Fowl Play at Hand (Get it? Cause fowl means bird meat... Turkeys are birds...)
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| The state of Oregon proclaiming thanksgiving as an official annual holiday to be celebrated in the state of Oregon. |
Statement:
Coming up on the holiday of Thanksgiving and first beginning my research of such a holiday, I had mostly assumed there wasn’t really much to know about the celebration besides what sides go best with turkey and how to plan out how to devour as much delicious food as possible without becoming sick. From what I gathered in material to learn from, I can say now, everything I knew about Thanksgiving involving its history and creation, even effects and causes it had, was completely wrong.
I think I can overall say, Thanksgiving is nothing of what it originally seemed to me. It was based on a faintly blurred story that wasn’t fully recorded correctly and is still today taught in a filtered manner.
An idea was taken by many to mean a unifying and thankfulness for military victories, and was once fought for vigorously by many…
And then, somewhere along the line was what a basis for a pre-Halloween was created.
All those ideas were almost constantly moved along and lovingly added onto and filtered by marketing, which because of myths inspired became a successive paradise during the holiday times (and still is).
It was changed as seen fit throughout the times to best suit what the people of the time needed and what influences were made upon it by the people to become what is presently Thanksgiving day.
For one, as I learned from Maya Salam’s article, the timeline is completely relative: Thanksgiving was never an official holiday until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be a thank you for all the Civil War victories, though we’ll get to that pretty number later.
The Mayflower brought Pilgrims, at the time never having once recorded themselves as Pilgrims but rather Separatists, with the name ‘Pilgrim’ only stemming later in the 1880s from North America Plymouth England in 1620s, in order to set up a colony. In 1621, a celebration was held to celebrate a successful harvest with a three-day gathering attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe (this is what we think of for the first Thanksgiving).
As told by nonprofit members of Plymouth, a contended story of what truly happened in a Native’s viewpoint. Tisquantum, otherwise known as Squanto, held a large role though only a fraction of it is told. His people, the Wampanoag tribe, lived where the pilgrims settled. When they arrived, he was the one to become a sort of diplomatic and trade translator among other natives and showed the pilgrims the best planting method and good fishing spots. In 1614, he was captured and sold into slavery in Spain. He then spent years in England where he learned English and soon returned to New England in 1619 only to find his entire tribe dead from the small Pox disease. Eventually, in 1621, he again met the Pilgrims…
Now, claiming the celebration as the first Thanksgiving was not actually completely true: both sides, Natives and Pilgrims, already held festivals to celebrate successful harvests that in a way already resembled the ‘Day of Turkey’. It is taught that the Pilgrims came to ‘New England’ seeking religious freedom, when in reality they already had it, in Holland when first arriving in the early 1700s. No, really the Pilgrims came to New England seeking money and to establish Religious Theocracy, which they indeed did. Truthfully, Pilgrims came to New England against religious freedom.
Moving back to the topic of Squanto, I know you are probably thinking something similar to Pocahontas right now, the hugest misconception of the Natives and the Pilgrims is how the Pilgrims extended an invitation to the Natives… They didn’t! Talk about crashing a dinner party. There are no recorded answers to how they decided to come over. It is, however, possible that because they were already on the land, perhaps neighbors across the bank, the Wampanoag leader made a diplomatic call tp make a visit… What is true of the event is that the celebration was an amazing cross-cultural moment with food, games, and prayer.
One of the most devastating blows to me was the revelation that for this celebration, there was no recorded evidence of TURKEY. In the 1621 bounty, there was no piet(he pilgrims didn’t have wheat, butter, or any means to bake), no sweet potatoes (those didn’t yet exist in North America), but what is known is that the Wampanoag tribe did bring five deer and a possibility of some kind of fowl. The menu was something along the lines: cornmeal, pumpkin, succotash, and cranberries.
Samantha Cross is the writer of the article explaining how marketing rituals began,” The history of Thanksgiving is rooted in marketing,” since marketers were the ones who helped create many present-day cultural myths and rituals celebrated by nearly all Americans. Marketers not only created the myths, but they were also the ones to legitimize and maintain them. An example would be with the turkey itself. Back in the time, turkey competed with other meat for centerpiece of the meal, but because of marketing, it soon became the star in the 1920s. Ads are what shaped the foods around the turkey to become popular, leading marketing on holidays to be an enduring influence that is still around today.
Moving on to the more broad appeal, from Samantha Cross in her article, the first advocate for thanksgiving was Sarah Joseph Hale (editor of Godey’s Lady’s book) who wanted Thanksgiving to become a unifying national holiday. Samantha argued the reason behind the appeal would be the lack of religious and patriotic tradition held in the holiday, after all, it was all about the food, the family, and gratitude with a meal to represent long-term survival.
On the topic of Sarah Joseph Hale, prominent 1830s writer and editor, founder of American’ Lady’s magazines, and countless influential words in the eve of war, not many actually realize how big of a part she played in supporting the official declaration to make Thanksgiving a holiday. While, yes, secretary William Seward wrote it and President Abraham Lincoln issued it, most of the credit should indeed go to Sarah. Who, in fact, grew up regularly celebrating a Thanksgiving holiday, and in 1827 published the novel Northwood: a Tale of New England. The book was full of explained traditions and ideas to make the holiday official. She felt, like many, that the holiday would help to ease growing tensions of the Northern and Southern parts. By 1854, much of her effort paid off with as many a thirty states celebrating Turkey day on the books, yet this was still not her complete vision.
Sarah was a big part in urging the holiday to become official, but truthfully she did not originate the ideat hat had been around since early republic. Likely growing impatient, Ms. Hale went to write a letter both to the Secretary of State and the President urging the declaration for an official holiday. While Lincoln’s feelings were unclear on whether he was predisposed or not to the letter, but within a week Seward drafted Lincoln’s official proclamation for Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the final Thursday of November; November 26, 1863. A movement the two men hoped would “heal the wounds of the Nation”.
While the Holiday was official, there was a period in 1939 when President Roosevelt briefly moved Thanksgiving up a week in order to extend an already important shopping period before Christmas and spur economic activity during the Great Depression… Unfortunately, there were far too many who opposed (sixteen states refusing to honor the calendar shift) leaving countries dueling for when Thanksgiving was. Due to the unrest, Roosevelt reversed his decision about two years later returning the date to when it had originally been set.
While Thanksgiving is exciting, and a holiday long-awaited for, one of the oddest things about previous Thanksgiving tradition is how once looked a lot like Halloween… And once spurred Marketers into action in a different direction. Young kids, having started from Irish Immigrants in New York City, dressed in costumes and walked through the streets. In fact, so many kids paraded and dressed up, that according to a widely distributed item that appeared in the Los Angeles Times of Nov. 21, 1897, Thanksgiving was "the busiest time of the year for the manufacturers of and dealers in masks and false faces. The fantastical costume parades and the old custom of making and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving day keep up from year to year in many parts of the country, so that the quantity of false faces sold at this season is enormous."
It was from this event of masking, learned from the history department, that a different route was taken for Thanksgiving in general that created something completely different.
Ragamuffin Day. The day created by crazy kids getting dressed up in mostly homemade costumed to go door-to-door begging for treats. Similar to another holiday we all know, huh? Well, you would be somewhat correct, only Ragamuffin day occurred on Thanksgiving day morning before Halloween became anything official or even thought about.
The day, as researched from writer Karen Harris, was born shortly after Abraham finally established the holiday in 1863. The name came from the way kids dressed in worn and torn costumed: Ragamuffins. These kids would go knocking on doors ass families were preparing meals and beg for handouts. Often, these handouts included: fruits, baked goods, vegetables, even pennies, and mall trinkets. Due to the demand for costumes, markets took the chance to begin starting up businesses in 1870 to gain attention from these consumers.
There was one day the tradition was so popular with so many kids filling the streets and residents flocking to see the crazy costumes that almost seemed like a parade… It was from this recorded report that the Thanksgiving Morning parade was born.
What caused the end of Ragamuffin day, and ultimately the creation of Halloween, would be the bad apples of the Ragamuffins causing trouble. Because of what they stirred up, the upstanding citizens calling an end to the trouble… Mixed with the beginnings of the Great Depression, the mockery of begging for treats and food when it was a real problem was simply in poor taste. Despite these hardships, the tradition persisted, sought after by the children until it too finally became a holiday in the 1940s: Halloween. The last Ragamuffin day recorded was in 1956, and greatly overshadowed by Macy’s thanksgiving day parade that had started in 1924, and grew in size and popularity each year.
I think I can overall say, Thanksgiving is nothing of what it originally seemed to me. It was based on a faintly blurred story that wasn’t fully recorded correctly and is still today taught in a filtered manner.
An idea was taken by many to mean a unifying and thankfulness for military victories, and was once fought for vigorously by many…
And then, somewhere along the line was what a basis for a pre-Halloween was created.
All those ideas were almost constantly moved along and lovingly added onto and filtered by marketing, which because of myths inspired became a successive paradise during the holiday times (and still is).
It was changed as seen fit throughout the times to best suit what the people of the time needed and what influences were made upon it by the people to become what is presently Thanksgiving day.
The matter at hand:
“The story of the first Thanksgiving, as most Americans have been taught it, is not entirely accurate,” says Maya Salam in her article correcting previous myths about Thanksgiving most, including myself, deem true. In fact, you can blame school textbooks for teaching “filtered” and “out of context” softened views that created the stereotypes and myths known to have misguided a whole generation! Shows such as the one aired in 1968, “The mouse on the Mayflower,” are part of the reason for leading students to hold a sort of unclear and false mind-set.For one, as I learned from Maya Salam’s article, the timeline is completely relative: Thanksgiving was never an official holiday until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be a thank you for all the Civil War victories, though we’ll get to that pretty number later.
The Mayflower brought Pilgrims, at the time never having once recorded themselves as Pilgrims but rather Separatists, with the name ‘Pilgrim’ only stemming later in the 1880s from North America Plymouth England in 1620s, in order to set up a colony. In 1621, a celebration was held to celebrate a successful harvest with a three-day gathering attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe (this is what we think of for the first Thanksgiving).
As told by nonprofit members of Plymouth, a contended story of what truly happened in a Native’s viewpoint. Tisquantum, otherwise known as Squanto, held a large role though only a fraction of it is told. His people, the Wampanoag tribe, lived where the pilgrims settled. When they arrived, he was the one to become a sort of diplomatic and trade translator among other natives and showed the pilgrims the best planting method and good fishing spots. In 1614, he was captured and sold into slavery in Spain. He then spent years in England where he learned English and soon returned to New England in 1619 only to find his entire tribe dead from the small Pox disease. Eventually, in 1621, he again met the Pilgrims…
Now, claiming the celebration as the first Thanksgiving was not actually completely true: both sides, Natives and Pilgrims, already held festivals to celebrate successful harvests that in a way already resembled the ‘Day of Turkey’. It is taught that the Pilgrims came to ‘New England’ seeking religious freedom, when in reality they already had it, in Holland when first arriving in the early 1700s. No, really the Pilgrims came to New England seeking money and to establish Religious Theocracy, which they indeed did. Truthfully, Pilgrims came to New England against religious freedom.
Moving back to the topic of Squanto, I know you are probably thinking something similar to Pocahontas right now, the hugest misconception of the Natives and the Pilgrims is how the Pilgrims extended an invitation to the Natives… They didn’t! Talk about crashing a dinner party. There are no recorded answers to how they decided to come over. It is, however, possible that because they were already on the land, perhaps neighbors across the bank, the Wampanoag leader made a diplomatic call tp make a visit… What is true of the event is that the celebration was an amazing cross-cultural moment with food, games, and prayer.
One of the most devastating blows to me was the revelation that for this celebration, there was no recorded evidence of TURKEY. In the 1621 bounty, there was no piet(he pilgrims didn’t have wheat, butter, or any means to bake), no sweet potatoes (those didn’t yet exist in North America), but what is known is that the Wampanoag tribe did bring five deer and a possibility of some kind of fowl. The menu was something along the lines: cornmeal, pumpkin, succotash, and cranberries.
Samantha Cross is the writer of the article explaining how marketing rituals began,” The history of Thanksgiving is rooted in marketing,” since marketers were the ones who helped create many present-day cultural myths and rituals celebrated by nearly all Americans. Marketers not only created the myths, but they were also the ones to legitimize and maintain them. An example would be with the turkey itself. Back in the time, turkey competed with other meat for centerpiece of the meal, but because of marketing, it soon became the star in the 1920s. Ads are what shaped the foods around the turkey to become popular, leading marketing on holidays to be an enduring influence that is still around today.
Moving on to the more broad appeal, from Samantha Cross in her article, the first advocate for thanksgiving was Sarah Joseph Hale (editor of Godey’s Lady’s book) who wanted Thanksgiving to become a unifying national holiday. Samantha argued the reason behind the appeal would be the lack of religious and patriotic tradition held in the holiday, after all, it was all about the food, the family, and gratitude with a meal to represent long-term survival.
On the topic of Sarah Joseph Hale, prominent 1830s writer and editor, founder of American’ Lady’s magazines, and countless influential words in the eve of war, not many actually realize how big of a part she played in supporting the official declaration to make Thanksgiving a holiday. While, yes, secretary William Seward wrote it and President Abraham Lincoln issued it, most of the credit should indeed go to Sarah. Who, in fact, grew up regularly celebrating a Thanksgiving holiday, and in 1827 published the novel Northwood: a Tale of New England. The book was full of explained traditions and ideas to make the holiday official. She felt, like many, that the holiday would help to ease growing tensions of the Northern and Southern parts. By 1854, much of her effort paid off with as many a thirty states celebrating Turkey day on the books, yet this was still not her complete vision.
Sarah was a big part in urging the holiday to become official, but truthfully she did not originate the ideat hat had been around since early republic. Likely growing impatient, Ms. Hale went to write a letter both to the Secretary of State and the President urging the declaration for an official holiday. While Lincoln’s feelings were unclear on whether he was predisposed or not to the letter, but within a week Seward drafted Lincoln’s official proclamation for Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the final Thursday of November; November 26, 1863. A movement the two men hoped would “heal the wounds of the Nation”.
While the Holiday was official, there was a period in 1939 when President Roosevelt briefly moved Thanksgiving up a week in order to extend an already important shopping period before Christmas and spur economic activity during the Great Depression… Unfortunately, there were far too many who opposed (sixteen states refusing to honor the calendar shift) leaving countries dueling for when Thanksgiving was. Due to the unrest, Roosevelt reversed his decision about two years later returning the date to when it had originally been set.
While Thanksgiving is exciting, and a holiday long-awaited for, one of the oddest things about previous Thanksgiving tradition is how once looked a lot like Halloween… And once spurred Marketers into action in a different direction. Young kids, having started from Irish Immigrants in New York City, dressed in costumes and walked through the streets. In fact, so many kids paraded and dressed up, that according to a widely distributed item that appeared in the Los Angeles Times of Nov. 21, 1897, Thanksgiving was "the busiest time of the year for the manufacturers of and dealers in masks and false faces. The fantastical costume parades and the old custom of making and dressing up for amusement on Thanksgiving day keep up from year to year in many parts of the country, so that the quantity of false faces sold at this season is enormous."
It was from this event of masking, learned from the history department, that a different route was taken for Thanksgiving in general that created something completely different.
Ragamuffin Day. The day created by crazy kids getting dressed up in mostly homemade costumed to go door-to-door begging for treats. Similar to another holiday we all know, huh? Well, you would be somewhat correct, only Ragamuffin day occurred on Thanksgiving day morning before Halloween became anything official or even thought about.
The day, as researched from writer Karen Harris, was born shortly after Abraham finally established the holiday in 1863. The name came from the way kids dressed in worn and torn costumed: Ragamuffins. These kids would go knocking on doors ass families were preparing meals and beg for handouts. Often, these handouts included: fruits, baked goods, vegetables, even pennies, and mall trinkets. Due to the demand for costumes, markets took the chance to begin starting up businesses in 1870 to gain attention from these consumers.
There was one day the tradition was so popular with so many kids filling the streets and residents flocking to see the crazy costumes that almost seemed like a parade… It was from this recorded report that the Thanksgiving Morning parade was born.
What caused the end of Ragamuffin day, and ultimately the creation of Halloween, would be the bad apples of the Ragamuffins causing trouble. Because of what they stirred up, the upstanding citizens calling an end to the trouble… Mixed with the beginnings of the Great Depression, the mockery of begging for treats and food when it was a real problem was simply in poor taste. Despite these hardships, the tradition persisted, sought after by the children until it too finally became a holiday in the 1940s: Halloween. The last Ragamuffin day recorded was in 1956, and greatly overshadowed by Macy’s thanksgiving day parade that had started in 1924, and grew in size and popularity each year.
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