Thanksgiving originated in 1621, when English settlers and Wampanoag natives celebrated the successful harvest of the first Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts. But the true history of Thanksgiving reveals embarrassing facts. The Pilgrims did not start the tradition. For centuries Native Americans in eastern North America had harvest celebrations in the autumn. In the year 1863, during the civil war, the Union needed all the patriotism it could get. The Pilgrims had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. They weren’t even associated with the holiday until 1890s.In fact, they were not commonly known as “the Pilgrims” until the 1870s.
The first Thanksgiving was part of a series of historical paintings done around 1900 by J.L.G. Ferris. Featuring generous and giving Pilgrims feeding humble Native Americans, the painting encapsulates our distorted view of this time in history.
Thanksgiving celebrates our sense that we are a special nation destined for greatness. We have already seen how early Pilgrim leaders thanked God for the plague that killed Native peoples. To them, this showed that God was on the side of the Pilgrims. Turkey and Thanksgiving were firmly linked in the minds of Americans in 1864, when artist Winslow Homer created this image of Civil War soldiers with a turkey’s “wishbone.” The message is that they are looking forward to the end of the war. Turkey is the main course of the dinner and is usually baked and stuffed with cornbread crumbs, onions, and bacon. It is accompanied by gravy.
The meaning is that it gives important to one culture and that culture is white and European. Fun fact: turkey and football have become even more symbolic of the modern American Thanksgiving than they were when this vintage card was new.
