permit the creation of the United States, combined with the notion of the Pilgrims as colonial founding fathers is doing cultural work in the 19th century to address tensions that portions of the American society were experiencing. One of those tensions had to do with immigration. Right. Which is always a live political issue. It's not just now, it's always in the 19th century. The immigrants that the old Protestant guard were anxious about were Catholics, predominantly from Ireland and Germany. Touting the Pilgrims as colonial founding fathers allowed the old Protestant guard to assert Protestantism as the defining feature of United States culture.
- [35:59]
Martin DeCaro
Ronald Reagan gave a Thanksgiving Day radio address where he taps into that about the Pilgrims, basically equating them with all the bedrock Americans. These were the first Americans, and Reagan was great at conveying the power of those types of myths as a communicator.
- [36:14]
Ronald Reagan
My FELLOW Americans, over 350 years ago, a small band of Pilgrims, after gathering in their first harvest Plymouth Colony invited their friends and neighbors, who were Indians, to join them in a feast of thanksgiving. Together they sat around their bountiful table and bowed their heads in gratitude to the Lord for all he had bestowed upon them. This week, so many years later, we too will gather with family and friends and after saying grace, carve up a turkey, pass a around the cranberries and dressing, and later share slices of pumpkin pie.
- [36:44]
David Silverman
Think about what it does as a myth to focus on the Mayflower passengers within this mythic context. Right. So, one, you make the assertion that the country has a religious foundation, which is a very contested notion. Right. I mean, that is not an unproblematic assertion, but that's precisely what this association does. I think most importantly, what it does is it allows the country to imagine colonialism as a bloodless affair. Right. Indians and colonists make friends, have a feast together, and then what happens to the Indians? They just disappear. So you don't need to explain. Colonialism is a process of violent conquest. I mean, historians today are characterizing it, I think quite correctly, as genocide. Well, who wants to confront that? You bathe with this bloody history in positive myth. And that's precisely what was going on there.
- [37:43]
Martin DeCaro
So Lincoln proclaims Thanksgiving as a national holiday during the Civil War. I think it was 1863. Not sure if I'm getting my date right there. 1863. And Americans continue then to celebrate Thanksgiving every November 4th, Thursday. But it's not until the 20th century. Am I right, when Thanksgiving starts to become commercialized?
- [38:06]
David Silverman
Well, two things are happening in the late 19th and early 20th century that are turning Thanksgiving into something that would be familiar to us today. One is certainly, yes, commercialized. A lot of folks had Friday off after Thanksgiving. And very quickly, commercial establishments begin to realize they can draw in customers. Now, this is the era of the rise of the department store store. And so department stores begin having, effectively, Black Friday sales. And you could see reports of this in the newspapers from the early 20th century, where, for instance, the streets of New York, Boston or Chicago are flooded with shoppers. Colleges and high schools begin to hold football games with their primary rivals. That becomes a tradition. And not least of all, the public schools begin propagating the Thanksgiving myth. It's really the public schools that drive home that myth. You know, what they're trying to do in all this is inculcate students from very diverse backgrounds with the very principles that you mentioned Reagan articulating. And let me be clear about how pervasive this campaign is. It's even taking place in Native American boarding schools. Native American kids who have been seized from their families dress up like Pilgrims and Indians and tout the Pilgrims as their founding fathers. So, you know, this is really a national campaign.
- [39:43]
Martin DeCaro
Now, let's highlight a couple of the points you just made, David. 1876, the Intercollegiate Football association holds a Thanksgiving Day football game between Yale and the College of New Jersey, now Princeton in Hoboken, New Jersey. So that was the start of the college tradition. Now every Thanksgiving, it's the Lions and the Cowboys have home games. And the Lions are good now, so it's not a waste of three hours for us all. And in 1920, the first Thanksgiving Day parade is organized by the local department stores in Philadelphia on November 25th. Other cities and businesses follow suit, including Macy's in New York City. And Thanksgiving Day parades become a Thanksgiving tradition. I'm reading this from themayflowersociety.org to cite my sources, Thanksgiving today is Synonymous with what? The start of the Christmas shopping season.
- [40:36]
David Silverman
You know, during the Great Depression. Actually, FDR moves Thanksgiving to the third Thursday for a while to increase commerce, give a boost to the. The economy.
- [40:45]
Martin DeCaro
Retailers, now, they fool us into thinking you're actually getting a sale during this time.
- [40:49]
David Silverman
It should be illegal to erect a Christmas tree before. Before Thanksgiving. That's my. My own.
- [40:56]
Martin DeCaro
We have a small Christmas tree. I have nothing against Christmas trees, even though I'm an atheist. I put up a Christmas tree in my apartment every year, but we have one in our lobby already. It's not even Thanksgiving. Anyway, end of rant. Also, one other point about commercialization or just commercial commerce. 48 million turkeys are consumed on a typical Thanksgiving in the United States. 48 million.
- [41:17]
David Silverman
It's a bad week for turkeys.
- [41:18]
Martin DeCaro
Yes. I guess a couple are going to be pardoned at the White House. Last point here. We'll wrap up. And this kind of brings us full circle to what we were talking about at the beginning. The different meaning of Thanksgiving depending on who you are. 1970, the first day of mourning is held in Plymouth, Massachusetts. What was that about?
- [41:37]
David Silverman
Well, you know, 1970 is right in the midst of enormous cultural tumult in the United States. You know, there'd been a decade of clashes over black civil rights. And other marginalized groups in the United States were also standing up, based on the black civil rights model, to demand justice for their communities, too. And among them were Native people. This is the era of the Red Power movement of AIM or the American Indian Movement, which were confrontational activists. And so in that vein, Native people in New England thought it was high time to tell their version of Thanksgiving. And they're led by an Aquinnah Wampanoag named Frank James, who was an educator out on Cape Cod. And so what. What James organized was a protest to take place in Plymouth town on Thanksgiving Day on a hill where there's a statue of Massasoit overlooking a replica of the Mayflower ship. And the speech he gave explained to the crowd there, including Native people from all walks of. Of life, media and various onlookers, that Thanksgiving might be a day of celebration and patriotism for white Americans, but for Native people, it's a day in which they mourn what colonialism cost them and in which they mourned how disenfranchised they were in American society. And he wanted to give voice to that perspective and to try to encourage white Americans to think about that point of view. And so from that inception, this tradition has grown. There's a day of mourning protest in Plymouth every year there has been since 1970. Other Native people across the country have latched on to this idea. And some of them have a day of mourning on Thanksgiving. Others ignore the tradition. Others merge a traditional Thanksgiving with a moment of mournful reflection. I think the main point here is that just as Thanksgiving has been a day for white Americans to whitewash the memory of bloody colonialism, it's been a day for Native people to confront white Americans whitewashing it. They are part of this country, right? They didn't ask to be part of this country. It was foisted on them. But they are now full blown Americans. And you know, I will point out Native people have served in the American military in every single one of the United States wars and in disproportionate numbers from the American Revolution up to this time. Every Native American public ceremony begins with a color guard and an honoring of the veterans. So, you know, many Native people are, are deeply patriotic Americans, but they also know what this country has cost them. And so it creates a tension for them every year at Thanksgiving.
- [44:56]
Martin DeCaro
So for people who say, you know, politics permeates too many things today. You can't escape it. Why can't we just have a Thanksgiving without politics? It's not a political holiday. But you get my point.
- [45:08]
David Silverman
This is the fact of the matter. From this country's inception, right up to this very moment, the notion of pluralism is politicized. One portion of the country wants to embrace pluralism, the other rejects it. We're going to keep fighting about this. You know, we are a pluralistic country. I mean, there's, to me, there's no denying that. And the question is, are our national celebrations going to acknowledge that very fact and celebrate it, or are they going to continue to deny it it? I would prefer to see us embrace and celebrate it.
- [45:43]
Martin DeCaro
And I think fundamentally for me on what I think of on Thanksgiving is the first syllable of that word. I simply am grateful and thankful to be as lucky as I've been in life and to have people to share a meal with 100%.
- [45:56]
David Silverman
You know, my position on the relationship of the holiday to the myth is this. The myth is false history. And I think it's damaging history not just for Native people. I think for all of us. We all would be better off if we confronted the sheer awfulness of colonialism. But I don't think Thanksgiving's the time to do it. So how about we just lop off the myth of Pilgrims and Indians and just have a holiday where we get together with friends and family and offer thanks for what's good in our lives. It's a very easy exercise.
- [46:31]
Frank James
We remember the determined patriots who landed at the edge of the world in search of freedom. We give thanks to the brave men and women who defend that freedom in every corner of the world. And we honor all people, from the first Americans to our newest arrivals who continue to shape our nation's story, enrich our heritage and give meaning to our founding values. Values we must never take for granted that in America we are bound not by any one race or religion, but but rather an adherence to a common belief that all of us are created equal, that we may think and worship and speak and love as we please. That the gift of democracy is ours and ours alone to nurture and to protect. Never doubt. That is what makes us American. Not where we come from or what we look like or what faith we practice, but the ideals to which we pledge our allegiance. It's about our capacity to live up to the creed as old as our founding E Pluribus Unum that out of many we are one.
- [47:37]
Martin DeCaro
On the next episode of History as it happens, the results of the election led to hundreds if not thousands of soul searching pieces. What has happened to the Democratic Party? We're going to step away from small bore analysis and ask a different question. Question what is behind the crisis of liberalism? My guest will be Daniel Besner of the American Prestige Podcast. That is next as we report history as it happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter sign up free at historyasithappens. Com.