The Untold Story of Thanksgiving

A h, Thanksgiving. That most cherished holiday of autumnal feasting, when loved ones gather ’round a full table, laden with roast turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. With heads bowed in prayer, hands held in communion, or eyes lifted to heaven, families give thanks for all good things. Inevitably, Uncle Joe makes some off-color political comments, Grandpa falls asleep at the table, and the kids ask impatiently if they can be excused.

In our national memory, we recollect that first Thanksgiving: Somewhere along the coast of Massachusetts, Pilgrims and Native Americans gather around a long wooden table and share in a neighborly feast in thanks for the harvest. A Pilgrim minister leads the motley crew in prayer, giving thanks to God Almighty for their abundant blessings.

That first feast must be the origin of our national holiday, no?

Well, kind of.

As Melanie Kirkpatrick outlines in her 2016 book, Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience, that “first Thanksgiving” was widely mythologized by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe’s immensely popular 1914 painting, The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth. The scene showcases the oft-imagined story: At a long table set outside in a lovely New England fall, Native Americans in feathered headdresses eat alongside Pilgrims in austere gray clothes with large white collars.

Kirkpatrick offers a few points of debunking: While we know from firsthand accounts that a feast did in fact take place between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians to celebrate the colonists’ first successful harvest in 1621 (the word “Thanksgiving” never having been used), Brownscombe’s scene takes much artistic license.

For one, the Wampanoag tribe in the Massachusetts Bay area did not wear feathered headdresses. (Brownscombe must have gathered visual inspiration from tribes of the Great Plains who do wear such ceremonial headgear.) Also, the Pilgrims wore bright colors as was typical for 17th-century Englishmen. The popular image of a Pilgrim — a man in gray, with shiny shoe buckles and a trapezoidal hat — is largely legend. Further, the feast likely took place in late summer during the harvest season, before the leaves turned red and brown as Brownscombe depicts.

Most notably, however, the story of the first Pilgrims was largely lost to time until documents from Mayflower travelers were uncovered in the 19th century. In particular, William Bradford’s diary proved a crucial source for the historical record. As Kirkpatrick notes, if you asked an American about the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving before then, they would have given you a blank stare.

And yet, Americans have been celebrating a national day of Thanksgiving in some form since George Washington’s proclamation of 1789 — well before the story of that first harvest feast was circulating in the national imagination.

So, how did the holiday actually begin?

We must look to an unlikely candidate: Sarah Josepha Hale, an upstart widow from New Hampshire who forged a path to become editor of the nation’s most popular magazine in the 19th century. Perhaps most famous for penning “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Hale achieved literary influence in her own day that surpassed most of her fellow countrymen, and her story is one for the books.

Hale’s husband died when she was but a young mother, which led her to try her hand at writing to support her children. Her fame grew almost overnight after the publication of her first novel in 1827, Northwood, which depicts life in New England compared with life in the South in the early 19th century. The book itself features a heartwarming depiction of a New England Thanksgiving, which introduced the New England holiday and its traditions — including a “roasted turkey,” “savory stuffing,” and pumpkin pie — to the broader American public.

Upon becoming one of the nation’s first female novelists, she soon moved her family to Boston to become the editor of Ladies’ Magazine, which was later merged with Godey’s Lady’s Book. Hale would serve as editor (although she preferred the title “editress”) for nearly 50 years, retiring only as she neared the age of 90.

In her role as an editor, she wanted to source pieces by Americans and for Americans — and particularly the work of burgeoning women authors. Before that, most American magazines (of which there were few) largely reprinted articles from British magazines. Hale herself was an accomplished author who published many works of literature, poetry, and history, as well as travelogues.

According to Kirkpatrick, Hale sought to create a common culture in the United States through her work. She believed that the Revolution had helped unite the country politically, but not culturally. Hale knew that the foods, customs, traditions, and tastes of a people mattered to help build unity and cohesion in a new nation.

Hale’s campaign to enshrine Thanksgiving in American life was well under way by 1837, when she began publishing editorials on the topic. Along with her public mission, she privately petitioned political leaders to establish the holiday through a vast letter-writing campaign. She wrote to every governor and president, and many congressmen and senators, pleading her case. Because Hale’s editorial role was so influential, many wrote back. Politicians largely approved of the idea but said they didn’t have the constitutional power to issue such a decree. Hale, however, was undeterred.

She was particularly zealous about establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving for its capacity to unify Americans. “As America got closer to war, Hale really hoped the holiday of Thanksgiving would bring people together and prevent war,” Kirkpatrick said.

In 1863, having tirelessly campaigned for a national day of Thanksgiving for the last 15 years, Hale wrote a letter that finally got her the results she was looking for. Then 74 years old, Hale wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive [sic] fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

Up to this time, each state had scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other northern states. George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, having issued his request in the fall of 1789. What was lacking, however, was a national day of Thanksgiving — one that was celebrated everywhere at the same time.

Unlike several of his predecessors, Lincoln responded to Hale’s letter immediately. His 1863 Proclamation of Thanksgiving set aside the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” This tradition was, for the most part, continued annually through presidential proclamation until the fourth Thursday of November was enshrined into federal law as a day of Thanksgiving through a 1941 act of Congress.

While a day of Thanksgiving might not have had the power to stop the Civil War, we must not forget the importance of national customs in bringing us together as Americans. Nor can we forget to give thanks for the great gifts we receive in this country.

In this time of polarization, let us be thankful for our nation.