excerpt: "eating history" by andrew smith
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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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