WEBVTT - What's the History of Thanksgiving?

0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:08.639
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here.

0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:13.399
<v Speaker 1>I love a feast day, any excuse to get together

0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.720
<v Speaker 1>with chosen family and share food and stories. But the

0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.279
<v Speaker 1>stories behind the holiday Thanksgiving involve a lot of myths.

0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.040
<v Speaker 1>The way that this holiday developed over the past few

0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.440
<v Speaker 1>centuries is twistier than your favorite puff pastry recipe. So today,

0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.600
<v Speaker 1>let's talk about what we know and don't know about

0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:38.159
<v Speaker 1>how our modern concept of Thanksgiving evolved. Okay, the story

0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.239
<v Speaker 1>that a lot of us grew up within school is

0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.680
<v Speaker 1>that the first Thanksgiving was a fall harvest celebration that

0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.959
<v Speaker 1>brought together British colonists and Native Americans in what's now

0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.199
<v Speaker 1>Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. And it does seem that

0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:56.160
<v Speaker 1>something like this actually happened. Let's talk about the Pilgrims.

0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.080
<v Speaker 1>In the early sixteen hundreds, a group of people in

0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.760
<v Speaker 1>England broke away from the Church of England and left

0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.880
<v Speaker 1>seeking religious freedom. They wound up in the Netherlands, and

0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.000
<v Speaker 1>from Amsterdam, one hundred and one people interested in a

0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.520
<v Speaker 1>new life boarded the Mayflower and set sail for North America.

0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.920
<v Speaker 1>They landed in December of sixteen twenty and established the

0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:22.040
<v Speaker 1>Plymouth Colony along the coast of what's now Massachusetts. Their

0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.920
<v Speaker 1>first year didn't go too well. They had landed in

0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.000
<v Speaker 1>the winter, only about half of them survived to see

0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.960
<v Speaker 1>the spring. When they tried to grow familiar European crops

0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.440
<v Speaker 1>from seeds they had brought, the crops failed, luckily for them.

0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.520
<v Speaker 1>Some of the locals were interested in forging a treaty

0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:45.000
<v Speaker 1>of mutual protection and well being. The Peduxit band of

0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.600
<v Speaker 1>the Wampanog Confederation negotiated with the Pilgrims to basically leave

0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.840
<v Speaker 1>each other alone, but also act as allies in defending

0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:58.000
<v Speaker 1>against any attack on either group. One native man was

0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.280
<v Speaker 1>really crucial in these negotiations, to Squantum, often known by

0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.920
<v Speaker 1>the nickname Squanto. He had actually been sold into slavery

0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.840
<v Speaker 1>by European explorers a few years prior, but regained his

0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.320
<v Speaker 1>freedom and made his way back to the Americas as

0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.000
<v Speaker 1>an interpreter. It was thanks to him that this treaty

0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.400
<v Speaker 1>happened in March of sixteen twenty one, and he also

0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.760
<v Speaker 1>taught the remaining pilgrims a lot of survival skills, including

0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.680
<v Speaker 1>how to grow corn. By that fall, they had a

0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.079
<v Speaker 1>successful harvest, and around fifty three Pilgrims and ninety ptuxit

0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.920
<v Speaker 1>held a three day celebration of that bounty. The Pilgrim's

0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.680
<v Speaker 1>hunted birds probably ducks, geese, swan, and pigeons, maybe even turkey,

0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.400
<v Speaker 1>and brought in enough to feed the colony for a week.

0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:51.079
<v Speaker 1>The ptuxit brought a heroic amount of venison. Historians think

0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.680
<v Speaker 1>there might have been roasts and stews, a seafood like clams, lobsters,

0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.240
<v Speaker 1>cod and eels, a bread or porridge made from cornmeal

0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.440
<v Speaker 1>and fruit and vegetables like onions, carrots, turnips, greens, and

0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:11.079
<v Speaker 1>possibly even cranberriers or pumpkin. There was also beer and singing, dancing, games, races,

0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:17.120
<v Speaker 1>and a bunch of firing of firearms. A Most of

0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.120
<v Speaker 1>what we now know about that harvest festival comes from

0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.440
<v Speaker 1>a letter that one of the pilgrim leaders, one Edward Winslow,

0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.639
<v Speaker 1>later wrote to a friend. Similar feasts likely happened in

0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.919
<v Speaker 1>any number of places at any number of times, though

0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.360
<v Speaker 1>relationships between colonists and Native Americans were often strained, which

0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:41.880
<v Speaker 1>is understandable because colonialism is often horrific. But this one

0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.360
<v Speaker 1>became enshrined in our concept of Thanksgiving due to the

0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.160
<v Speaker 1>extensive work of one lady named Sarah Josepha Hale. About

0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:56.120
<v Speaker 1>two centuries after the event. In the eighteen forties, Hale

0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.240
<v Speaker 1>was the editor of a popular women's magazine called Goody's

0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.920
<v Speaker 1>Lady's Book. She had author the nursery rhyme Mary had

0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.800
<v Speaker 1>a Little Lamb, and she was witnessing her nation become

0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.680
<v Speaker 1>more and more divided as it inched towards Civil War.

0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.440
<v Speaker 1>Back in the seventeen eighties, the Continental Congress had floated

0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.160
<v Speaker 1>the idea of a national day of thanks but nothing

0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.560
<v Speaker 1>had come of it. But Hale decided that this was

0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:26.440
<v Speaker 1>exactly what the country needed. A Boston clergyman had found

0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.839
<v Speaker 1>and published Edward Winslow's letter a calling the sixteen twenty

0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:35.279
<v Speaker 1>one feast the first Thanksgiving, and Hale loved this. She

0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.160
<v Speaker 1>started publishing articles and recipes for families to create their

0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:43.440
<v Speaker 1>own Thanksgivings, and in eighteen forty six she started a

0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.200
<v Speaker 1>letter writing campaign to America's presidents asking them to make

0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.840
<v Speaker 1>it a national holiday. She bugged Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore,

0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:59.200
<v Speaker 1>Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and finally Abraham Lincoln. The idea

0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.480
<v Speaker 1>finally caught with Lincoln because it was eighteen sixty three

0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.719
<v Speaker 1>and the Civil War was raging. He made a proclamation

0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.840
<v Speaker 1>that all Americans should set aside the last Thursday in

0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.400
<v Speaker 1>November as a day of Christian thanks for quote, the

0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.760
<v Speaker 1>blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies, and to implore

0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.240
<v Speaker 1>God to again quote heal the wounds of the nation,

0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.400
<v Speaker 1>and to restore it as soon as may be consistent

0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:29.680
<v Speaker 1>with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility,

0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:36.280
<v Speaker 1>and union. A. Lincoln and each president after him made

0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.039
<v Speaker 1>a yearly declaration designating the holiday until Congress made it

0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.680
<v Speaker 1>permanent in nineteen forty two as the fourth Thursday of November.

0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.760
<v Speaker 1>But it was Sarah Josepha Hale's concepts about the holiday

0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.520
<v Speaker 1>that caught on and stuck with us. She wrote these

0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.840
<v Speaker 1>fictionalized accounts of the love and peace between the Native

0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.440
<v Speaker 1>Americans and the Pilgrims. She created our modern image of

0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.520
<v Speaker 1>the pilgrim. You know, black and white clothing, tall hats,

0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.600
<v Speaker 1>lots of big buckles. Those were actually fashions being worn

0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.039
<v Speaker 1>by the Puritans, a whole separate group of colonists living

0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.120
<v Speaker 1>up in Boston at the time, pilgrims might have had

0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.919
<v Speaker 1>some similar formal wear, but were more likely to be

0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.200
<v Speaker 1>in more casual clothing in a range of earth tones

0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:24.360
<v Speaker 1>and bright colors. And Haile created our basic Thanksgiving menu

0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.080
<v Speaker 1>that's persisted for going on two hundred years. Those dishes

0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.640
<v Speaker 1>that we eat are what Victorian era Americans thought of

0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.279
<v Speaker 1>as fall feast dishes. Your roast turkey and gravy, roasted

0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:41.679
<v Speaker 1>root vegetables, a stuffing or dressing, mashed potatoes, sugar sweet

0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.320
<v Speaker 1>and cranberry sauce, and a custardy pumpkin pie baked in

0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.640
<v Speaker 1>a flaky crust. Hale even dictated the day of the

0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.760
<v Speaker 1>week a Thursday, to give home cooks time to prepare

0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.880
<v Speaker 1>this feast between Sundays, as it was common for families

0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:02.160
<v Speaker 1>to have big weekly Sunday suppers. Other traditions came along later.

0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.800
<v Speaker 1>The first Thanksgiving Day football game happened in eighteen seventy

0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.880
<v Speaker 1>six when Yale played Princeton. The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day

0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:14.160
<v Speaker 1>Parade marched in nineteen twenty four. The first National Day

0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.880
<v Speaker 1>of Mourning as an Indigenous and Allied observance of remembrance

0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.400
<v Speaker 1>and awareness of the true history of colonialism was held

0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:27.200
<v Speaker 1>the fourth Thursday of November in nineteen seventy. However, you

0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.800
<v Speaker 1>may be observing this day, we hear a brainstuff whish

0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:39.680
<v Speaker 1>you piece and knowledge. Today's episode is based loosely on

0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.160
<v Speaker 1>the article ten historical untruths about the First Thanksgiving on

0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.560
<v Speaker 1>how stuffworks dot com, written by Chrisoffer, with additional material

0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.320
<v Speaker 1>by me and Annie Reese, my co host on my

0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:53.160
<v Speaker 1>other podcast Saver the brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio

0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.640
<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced

0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.679
<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Klang. For four more podcasts my heart Radio,

0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.880
<v Speaker 1>visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:02.920
<v Speaker 1>to your favorite shows,