This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an important historical birthday for the United States, and we will be celebrating it all year-round with our new Free to Be series. With respect to Marlo Thomas, our Free to Be posts will be celebrating unique freedoms we enjoy as Americans. And this month, we’re looking at how we’re free to eat. 🙂
For many Americans, November equals Thanksgiving. The generally accepted origin story for Thanksgiving dates back to the Plymouth Puritans and their thanksgiving celebration in the fall of 1621 after surviving a terrible first winter, with the help of Native American neighbors.
This celebration was in keeping with traditional harvest festivals, so it was not even the first Thanksgiving celebrated by European colonists in America. The Jamestown colonists in Virginia were holding thanksgiving feasts over a decade earlier, and Spanish settlers held a thanksgiving celebration over 50 years earlier (in September) at St. Augustine, Florida. These early Thanksgivings involved feasts, as well as church services. The Plymouth colony’s Wampanoag neighbors also had their own thanksgiving traditions that predated the English settlers, holding seasonal feasts to celebrate strawberry and corn harvests.
Back to 1621 Plymouth, their Thanksgiving probably looked quite different from ours. Historians are divided on whether there was turkey on the menu, though if there was, it wasn’t the star of the day like it is now. There was likely duck or goose and definitely venison. Due to the coastal location of Plymouth, seafood, including lobster and eel, also likely made an appearance on the table. Some of what we consider traditional Thanksgiving vegetables were likely enjoyed, including corn and squash. There would have been no pies, though, or mashed potatoes and gravy or sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce.
By this point, potatoes hadn’t arrived in New England from South America yet, and sweet potatoes hadn’t yet made their arrival from the Caribbean. The colonists also lacked the ability to mill grain into flour for gravy and pies. Cranberries may have been present, but cranberry sauce isn’t attested to as a recipe for another 50 years.
Colonial and early American examples of national Thanksgivings tended to follow the Plymouth pattern of responding to a specific event. Thus, George Washington declared the first federal Thanksgiving in 1789 following the signing of the US Constitution. There are also documented thanksgiving services and celebrations during the Revolutionary War after the Battle of Saratoga and at Valley Forge. It also wasn’t necessarily always a day of feasting. In March 1776, as the American Revolution brewed, Continental Congress President John Hancock actually issued a proclamation for a thanksgiving day of fasting.
So, when did Thanksgiving as we know it take shape? For that, we have to fast forward to the 1830s. By this time, annual Thanksgiving feasts were celebrated but mainly in New England. New Englander Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor for the influential women’s journal Godey’s Lady’s Book, was a vocal proponent of making Thanksgiving a federal holiday. Every November, she would promote the idea in her magazine, and she offered recipes and menus and celebration ideas that would be right at home in many American houses today–roast turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie.
She also lobbied numerous presidents about making Thanksgiving a federal holiday, but nobody took her up on it until Abraham Lincoln did during the middle of the Civil War. He agreed with her that the country needed a positive unifying holiday. Following Washington’s lead, Lincoln issued his proclamation on the same day Washington had 74 years earlier (October 3) and declared the same Thanksgiving date as Washington had as well (November 26).
After that, holding Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday in November became an annual tradition, with that date becoming the law in 1941 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt irritated people by briefly trying to move it to the 3rd Thursday to extend Christmas shopping season during the Great Depression. Over the years, regional variations have also transformed the menu, keeping some elements of the traditional New England feast while also adding Southern favorites like pecan pie and the best holiday pie option–sweet potato pie. (I said what I said. 😀 )
Incidentally, this year, Thanksgiving falls on November 26, just like Washington’s and Lincoln’s first proclaimed Thanksgivings.
At the Berryville Library, 250 years after our nation’s founding, you can research anything you ever wanted to know about Thanksgiving, whether you’re interested in learning more about its historical origins or finding a new recipe for the menu.
Thank you, America, for our freedom to eat and celebrate Thanksgiving!
The following articles were very helpful in preparing this post:
Megan Gambino. “What Food Was Served at the First Thanksgiving in 1621?” Smithsonian Magazine. November 21, 2011. Updated November 26, 2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-food-was-served-at-the-first-thanksgiving-in-1621-511554
Stanley L. Klos. “Thanksgiving Proclamations: 1776 to 1798.” Thanksgiving Proclamations. September 15, 2012. https://www.thanksgivingproclamations.com/
Catherine Lamb. “What Food Was Actually Served at the First Thanksgiving.” Food 52. October 5, 2020. https://food52.com/story/20949-what-was-actually-served-at-the-first-thanksgiving
Mount Vernon. “Thanksgiving.” Mount Vernon. https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-first-president/thanksgiving
Plimoth Patuxet Museum. “Sarah Josepha Hale.” Plimoth Patuxet Museum. https://plimoth.org/yath/unit-5/sarah-josepha-hale
Smithsonian. “Thanksgiving: From Local Harvests to National Holiday.” Smithsonian. February 1992. Updated March 1998. https://www.si.edu/spotlight/thanksgiving/history
What are your Thanksgiving traditions? What’s on your menu for this year? What’s your favorite pie? Tell us in the comments!
