The Mother of Thanksgiving

Summary

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Throughline – "The Mother of Thanksgiving"

NPR | Aired: November 27, 2025
Hosts: Rund Abdelfattah & Ramtin Arablouei

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Episode Overview

This episode of Throughline explores the true origins and evolution of Thanksgiving, revisiting its often-mythologized beginnings and spotlighting the woman who shaped the modern holiday—Sarah Josepha Hale, the so-called "Mother of Thanksgiving." Through interviews with historians, Native voices, and readings from historical texts, the episode unpacks the historical realities that have been obscured by the Thanksgiving myth, the role of national storytelling in shaping identity, and the ongoing consequences of these narratives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Myth of the First Thanksgiving

• The Traditional Story:
  Common narrative: English Pilgrims and Wampanoags came together for a peaceful meal in 1621.

  “The suggestion is that the two parties got together for this feast out of innate friendship.”
  — Expert Historian [02:03]

• Historical Reality:
  Wampanoags vastly outnumbered the struggling English settlers, who were simply trying to survive.

  “The Wampanoags outnumber them by a factor of at minimum 20 to 1. So the Wampanoags are the bosses here.”
  — David Silverman, Historian [02:44]

• Context Ignored:
  The common framing erases the complexities and power dynamics and ultimately the ensuing violence and dispossession.

  “Remembering this meeting is just about friendship and gratitude actually robs this very real event of all of its historical context.”
  — David Silverman [03:19]

2. War, Dispossession, and the Dark Side of the Story

• King Philip's War (1675):
  Over half a century after the so-called “First Thanksgiving,” violence erupts between the English and Wampanoags, leading to mass casualties, enslavement, and land loss for Indigenous peoples.
• Thanksgiving for Victory:
  The English settlers celebrated a “Thanksgiving” for their victory over Indigenous people, not for peace.

  “Let’s be clear. They kill thousands of them.”
  — Expert Historian [05:36]
  “Plymouth in Massachusetts, they hold the Thanksgiving for their victory over the native people.”
  — Expert Historian [06:42]

• Native Perspective:

  “Tribal nations are so. Such a tiny portion of the population—that’s not by accident. And nobody talks about you except when there’s a butterball on the table.”
  — Elizabeth James Perry, Aquinnah Wampanoag [06:48]

3. Sarah Josepha Hale: The Mother of Thanksgiving

[Part 1: Hale’s Crusade – 12:22]

• Background:
  Born in 1788, New Hampshire; unusually well-educated for her time thanks to mother and brother [12:49–13:00].
• Widowhood and Independence:

  “Her life was crumbling around her... Mrs. Hale nearly penniless... the tradition of the time was... her children were parceled off to relatives and she didn’t want to do that.”
  — Melanie Kirkpatrick [14:44]

• Writing and Influence:
  Wrote one of the first anti-slavery novels, Northwood (1827). Opposed slavery but believed in “repatriation” of free Blacks to Africa. Became editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, a defining women’s magazine of the era [15:21–19:22].
• Her Mission:

  “She thought... the new country needed its own stories. They needed something to coalesce around. And for Sarah, there was no better day to coalesce around than... Thanksgiving.”
  — Melanie Kirkpatrick [20:26]

• Thanksgiving as National Unifier:

  “Everything that contributes to bind us in one vast empire together... makes us feel from the icy north to the sunny south that we are one family...”
  — Sarah Josepha Hale (read by narrator) [20:56]

4. The Campaign for a National Holiday

[Part 2: One Heart, One Voice – 24:06]

• Cultural and Political Divide:
  As the nation hurtled toward Civil War, Hale pushed harder—writing hundreds of personal letters to governors and presidents, running editorials and Thanksgiving recipes, and arguing for unity [27:24–28:28].
• Resistance:
  Southern politicians rejected her crusade, seeing Thanksgiving as a “Yankee” holiday with abolitionist undertones.

  “...basically it was a damned Yankee holiday.”
  — Melanie Kirkpatrick quoting Virginia’s governor [31:03]

• Persistence Pays Off:
  After the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, Hale writes President Lincoln again.

  “Just five days after reading Hale’s letter... Lincoln agreed and issued a proclamation making Thanksgiving a national holiday.”
  — Melanie Kirkpatrick [34:07–34:15]

• Lincoln’s Call for Unity:

  “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens... to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving.”
  — Abraham Lincoln (read by Expert Historian) [34:24]

• Legacy:

  “It was Lincoln’s decision in 1863 that started the tradition of a national thanksgiving that continues to this day.”
  — Melanie Kirkpatrick [35:31]

5. The Birth and Spread of the Thanksgiving Myth

[Part 3: The Thanksgiving Myth – 37:33]

• Disconnect from Early Narratives:

  “As early as 1769, New Englanders began celebrating what they called Forefathers Day… But already in 1836, William Apess was poking holes in that story.”
  — Rund Abdelfattah [40:23]

• The Myth’s Genesis:

  “In the 1840s, a minister in New England... publishes one of the primary sources that documents that feast... and he adds a footnote: ‘This was the first Thanksgiving.’”
  — Expert Historian [41:47]

• Nationalization Post-Civil War:
  The footnote launches the potent myth; by the early 1900s, “Pilgrims and Indians” celebrations dominated school curricula, reinforced by influential paintings like Jean Leon Gerome Ferris’ “The First Thanksgiving” [43:28–44:58].

• Myth vs. Reality:

  “It’s a whitewash of the bloodiness, of the ruthlessness of colonialism.”
  — Expert Historian [45:31]

6. The Wampanoag Perspective and Survival

• The Real Stories:
  Wampanoag communities, despite centuries of removal, division, and legal undermining, maintain their history and culture, sharing family stories and humor.

  “And when you’re a tribe for thousands of years, just because some guy goes, ‘Oh, you’re not.’ It doesn’t mean you stop.”
  — Elizabeth James Perry [47:10]

• Thanksgiving in Wampanoag Memory:
  For Elizabeth’s family, “Turkey wasn’t new for us. Cranberries weren’t new. I don’t know what to say. New England wasn’t new. I mean, we kind of like, yeah... we’re kind of from here.” [47:34–48:29]

7. Rethinking Historical Memory and Identity

• History, Guilt, and National Myths:

  “History is not about trying to make people feel guilty or ashamed, patriotic or unpatriotic. It’s designed to capture a complex past in all its complexity. National celebrations are another kettle of fish… There will never be unity around complex historical subjects.”
  — Expert Historian [49:10–49:33]

• Thanksgiving’s Role Today:
  Viewpoints diverge—whether Thanksgiving is a time for honest reckoning or a problematic erasure, and whether it can or should invoke "Pilgrims and Indians" at all.

  “I would prefer to see Thanksgiving continue without invoking Pilgrims and Indians at all. I don’t trust any ritual to capture complexities of any sort, never mind violent complexities…”
  — Expert Historian [50:28]

• Hale’s Final Thoughts:

  “This idea was very near to my heart, for I believed that this celebration would be a bond of union throughout our country as well as a source of happiness in the homes of the people.”
  — Sarah Josepha Hale (read by narrator) [51:59]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The funeral-faced month of November is thus made to wear a garland of joy.”
  — Narrator (Historical Text) [00:53]

• “You don’t really know why.”
  — Elizabeth James Perry, on the surreal narrative of the ‘First Thanksgiving’ [02:10]

• “Let the children of the Pilgrims blush. Let the day be dark… the 22nd of December and the 4th of July are days of mourning and not of joy.”
  — William Apess, Pequot minister (read by Expert Historian) [40:50]

• “Turkey wasn’t new for us. Cranberries weren’t new. I don’t know what to say. New England wasn’t new. I mean, we kind of like, yeah… we’re kind of from here.”
  — Elizabeth James Perry [47:34–48:29]

• “We’re indoctrinated with this idea as children and then we’re never asked to revisit it as we become more mature and capable of complex thoughts.”
  — Expert Historian [50:28]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & Purpose of Episode: 00:15–01:38
• Traditional Thanksgiving Story & Historical Reality: 01:38–03:32
• King Philip’s War & Ongoing Violence: 03:32–07:17
• Birth of Thanksgiving as National Holiday: 08:00–10:04
• Sarah Josepha Hale’s Early Life and Advocacy: 12:22–22:07
• Her National Campaign & Civil War Context: 24:06–35:42
• Thanksgiving Myth Formation: 37:33–46:01
• Wampanoag Memory & Contemporary Reflection: 46:17–49:04
• Complexities of History and National Identity: 49:04–51:59
• Sarah Josepha Hale’s Legacy: 51:47–51:59

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Conclusion

Throughline’s “The Mother of Thanksgiving” interrogates the roots and realities of Thanksgiving—from its misunderstood origins to the conscious national mythmaking that helped shape America’s sense of itself. The episode reveals lost context, tells the story of persistent women’s agency, and invites us to reflect on both the function and the cost of our unifying traditions. Thanksgiving, it turns out, is much more than turkey, pie, or myth—it is a mirror of the stories we choose to tell, and those we choose to forget.

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Transcript

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

Hey, it's rund. We know that as we head into the holiday season, there are always a lot of think pieces about what it all means, especially Thanksgiving. And when we started looking into it, we found a story we had actually never heard before. We first ran this story last year and we think it's very timely now. We hope you enjoy this throughline Thanksgiving tale.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Our good ancestors were wise even in their mirth. We have a standing proof of this in the season they chose for the celebration of our annual festival, the Thanksgiving. The funeral faced month of November is thus made to wear a garland of joy.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Let me tell you a story of Thanksgiving, the traditional one. In 1621, when the English colonists now known as the Pilgrims, were newcomers to.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

This continent, there was a major feast between the Wampanoags and the English of Plymouth. That's a very real event, the event.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

That'S now called the First Thanksgiving.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The suggestion is that the two parties got together for this feast out of innate friendship.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

It's this odd little frozen in time fantasy moment of folks getting together and eating, but you don't really know why.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Elizabeth James Perry.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

I'm a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe of Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard, and I'm an artist and I'm an exhibit consultant as well.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

She says that when the English first.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

Arrived, they were small in number, they were newcomers, and they were struggling badly because they weren't necessarily all farmers back where they came from either.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

All these Englishmen are trying to do is survive. The Wampanoags outnumber them by a factor of at minimum 20 to 1. So the Wampanoags are the bosses here.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is David Silverman.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

I'm professor of history at George Washington.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

University and he's also the author of.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The book this Land Is Their Land, the Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

David says remembering this meeting is just about friendship and gratitude actually robs this.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Very real event of all of its historical context.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Now let me tell you another Thanksgiving story. This one happens more than 50 years later in June of 1675. The indigenous Wampanoag people of what is now southern New England were on the brink of war with the English colonists of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The descendants of those Pilgrims Metacom a Wampanoag chief met with Rhode Island's attorney general.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

What he said was, you know, when.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

My father, a chief named USA Miquin.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Met your ancestors, the Plymouth colonists, he was a great man, and you were a little child, and he gave you land to live on. More land than we, the Wampanoags, have today. He taught you how to plant. He taught you where to fish. But now here we are, 50 plus years later. Now you're the great man and we're the little child, and you don't treat us with that kind of respect. That's why I'm going to ward.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Make ready.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Present.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Fire.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The odds are really stacked a tribe. They top out at 15,000 people. England is 5 million people.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

It would come to be known as King Philip's War, the name the English colonists gave the Wampanoag chief, Metacom. But the English show the Wampanoag and their allies very little respect.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Let's be clear. They kill thousands of them.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And enslave.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Many more and sell them off to the Caribbean and to the Mediterranean.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The war goes on for nearly three.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Years.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And the colonists win. But a military captain named Benjamin Church isn't finished.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

He orders the head of King Philip.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Wampanoag chief Metacom to be decapitated and.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

His head piked outside of Plymouth Colony. And it stays there for 20 years. This is the very site where that feast took place.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The first Thanksgiving in 1621.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Afterwards, Plymouth in Massachusetts, they hold the Thanksgiving for their victory over the native people.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

Tribal nations are so. Such a tiny portion of the population, that's not by accident. And nobody talks about you except when there's a butterball on the table.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Mmm.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Turkey and dressing and pie and cake.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Turkey or no turkey, we've still got.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

All the freedoms and privileges the Pilgrims gave us. And out of those privileges, and have come a lot of things, things the Pilgrims never even dreamed of.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Now let me tell you a third story of Thanksgiving, one that's very different and that you may have never heard.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Nearly two centuries after King Philip's War in 1863, a darkness had set over the Union. The Confederate army was advancing into Pennsylvania, threatening places like Philadelphia and Baltimore.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To the latest generation, the country was as divided as it had ever been. War and destruction was everywhere. Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

We of this Congress and administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. Abraham Lincoln.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And in this moment, a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale sent President Abraham Lincoln a letter.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Sir, permit me, as editress of the Ladies Book, to request a few minutes of your precious time while laying before you a subject of deep interest to myself and, as I trust, even to the president of our Republic. Of some importance, this subject is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a national and fixed Union festival.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The reason we celebrate Thanksgiving as we do today is because of this letter from Sarah Josefa Hale. It was her dream, her belief in our need for a national unifying story to bind us together. But what is that story? How did it come together? And what does it leave out?

[Rund Abdelfattah]

I'm Rund Abdelfattah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And I'm Ramtin Arablouei on this episode of Throughline from npr, the mother of Thanksgiving. Hi, my name is Ginny and I'm from Connecticut. And if you want to be more.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Interested at parties, you should do what.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I do and listen to Throughline from npr.

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[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Part one hale's crusade.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in New Hampshire in 1788, not too far away from where the Pilgrims first landed.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

She was the daughter of Revolutionary War.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Heroes at a time when many women couldn't read. Sarah had access to plenty of education.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Thanks to a mother who homeschooled her and a brother who went off to Dartmouth and then came home and taught her everything he knew.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is Melanie Kirkpatrick.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

I'm a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Melanie also wrote a book called Lady Editor, which is a biography of Sarah Josepha Hale.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

I owe my early predilection for literary pursuits to the teaching and example of my mother. She possessed a mind clear as rock water and a most happy talent of communicating knowledge.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Sarah really loved to read and she taught herself a lot of things too.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

She wrote poetry, she wrote essays. She was just obsessed with writing.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

She was probably one of the most highly educated women of the first quarter of the 19th century.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

When she was 25, she married a local lawyer named David Hale.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Very happily.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

We commenced, soon after our marriage, a system of study and reading. It seemed the aim of my husband to enlighten my reason, strengthen my judgment and give me confidence in my own powers of mind, which he estimated much higher than I.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Her husband helped her develop her style and he also helped her get poetry published in local newspapers.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

They had a quiet, idyllic marriage for.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Eight years and then he died suddenly, leaving her with four children and a fifth on the way.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Her life was crumbling around her.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

They were relatively well off, but they didn't have any savings. So here was Mrs. Hale nearly penniless. And the tradition of the time was when that happened to a woman, that her children were parceled off to relatives and she didn't want to do that.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Desperate to keep her family together, Hale started a business with her sister in law making hats.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

And she hated it.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

So she poured her energy into writing and publishing prose poems and short stories.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

And then she wrote a novel which was an anti slavery novel. It came out in 1827.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The novel was called Northwood, A tale of New England.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

The southern slaveholder is as absolute in his dominions or plantation rather as the grand senior.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is a passage from the novel describing life on a southern plantation.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

It's the story of a boy from a hometown that seems very similar to the one she grew up in, whose parents effectively give him to relatives in the south who don't have any children. They're rich and give him lots of benefits that he wouldn't otherwise Have.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And eventually this main character writes back to his hometown in the north and tells everyone exactly what he saw in the South.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

The change of masters is frequently a terrible evil to the poor slave. And that system must be inhuman and unjust.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

It's clear that the author and the main character believe that slavery is wrong.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Now. Sarah also used her main character to argue that the best thing for black Americans would be to return to Africa. She believed total separation of the races was the only way out of a system of domination which subjects man to.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

The occurrence of such an outrage.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Even though she'd never been to the south herself, Sarah's portrayal of life there struck a nerve with readers. Northwood was a big hit and one of the first anti slavery novels of its kind.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

It kind of made her reputation among a group of intellectuals in Boston, including one man who was starting up a magazine for women. And he asked her out of the blue if she would come to Boston to edit it.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

It was called Ladies Magazine.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

It was a very difficult decision for her because she would have to leave four of her children behind. She took the baby with her. Also. She was chastised by people for thinking that she could maintain her family, make enough money to maintain her family. It was wrong to go off and become a professional.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And there were some people who doubted that a magazine geared towards women could gain a big following.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

In 1828, when her magazine debuted, half of American women were illiterate.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But Sarah didn't let any of that get in her way. She moved to Boston and accepted the job at Ladies magazine. And her gamble paid off. The magazine was a hit and soon merged with another magazine to become Godey's Lady's Book, based in Philadelphia.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

And it was once she became the editor, or she preferred the term editress of Godey's Ladies Book that things really took off for her. She expanded her focus to culinary things. She also wrote about art and architecture. She reviewed many books.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

The Ladies Book was the first avowed advocate of the holy cause of women's intellectual progress. It has been the pioneer in the wonderful change of public sentiment respecting female education and the employment of female talent in educating the young.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Godey's achieved popular and critical success. Sarah's writing was praised by Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

She became very famous. She became a celebrity in 19th century America. So much so that there was a phrase, Mrs. Hale says, meaning that she was like the arbiter of behavior and housekeeping and education and culinary issues.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Like, almost like, I dare say this, but it's given me like Oprah vibes. Like OPRAH in the 90s vibes. Yes.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Very, very similar. She really connected with people, and she had a fabulous sense of what was important and what wasn't important.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Sarah used her platform to push for the things she believed in. She supported women's education, though not women's suffrage. She opposed slavery and thought free black people should be repatriated to Africa. And she had a vision for creating a united national culture.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

She thought that the revolution had united the American colonies politically, but not culturally, and that the new country needed to develop its own culture and the new country needed its own stories. They needed something to coalesce around.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And for Sarah, there was no better day to coalesce around than her favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Everything that contributes to bind us in one vast empire together, to quicken the sympathy that makes us feel from the icy north to the sunny south, that we are one family, each a member of a great and free nation, not merely the unit of a remote locality, is worthy of being cherished.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Thanksgiving in the early to mid-1800s was mostly celebrated in Northern states and generally on different days. It was not a national holiday, and Sarah wanted to change that.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

She thought that if we could all come together and celebrate on the same day, that would help to bring Americans together.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

There is a deep moral influence in these periodical seasons of rejoicing in which a whole community participates. They bring out and together, as it were, the best sympathies of our nature.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

And as the Civil War approached, she also had the hope that it would forestall war.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

We believe our Thanksgiving Day, if fixed and perpetuated, will be a great and sanctifying promoter of this national spirit.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Coming up, Sarah takes her appeal all the way to the top.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

My name is Fredston Deservines from Silver Spring, Maryland, and you're listening to through Line from npr. The reason why I love Throughline is because it really does illuminate and also debunk a lot of myths in American history that we once thought to be true.

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[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Part 2 One.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Heart, One Voice.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

On a farm in Maryland, a group of 22 men, some of them enslaved and some of them not, hide in an attic. They spend their days reading, writing letters, cleaning their rifles, waiting. Then, on October 16, 1859, their leader, a white abolitionist named John Brown, gathers them together. He prays with them. Then afterwards says, men, get on your arms. We'll proceed to the ferry. They start a five mile march towards a Virginia town called Harper's Ferry. They plan to capture the federal armory there and start a massive revolt against slavery. Within just a couple of hours, John Brown's forces take control of two bridges, the armory and a rifle factory. They take slave owners and armory employees hostage. I have possession now of the United.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

States Armory, and if the citizens interfere.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

With me, I must only burn the.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Town and have blood.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Eventually, US Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee arrive. Brown's men are surrounded. The Marines storm the armory. If you die, you die in a good cause. Several of John Brown's men are killed, including his own son. Those who haven't escaped are captured fighting for liberty. John Brown is tried and later hanged. If you must die, die like a man. Even though John Brown's raid failed, it caused shock waves in Virginia and beyond. It amplified the tension between north and south over the question of slavery. The following year, the country would elect Abraham Lincoln, and soon Southern states would start to secede.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

If every state should join in Union Thanksgiving on the 24th of this month, would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The same year of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, as the country was barreling towards Civil War, Sarah Josefa Hale had been using her powerful pulpit as editor of one of the country's most read magazines, Godey's Ladies Book, reaching around a million readers from north to south, arguing that Thanksgiving could unite the country.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

The flag of our country now numbers 32 stars on its crown of blue and some half dozen or more additional starlets are shining out of the depths of our wilderness continent.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Sarah Josepha Hale had been on a mission to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Before the Civil War. It was celebrated by most states across the country. But when and if it was celebrated was decided by the governors of each state.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

At first she thought if she could just get the governors all to agree on a date, that would be good enough.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So for years leading up to the Civil War, Godey's ladies book ran editorials and recipes and stories about Thanksgiving. And she was making the argument that an annual holiday would be good for everyone. The poor.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action by sending good gifts to the poor. The depressed wasting despondency cripples the feeble limbs prisoners. Even the poor prisoner is cheered in his solitary cell.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But she knew the audience of a women's magazine wouldn't be enough. She had to convince the men in power.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

She had a huge network and she would handwrite personal letters to governors.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Will you use the influence of your high official status congressmen to establish the last Thursday in November, members of the Senate, the annual American Thanksgiving, trying to.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Get their support for her idea of a national holiday? And she did have success. She got many of the governors to agree on a given date, but not all of them. So then she thought that the better idea would be to get the president to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So she made her case again and again. And at first the response from lawmakers.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Was, we love this idea, but no, the Constitution won't let us do it.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

There were two main objections.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

They believed it wasn't a federal responsibility, it was the state responsibility. And second, that it was a religious matter. Thanksgiving day was a religious holiday and therefore the president needs to stay out of it.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But remember, this was happening during the buildup to the Civil War. So of course, Thanksgiving did become political.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

This theatrical national clap trap of Thanksgiving has aided other causes in setting thousands of pulpits to preaching Christian politics instead of humbly letting the carnal kingdom alone.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The southern governor of Virginia, Henry Wise, wrote back to Sarah Josepha Hale in 1856 after receiving one of her letters about making Thanksgiving a national holiday.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

And he replied saying that basically it was a damned Yankee holiday that you had preachers in the north preaching abolitionism, which was political.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Some southerners feared that Thanksgiving could be a Trojan horse for abolitionism. I mean, there were examples of ministers in New England preaching abolitionist messages.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

That Virginia governor was correct that the anti slavery movement was very Closely connected to religion. Needless to say, Virginia didn't celebrate thanksgiving that year.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But Sarah Josepha hale didn't necessarily believe thanksgiving would end slavery. She thought it could prevent a civil war.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Such social rejoicings tend greatly to expand the generous feelings of our nature and strengthen the bond of union that binds us brothers and sisters, in that true sympathy of american patriotism.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Hale seemed to genuinely believe that if americans could just get together on thanksgiving and get back in touch with the founding values of this country, they could resolve their differences. But despite all her efforts, Thanksgiving didn't become a national holiday. And beginning in 1860, 11 Southern states seceded. The Confederacy formed the Civil War. Be. 1863 was a hard year for abraham lincoln. Tens of thousands of people had already died in a civil war. The confederate army had notched a couple of major victories. And in june of that year, the confederate general Robert e. Lee began invading the union state of Pennsylvania. One battle would help turn the tide of the war. Over the course of three days in July, tens of thousands of union and confederate soldiers fought on a field in palace, Pennsylvania, near a town called gettysburg. There were more than 50,000 casualties. But in the end, the union beat the confederate army back, and they retreated to the south, where they would lose the war. Gettysburg was considered a major turning point and victory for the north. And this is where Sarah Josepha hale comes back in our story.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

So finally, in 1863, she wrote to.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Lincoln, sir, permit me, as editress of the ladies book, to request a few minutes of your precious time.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Just five days after reading hale's letter.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Lincoln agreed and issued a proclamation making.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Thanksgiving a national holiday.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United states and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of november next as a day of thanksgiving.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Abraham lincoln, he asked americans to come together with one heart and one voice. And he was again talking about northerners and southerners stopping the war and moving toward peace and reunification.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Thanksgiving would be celebrated in local hospitals where soldiers were recovering from their wounds. They would be served turkey, goose, ham, chicken pie, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

It energized people in the north. It was the message, come on, we just have to keep at it. We're going to win this war.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And the union did win. In 1865, the Confederates surrendered, and Lincoln was assassinated.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

It was Lincoln's decision in 1863 that started the tradition of a national thanksgiving that continues to this day.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Sarah Josepha Hale's years of persistence had paid off.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

Let us see to it that on this one day there shall be no family or individual within the compass of our means to help who shall not have some portion prepared and some reason to join in the general Thanksgiving Coming.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Up after the Thanksgiving holiday is established, the Thanksgiving myth takes hold. Hello, I am Zico and I am.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

From Rockville, Maryland, and you are listening.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To Throughline from npr.

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[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

Part 3 the Thanksgiving My.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

I do not arise to spread before you the fame of a noted warrior. There are many who are said to be honorable warriors who think it no crime to wreak their vengeance upon whole nations and communities until the fields are covered with blood and the rivers turned into purple fountains while a loud response is heard floating through the air from the 10,000 Indian Children and orphans who are left to mourn the honorable acts of a few civilized men.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

William APIs lifts his eyes up from his speech. More than a thousand auditorium seats rise in a circle around him. APIs stares into the audience. A sea of white Northerners stares back. It's 1836, 25 years before the start of the Civil War, more than two centuries after the Wampanoag leader USA Miquin and the Pilgrims in Plymouth shared a meal and signed a peace treaty. And William APIs, a Pequot minister and orator, is spelling out for a theater full of Bostonians what happened next. How the Pilgrims came to the Wampanoags for help. How the Wampanoags gave them venison and sold them corn.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

And for all this they were denounced as being savages by those who received all these acts of kindness.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Northeasterners know about the cruelties happening against Native Americans in other parts of the country. The Trail of Tears, the violence on the Great Plain. But they aren't used to seeing themselves as part of the problem.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The epicenter for criticism of the United States violent approach to subjugating Native people is New England.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is historian David Silverman.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

If you want a critique of the evils of the United states in the 19th century, it is almost always going to come out of Boston in the 19th century. The criticism of US Indian affairs coming out of New England is very, very sharp. As part of that positioning, New Englanders style their region as free of the national sins of violent Indian affairs and slavery. Neither of which is true.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

As early as 1769, New Englanders began celebrating what they called forefathers day. On December 22, the anniversary of the day the Pilgrims made landfall at Plymouth Rock, they were honoring what New Englanders were building up as a foundational moment in the American story. But already in 1836, William APIs was poking holes in that story.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Let the children of the Pilgrims blush. Let the day be dark. Let it be forgotten in your celebration, in your speeches, and by the burying of the rock that your fathers first put their foot upon. For the 22nd of December and the 4th of July are days of mourning and not of joy.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

You'll notice that APIs does not name check Thanksgiving. And that's because in 1836, most Americans didn't know about the mythical meeting between the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims. They didn't have an image in their head of everyone getting together around a big turkey and holding hands. That story wasn't part of American lore. Yet.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

When does the element of this sort of friendship and handshaking between the native people and the European settlers emerge as the story of Thanksgiving?

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

In the 1840s, a minister in New England publishes one of the two primary sources that documents that feast between the Wampanoags and the Plymouth colonists. And to that primary source account, he adds a footnote. And the footnote read, this was the first Thanksgiving.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Wow.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Now, as far as we can tell up to that point, no one is talking about friendly Indians and Pilgrims during celebrations of Thanksgiving in the 1600s, 1700s, or even early 1800s. But with that footnote, the myth starts to grow over time. It then really takes hold in American society. After Abraham Lincoln declares Thanksgiving to be a national holiday during the Civil War.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Lincoln's 1863 proclamation meant that Americans got into the habit of celebrating Thanksgiving every year on the same day. But the first national Thanksgivings in the wake of the Civil War were rocky. Sarah Josepha Hale, as editor of the widely popular Godey's Ladies Book magazine, dedicated a lot of real estate to her Thanksgiving columns, selling Southern women on the holiday.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

When joining in prayers for the same blessings and in thanksgivings for the same good gifts of the season, can Americans feel otherwise than as brethren whose interests are united, whose aims should be to ennoble their common country, whose lives, liberties, and fortunes are safe only under the same glorious flag?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But while Sarah Josepha Hale kept writing about a holiday that revolved around pie, family, and faith, outside Godey's Lady's book, Thanksgiving was starting to take on a life of its own. The holiday was amassing new spokespeople, and by the late 1800s and early 1900s, those people were increasingly looking to the rediscovered story about the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims for inspiration. In 1912, a painter named Jean Leon Jerome Ferris finished one of the most famous works of his career, an oil painting called the First Thanksgiving.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

The mythologized Thanksgiving, the one most of.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Us were taught in school.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Pilgrims and Indians making friends.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In the paintings, a group of white English settlers stands around a table. To their left, a group of Native Americans are sitting on the ground next to the family dog. They're not wearing traditional Wampanoag clothing, but instead what Ferris imagined they would wear, feather headdresses and decorative beads. An English settler, a woman, holds a tray of food in front of a native man. He ran reaches for a loaf of bread.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

To have Europeans sitting at a table and Native people sitting on the ground is designed to accentuate that the English are civilized and that the natives are savage. And that's a basic binary that has shaped white Americans views of themselves and of indigenous people, really, for 400 years.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

By the early 1900s, acting out that fantasy had become part of the curriculum at many schools.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

There are black and white photos all over from the early 20th century. You know, in the US you'll see the kids in plains feathered headdresses and these pilgrim costumes, which have these obscenely large buckles on every conceivable article of clothing. It's a whitewash of the bloodiness of the ruthlessness of colonialism.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Around the time where this myth that we've been talking about so hard has started to take hold about Thanksgiving. What were the lives of actual descendants of those people from the 1600s, the Wampanoag people? What were their Lives like in the early 1900s.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

I can talk about my family.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is Aquinnah Wampanoag artist and educator Elizabeth James Perry.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

My great grandmother was a widow, and so her life was very much about taking care of her family as a sole provider.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This was all happening during a period of upheaval for the Wampanoags in Martha's Vineyard. They had persisted despite the U.S. government's aggressive policy of Indian removal in the 1830s, when many Native people were forced off their land and moved west. But by the 1860s and 70s, the state government in Massachusetts had gotten involved and was dividing up the tribe's land into taxable allotments. That effectively made it much more difficult for people like Elizabeth's great grandmother to continue to afford living there. But they found ways to make it work.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

And when you're a tribe for thousands of years, just because some guy goes, oh, you're not. It doesn't mean you stop. You know, it's not a switch.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Elizabeth's community passed down their own stories. Stories about their history with white settlers and also about things that had actually happened to them. Adventures and misadventures. Funny childhood memories.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

Unbelievable. Ship locked in ice. Using your crazy gay head navigation skills to walk across the ice. Cause you remember a community in this direction carrying the captain's wife who had to come on the voyage for some odd reason. You know that just like I think the underpinning was here we are these survivors. Strong senses of humor, full of hope. Also holding on to these stories of, hey, you know what? Everybody jokes about us, but we've got some serious skills. That's why we're here today. It wasn't about, get a load of this turkey. You know, it just. Turkey wasn't new for us. Cranberries weren't new. I don't know what to say. New England wasn't new. I mean, we kind of like, Yeah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I mean, you're like, we're kind of from here.

[Elizabeth James Perry]

Yeah, it's.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

For many of us, Thanksgiving is a pretty straightforward holiday. It's really fun and easy to enjoy. The food, the friends and family, the lazy afternoon watching football. But beneath the surface of all of this is a question about how we choose to remember our history.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

History.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And define ourselves as a country.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

History is not about trying to make people feel guilty or ashamed, patriotic or unpatriotic. It's designed to capture a complex past in all of its complexity. National celebrations are another kettle of fish. They are designed to cultivate unity. There will never be unity around complex historical subjects. They're too complex.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Whether it is the inaccurate, rosy colored view of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 or using the day as a vessel for national unity, what we are thankful for is a choice, a choice with consequences.

[Melanie Kirkpatrick]

These national holidays, they remind us of what it means to be an American number one, and then they also give us a chance to celebrate our nation. I should say there are critics of Thanksgiving, people who won't celebrate it because they wrongly think that it is celebrating the destruction of native culture. I can't disagree with that more strongly. I think it is a time of celebration, of people of different cultures coming together.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

I think it's true that most adults don't give pilgrims and Indians much of a thought, but that's part of the point. The point is that we're indoctrinated with this idea as children and then we're never asked to revisit it as we become more mature and capable of complex thoughts. I would prefer to see Thanksgiving continue without invoking pilgrims and Indians at all. I don't trust any ritual to capture complexities of any sort, never mind violent complexities that strike at the heart of the desire to have the United States be a beacon of light in the world. That is asking too much.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

As for Sarah Josefa Hale, she had her mind made up that Thanksgiving could bring the U.S. together, and she lived long enough to see it take hold. Hale spent the rest of her life making sure Thanksgiving would outlive her, and.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Before she died in April 1879, she had one last word to say about Thanksgiving and her own legacy in the magazine she dedicated much of her life to.

[Narrator/Reader of Historical Texts]

This idea was very near to my heart, for I believed that this celebration would be a bond of union throughout our country as well as a source of happiness in the homes of the people.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdel Fattah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you've been listening to throughline from npr.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This episode was produced by me and me and Sarah Wyman, Devin Kadayama, Casey Miner, Lawrence Wu, Julie Kay, Anya Steinberg.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Lina Muhammad, Cristina Kim, Irene Noguchi.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Thank you to Nina Bochowski, Puneet Matiwala, Johannes Durgi, Edith Chapin and Colin Campbell.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Voiceover work in this episode was done by Sarah Wyman, Ryan Escalis, Devin Katiyama, Mark Smith and Sam Yellowhorse Kessler. Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel. It was mixed by Maggie Luthar.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Includes Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani, and we've got a favor to ask. We know there are a lot of great NPR shows out there and we all know who's the best.

[Expert Historian/Commentator]

Wink wink.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

NPR is celebrating the best podcast of the year and you get to crown the winner of the People's Choice Award. Vote for [e-mail] PeoplesChoice may the best pod win. And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show show, please write [e-mail] and make sure to follow us on Apple, Spotify or the NPR app. That way you'll never miss an episode. Thanks for listening.

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