Excerpt: "Eating History" by Andrew Smith

8/3/2019 Excerpt: "Eating History" by Andrew Smith

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I

n the 1830s, Alexander Young, a Unitarian minister in Boston, began

compiling primary source documents about the Pilgrims. In his research,

he ran across a book titled Mourt ’s Relation, which had been published in

England in 1622. This work contains a letter rom one o the rst settlers o Plym-

outh Plantation, Edward Winslow, in which he wrote that in the autumn o 1621,

William Bradord, the governor o the just-established colony, had declared a

holiday ater the crops were harvested. The English colonists had just made a

treaty with the local Indians, ninety o whom unexpectedly showed up to solidiy

it. According to Winslow, the Indians and colonists easted or three days in cel-

ebration o the treaty. In 1841, Alexander Young republished Winslow’s letter in

his compilation o early records, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of

Plymouth. Young added a ootnote to Winslow’s description o the 1621 event,claiming that this “was the rst thanksgiving, the harvest estival o New England.

On this occasion they no doubt easted on the wild turkey as well as venison.”1

While the Pilgrims did have many days o thanksgiving, they did not view this

east with the Indians as one o them. It was an insignicant event and the Pil-

grims took no notice o it in subsequent years. The whole idea that the Pilgrims

were the rst to celebrate Thanksgiving in America was, in act, preposterous.

Many days o thanksgiving had been celebrated previously by Europeans in the

new land. Young’s creation o the “rst Thanksgiving” myth might have died a

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quiet death in that obscure ootnote had not other New England writers picked

up the idea, embellished it, and presented it as ironclad truth.2 Twenty-two years

ater the publication o Young’s book, Thanksgiving was proclaimed a nationalholiday, and the Thanksgiving dinner became enshrined as America’s most cher-

ished culinary extravaganza. It remains so today.

Giving Thanks History

Giving thanks or God’s blessings is part o the religious traditions brought to the

New World by Europeans. Spanish explorers and colonists had been celebrat-

ing days o thanksgiving in what is today the United States or decades beore

the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. The English colonists at Jamestown had

celebrated days o thanksgiving more than a decade beore the Pilgrims landed.

Even the Pilgrims themselves had had days o thanksgiving well beore the pro-

verbial rst Thanksgiving noted by Young. Winslow did not assign the name to

the event o the all o 1621, and William Bradord, the chronicler o early lie at

Plymouth Plantation, made no mention o a thanksgiving at that time. During

the ollowing decades, the Puritans celebrated many days o thanksgiving, but

they had nothing to do with ood. Local ministers set thanksgivings at any time

o the year ater a particularly important event—a providential rainall, a good

harvest, or perhaps a military victory. Although thanksgiving dinners had been

common in England, the Puritans held days o thanksgiving as solemn holy days.

In Puritan New England, a thanksgiving day would have been spent in church,

and little evidence has survived indicating that special ood was served; indeed,

it is unlikely that easts would have been prepared or served on holy days.

A ew reerences to Colonial thanksgiving dinners have survived, but they are

rom the southern colonies, not New England. Shortly ater the American vic-

tory at Saratoga in 1777, however, the Continental Congress declared a day o

thanksgiving. When the War or American Independence ended, in 1784, another

thanksgiving was proclaimed. President George Washington declared national

days o thanksgiving in 1789 and 1795. None o the proclamations establishingthese days made any mention o a thanksgiving dinner. By this time, though,

thanksgiving dinners were common in many places in America. A participant in

a 1784 thanksgiving meal in Norwich, Connecticut, remarked, “What a sight o

pigs and geese and turkeys and owls and sheep must be slaughtered to gratiy

the voraciousness o a single day.”3 William Bentley, pastor o East Church, in

Salem, Massachusetts, wrote in 1806 that “a Thanksgiving is not complete with-

out a turkey. It is rare to nd any other dishes but such as turkies & owls aord

beore the pastry on such days & puddings are much less used than ormerly.”4

Giving Thanks

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An observer in 1817 reported that Thanksgiving dinner consisted o “roasted tur-

key, a smoking plum-pudding and pumpkin-pies.”5

Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian minister and author, remembered theThanksgiving dinners that his amily celebrated in Massachusetts during the

early nineteenth century. They commenced with chicken pie and roast turkey,

then proceeded to several dierent types o pies, tarts, and puddings, and ended

with dried ruit.6 A New Hampshire Thanksgiving dinner o the same era began

with a ham and a large roast turkey, ollowed by chicken, duck, celery, plum pud-

ding, pies, and ruit, nally ending with coee and tea.7 An 1831 dinner in Geneva,

New York, eatured turkey, bee, duck, ham, sausage, potatoes, yams, succotash,

pickles, nuts, raisins, pears, peaches, pie, tarts, creams, custards, jellies, oating

islands, sweetbreads, wines, rum, brandy, eggnog and punch.8 In 1835, an observer

in Maine reported that everyone looked orward to Thanksgiving “with bright

anticipations o east and rolic. For a week preceding, all is preparation or its

approach. Our markets are thronged with the various provisions indispensable

to a Thanksgiving dinner; and the ‘bustling housewie’ is busily engaged in pre-

paring them or her expected guests.”9 The writer Harriet Beecher Stowe remem-

bered her childhood Thanksgivings, in Litcheld, Connecticut, replete with tur-

key, chicken, chicken pies, plum puddings, and sweet pies.10

Nationalizing Giving ThanksMany inuences helped nationalize Thanksgiving. New England soil was not the

best or arming, and during the early nineteenth century, many New Englanders

moved to other parts o the United States in search o better armland. With the

completion o the Erie Canal, New Englanders migrated to New York’s central

valley and later to the Midwest. Transplanted New Englanders kept the Thanks-

giving dinner traditions alive in their new homes and urged their newly adopted

communities to celebrate the east as well. New York was the rst state outside

New England to declare Thanksgiving a holiday, and midwestern states soon ol-

lowed. Thanksgiving became widely celebrated throughout America, especially in the North, but by the mid-nineteenth century, it was still a holiday celebrated

only at the local or state levels.

The person who made Thanksgiving a national holiday was Sarah Josepha Hale,

who was born in 1788 in Newport, New Hampshire. Ater running a school or ve

years, she married David Hale, a lawyer, who died in 1822. To support her ve chil-

dren, she turned to writing. In 1823, she published her rst book o poetry, The Genius

of Oblivion, and, our years later, she published her rst novel, Northwood; or, a Tale

of New England, which eatured an entire chapter describing Thanksgiving dinner:

Giving Thanks

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there was roasted turkey, bee sirloin, a leg o pork, mutton, a goose, two ducks,

chicken pie, stufng, “innumerable” bowls o gravy, plates o vegetables, plates o

pickles, preserves, butter, bread, and “a huge plum pudding, custards and pies o every name and description,” but “pumpkin pie occupied the most distinguished

niche.” There were also several kinds o cakes, and a variety o sweetmeats and

ruits. Beverages included currant wine, cider, and ginger beer.11 Northwood estab-

lished the model or what became the “traditional Yankee Thanksgiving dinner.”

Northwood catapulted Hale into literary stardom. She became the editor o

American Ladies’ Magazine, a small monthly published in Boston, and ater its

purchase by Louis A. Godey, in 1836, Hale became the editor o Godey’s Lady’s

Book. Under Hale’s management, the magazine prospered: subscriptions went

rom 10,000 annually in 1837 to 150,000 by 1860, a phenomenal achievement.12

At the time, only two national holidays were celebrated in the United States:

Washington’s Birthday (February 22) and Independence Day (July 4). A ew

years ater the story o the “rst Thanksgiving” appeared in Young’s book, Hale

launched a campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Beginning in

1846, she wrote regularly to members o Congress, prominent individuals, and

the governors o every state and territory, requesting each to proclaim the last

Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. In an era beore television, radio,

the Internet, or even the typewriter, this campaign was a daunting task. Hale also

wrote editorials in Godey’s Lady’s Book promoting Thanksgiving. Each year, she

listed the states that had agreed to celebrate the holiday. Her eorts did receive

support and publicity rom various quarters. Magazines and newspapers printed

Thanksgiving stories, songs, and poems.13 Even the transcendentalists chipped

in: Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a Thanksgiving poem and Margaret Fuller wrote

about Thanksgiving in newspapers and books.14

By 1859, Hale was close to success, with thirty states and three territories cel-

ebrating Thanksgiving on the third Thursday o November. Ater the Civil War

broke out and she was unable to communicate with many southern states, Hale

devised a dierent strategy. She wrote, in 1863, privately to William Seward,

Lincoln’s secretary o state and a ormer senator rom New York, requestingthat President Lincoln declare Thanksgiving a national holiday.15 She also wrote

directly to President Lincoln, and she may have met with him. Her eorts nally

paid o a ew months ater the North’s military victories at Gettysburg and Vicks-

burg: in the summer o 1863, Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November a

national day o Thanksgiving.16

Thanksgiving church services continued to be held in the nineteenth century,

but the religious content o the day declined as the century progressed. In 1834, a

writer remarked that Thanksgiving should be spent in a “house o prayer with our

Giving Thanks

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hearts tuned to the sacred service, and the ame o devotion burning brightly in our

bosoms,” and that Americans “should kneel around the holy altar, and send up rom

thence the incense o thanksgiving and praise.” But she also noted that it was properthat the country’s citizens “close the day in an innocent enjoyment o the blessings

with which we are surrounded, mingling therewith a solemn sense o that goodness

which permits us to partake o them.”17 By the 1870s, this dual view had changed.

Scribner ’s Magazine proclaimed, in 1871, that Americans had “almost lost sight o”

the religious character o the day. In cities, the author reported, no one considered

attending religious services on Thanksgiving a duty, and in the country, women and

men attended services, but their attention was really ocused on “what has grown to

be considered the real event, the raison d’etre o the day, namely, the dinner.”18

By the nineteenth century’s end, the Thanksgiving meal had become an

elaborate and abundant east—and an opportunity or the host and hostess to

display their generosity to their amilies and guests. At the center o the east, tur-

key reigned supreme. While many other main dishes had been tried, it was tur-

key that thrived, mainly because it was less expensive than the alternatives. The

turkey also became symbolic, thanks to the myth o the rst Thanksgiving. The

traditional side dishes—stufng, gravy, sweet potatoes, succotash, corn bread,

cranberries, and pies—were inexpensive as well, so that Thanksgiving dinner

was aordable to all but the poorest Americans.

And even the poorest Americans might have a dinner on Thanksgiving as

charitable groups sponsored dinners or the homeless and indigent. One such

event, held in the notorious Five Points district o Manhattan, was captured in

a lithograph in Harper ’s Weekly. The picture showed hundreds o poor children

standing at tables eating Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner was sponsored by

the Ladies’ Home Mission o the Methodist Episcopal Church; it turned into an

annual event and was held throughout much o the nineteenth century.19 There

is another Harper ’s Weekly illustration, o a middle class amily sharing the let-

overs rom its dinner with a poor immigrant wai; the lithograph is titled The First

Thanksgiving Dinner .20 St. Barnabas House, in New York, served 1,400 pounds o

turkey to 1,000 indigent guests. In 1895, Mrs. Frederick W. Vanderbilt sponsored a“turkey dinner” with all the xings or 400 poor boys o Newport, Rhode Island.21

Similar events have been held in almost every city in America ever since.

Giving Thanks to the Pilgrims

By 1870, school textbooks had begun telling the tale o the Pilgrim athers and

their rst Thanksgiving dinner.22 A decade later, the Pilgrim-centered story had

blossomed in accounts published in magazines, newspapers, and books. Jane G.

Giving Thanks

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Austin, a popular American novelist o the late nineteenth century, wrote a series

o books on the Pilgrims. In her novel Standish of Standish: A Story of the Pilgrims,

she included a ull chapter on the rst Thanksgiving. In this ctional account, thePilgrims—less than a year ater their arrival in America–—celebrated Thanksgiv-

ing at a long table, with bowls brimming with hasty pudding topped with butter

and treacle, “clam chowder with sea biscuit swimming in a savory broth . . . great

pieces o cold boiled bee with mustard, anked by dishes o turnips.” Another

table, claimed Austin, held a large pewter bowl ull o “plum-porridge with bits o

toasted cracker oating upon it,” and turkeys were stued with beechnuts. Then

there were “oysters scalloped in their shells, venison pasties, and the savory stew

compounded o all that ies the air.” Game was caught by hunters, and the Pil-

grims and American Indians ate “roasts o various kinds, and thin cakes o bread

or manchets, and bowls o salad” and “great baskets o grapes, white and purple,

and o native plum, so delicious when ully ripe in its three colors o black, white,

and red.” The ood was downed with “agons o ale” and “root beer, well avored

with sassaras.”23

The only oods on Austin’s list that the Pilgrims might actually have consumed

in the all o 1621 would have been turkey, venison, corn (maize), and ale. Austin

had exercised complete artistic license in describing the meal, which she was

certainly entitled to do in a work o ction. As unbelievable as that mythical rst

Thanksgiving dinner may sound to us today, at the time it was widely accepted

as accurate. A review in Publisher ’s Weekly, or instance, proclaimed Austin’s rst

Thanksgiving scene as “aithully” portrayed.24 The story was then adopted by

many schoolteachers and incorporated into the history curriculum. Plays and

pageants were devised celebrating Thanksgiving, with classes reenacting the

rst Thanksgiving, complete with children dressed up as Indians and Pilgrims;

some schools oered Thanksgiving dinners based on Austin’s ctional version

o lie in Plymouth in 1621.25 Standish of Standish was reprinted several times, and

Austin’s version o the Pilgrims and that rst Thanksgiving became embedded in

the country’s American history curriculum.26 In 1919, Austin’s novel was adapted

as a play or children, and many schools and communities perormed it whenthe three-hundredth anniversary o the rst Thanksgiving rolled around in 1921.27

This curriculum spawned, in turn, a large children’s literature celebrating the Pil-

grims and the rst Thanksgiving.28

Thanksgiving dinner and the Pilgrims were enshrined on the covers and

inside pages o some o America’s most popular magazines. Illustrator Thomas

Nast’s cartoon, appearing in Harper ’s Weekly in 1869, shows Uncle Sam carving a

turkey at a bountiully appointed dinner table, surrounded by men, women, and

children o dierent religions and ethnicities.29 J. C. Leyendecker’s cover or the

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November 1907 Saturday Evening Post pictures a Pilgrim stalking a tom turkey.30

American painters also contributed to the myth: Jennie Augusta Brownscombe’s

painting The First Thanksgiving , completed in 1914, appeared in many schooltextbooks, and Jean Louis Gerome Ferris’s First Thanksgiving was requently

reprinted in magazines.31 Other popular works o art and literature have ostered

the myth ever since.32

Giving No Thanks

Not everyone was happy with the Thanksgiving dinner. In 1835, William Alcott,

a physician and vegetarian, stated that he was opposed to the east on moral

grounds as well as or medical reasons. He called Thanksgiving a carnival,

“loaded with luxuries not only on the day o the general thanksgiving, but or

several days aterward.” He was particularly concerned because New England-

ers were also beginning to celebrate Christmas, and he claimed that the two

easts had already merged into one long period o overindulgence that caused

serious health problems.33 John Harvey Kellogg, the vegetarian director o the

Battle Creek Sanitarium, took up the cause against the Thanksgiving dinner. He

believed that the large meal was a tragedy in the making that could cripple diges-

tive “organs completely and produce a atal uremia.”34

Few Americans paid any attention to Alcott or Kellogg at the time, but dur-

ing the past thirty years, vegetarians have shited their ocus rom condemning

the Thanksgiving dinner to condemnation o its centerpiece—the turkey. Veg-

etarians celebrated the holiday; they just eliminated the bird rom the east. Ani-

mal rights organizations, such as People or the Ethical Treatment o Animals

(PETA), gain visibility or their cause around Thanksgiving. For PETA members,

“turkey day” is a time to convince Americans to give up eating meat in general

and turkey in particular. PETA has sponsored petitions and published leaets

encouraging a turkeyless Thanksgiving under the slogan Give turkeys something

to be thankul or!

Giving Thanks Efects

The rapid adoption o the Thanksgiving myth had less to do with historical act and

more to do with the arrival o hundreds o thousands o immigrants to the United

States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the ace o this great

wave o immigrants rom so many lands, the public education system’s major task

was to Americanize them by creating a common understanding o the nation’s his-

tory, in particular, an easily understood history o America. The problem was that

Giving Thanks

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Jamestown, which had the greatest claim to be the ounding American colony, was

where slavery had begun, and ater the bloody Civil War—ought, in large part, to

ree the slaves—that wasn’t a message anyone wanted in school textbooks. On theother hand, the absurd Pilgrim athers, with their oppy hats and mythical blun-

derbusses, and the newly invented rst Thanksgiving dinner, at which colonists

and Indians easted together, were ideal elements or the story o America’s begin-

ning. The tale gave legitimacy to the colonists’ settlement o the land and sug-

gested riendly relations with the Native Americans.35 Few educators and textbook

publishers could resist the temptation to use these attractive images.

The immigrants, who had celebrated no such holiday as Thanksgiving in their

native lands, readily joined in the east because it demonstrated their loyalty to

their adopted country and their belie in American abundance. As they adapted

the celebration to their own tastes, the immigrants modied the menu by includ-

ing their own traditional oods alongside the standard Thanksgiving dishes.

The turkey retained its place o honor—ater all, it was native to America and

a symbol o the nation’s bounty.36 But the newcomers complemented the tur-

key with their own estive dishes—pasta, ried rice, sauerkraut, reried beans, or

pierogis—honoring their own history as well as that o their new home.

Thanksgiving remains one o America’s most important holidays. Come

November, schoolchildren still reenact the rst Thanksgiving, and turkey, gravy,

and cranberry sauce predictably appear on school caeteria menus. Newspapers,

magazines, and television programs tell o the Pilgrims and their east with the

Indians. Retailers make relentless commercial use o Thanksgiving as the start

o the Christmas shopping season, and parades and other public gatherings are

held in cities and towns across America. And the amily Thanksgiving dinner

holds its place as America’s preeminent national culinary event.

Postscript

Alexander Young was a prolic writer who published dozens o biographies

and religious tracts during his lietime. His Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers wentthrough many editions, and it remains in print today. In 1849, he became the sec-

retary o Harvard’s board o overseers and corresponding secretary o the Mas-

sachusetts Historical Society. He died in 1854.37

Sarah Josepha Hale’s literary career ourished. In all, she published nearly

ty books, and she continued to serve as editor o Godey’s Lady’s Book until 1877.

She died in 1879. For her eorts to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, Hale is

remembered as the Mother o Thanksgiving.38

Giving Thanks

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Excerpt: "Eating History" by Andrew Smith