Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here.
Speaker 1: I love a feast day, any excuse to get together
Speaker 1: with chosen family and share food and stories. But the
Speaker 1: stories behind the holiday Thanksgiving involve a lot of myths.
Speaker 1: The way that this holiday developed over the past few
Speaker 1: centuries is twistier than your favorite puff pastry recipe. So today,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what we know and don't know about
Speaker 1: how our modern concept of Thanksgiving evolved. Okay, the story
Speaker 1: that a lot of us grew up within school is
Speaker 1: that the first Thanksgiving was a fall harvest celebration that
Speaker 1: brought together British colonists and Native Americans in what's now
Speaker 1: Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. And it does seem that
Speaker 1: something like this actually happened. Let's talk about the Pilgrims.
Speaker 1: In the early sixteen hundreds, a group of people in
Speaker 1: England broke away from the Church of England and left
Speaker 1: seeking religious freedom. They wound up in the Netherlands, and
Speaker 1: from Amsterdam, one hundred and one people interested in a
Speaker 1: new life boarded the Mayflower and set sail for North America.
Speaker 1: They landed in December of sixteen twenty and established the
Speaker 1: Plymouth Colony along the coast of what's now Massachusetts. Their
Speaker 1: first year didn't go too well. They had landed in
Speaker 1: the winter, only about half of them survived to see
Speaker 1: the spring. When they tried to grow familiar European crops
Speaker 1: from seeds they had brought, the crops failed, luckily for them.
Speaker 1: Some of the locals were interested in forging a treaty
Speaker 1: of mutual protection and well being. The Peduxit band of
Speaker 1: the Wampanog Confederation negotiated with the Pilgrims to basically leave
Speaker 1: each other alone, but also act as allies in defending
Speaker 1: against any attack on either group. One native man was
Speaker 1: really crucial in these negotiations, to Squantum, often known by
Speaker 1: the nickname Squanto. He had actually been sold into slavery
Speaker 1: by European explorers a few years prior, but regained his
Speaker 1: freedom and made his way back to the Americas as
Speaker 1: an interpreter. It was thanks to him that this treaty
Speaker 1: happened in March of sixteen twenty one, and he also
Speaker 1: taught the remaining pilgrims a lot of survival skills, including
Speaker 1: how to grow corn. By that fall, they had a
Speaker 1: successful harvest, and around fifty three Pilgrims and ninety ptuxit
Speaker 1: held a three day celebration of that bounty. The Pilgrim's
Speaker 1: hunted birds probably ducks, geese, swan, and pigeons, maybe even turkey,
Speaker 1: and brought in enough to feed the colony for a week.
Speaker 1: The ptuxit brought a heroic amount of venison. Historians think
Speaker 1: there might have been roasts and stews, a seafood like clams, lobsters,
Speaker 1: cod and eels, a bread or porridge made from cornmeal
Speaker 1: and fruit and vegetables like onions, carrots, turnips, greens, and
Speaker 1: possibly even cranberriers or pumpkin. There was also beer and singing, dancing, games, races,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of firing of firearms. A Most of
Speaker 1: what we now know about that harvest festival comes from
Speaker 1: a letter that one of the pilgrim leaders, one Edward Winslow,
Speaker 1: later wrote to a friend. Similar feasts likely happened in
Speaker 1: any number of places at any number of times, though
Speaker 1: relationships between colonists and Native Americans were often strained, which
Speaker 1: is understandable because colonialism is often horrific. But this one
Speaker 1: became enshrined in our concept of Thanksgiving due to the
Speaker 1: extensive work of one lady named Sarah Josepha Hale. About
Speaker 1: two centuries after the event. In the eighteen forties, Hale
Speaker 1: was the editor of a popular women's magazine called Goody's
Speaker 1: Lady's Book. She had author the nursery rhyme Mary had
Speaker 1: a Little Lamb, and she was witnessing her nation become
Speaker 1: more and more divided as it inched towards Civil War.
Speaker 1: Back in the seventeen eighties, the Continental Congress had floated
Speaker 1: the idea of a national day of thanks but nothing
Speaker 1: had come of it. But Hale decided that this was
Speaker 1: exactly what the country needed. A Boston clergyman had found
Speaker 1: and published Edward Winslow's letter a calling the sixteen twenty
Speaker 1: one feast the first Thanksgiving, and Hale loved this. She
Speaker 1: started publishing articles and recipes for families to create their
Speaker 1: own Thanksgivings, and in eighteen forty six she started a
Speaker 1: letter writing campaign to America's presidents asking them to make
Speaker 1: it a national holiday. She bugged Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore,
Speaker 1: Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and finally Abraham Lincoln. The idea
Speaker 1: finally caught with Lincoln because it was eighteen sixty three
Speaker 1: and the Civil War was raging. He made a proclamation
Speaker 1: that all Americans should set aside the last Thursday in
Speaker 1: November as a day of Christian thanks for quote, the
Speaker 1: blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies, and to implore
Speaker 1: God to again quote heal the wounds of the nation,
Speaker 1: and to restore it as soon as may be consistent
Speaker 1: with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility,
Speaker 1: and union. A. Lincoln and each president after him made
Speaker 1: a yearly declaration designating the holiday until Congress made it
Speaker 1: permanent in nineteen forty two as the fourth Thursday of November.
Speaker 1: But it was Sarah Josepha Hale's concepts about the holiday
Speaker 1: that caught on and stuck with us. She wrote these
Speaker 1: fictionalized accounts of the love and peace between the Native
Speaker 1: Americans and the Pilgrims. She created our modern image of
Speaker 1: the pilgrim. You know, black and white clothing, tall hats,
Speaker 1: lots of big buckles. Those were actually fashions being worn
Speaker 1: by the Puritans, a whole separate group of colonists living
Speaker 1: up in Boston at the time, pilgrims might have had
Speaker 1: some similar formal wear, but were more likely to be
Speaker 1: in more casual clothing in a range of earth tones
Speaker 1: and bright colors. And Haile created our basic Thanksgiving menu
Speaker 1: that's persisted for going on two hundred years. Those dishes
Speaker 1: that we eat are what Victorian era Americans thought of
Speaker 1: as fall feast dishes. Your roast turkey and gravy, roasted
Speaker 1: root vegetables, a stuffing or dressing, mashed potatoes, sugar sweet
Speaker 1: and cranberry sauce, and a custardy pumpkin pie baked in
Speaker 1: a flaky crust. Hale even dictated the day of the
Speaker 1: week a Thursday, to give home cooks time to prepare
Speaker 1: this feast between Sundays, as it was common for families
Speaker 1: to have big weekly Sunday suppers. Other traditions came along later.
Speaker 1: The first Thanksgiving Day football game happened in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: six when Yale played Princeton. The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Speaker 1: Parade marched in nineteen twenty four. The first National Day
Speaker 1: of Mourning as an Indigenous and Allied observance of remembrance
Speaker 1: and awareness of the true history of colonialism was held
Speaker 1: the fourth Thursday of November in nineteen seventy. However, you
Speaker 1: may be observing this day, we hear a brainstuff whish
Speaker 1: you piece and knowledge. Today's episode is based loosely on
Speaker 1: the article ten historical untruths about the First Thanksgiving on
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot com, written by Chrisoffer, with additional material
Speaker 1: by me and Annie Reese, my co host on my
Speaker 1: other podcast Saver the brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. For four more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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