The Mother of Thanksgiving

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Thanksgiving story most of us hear is about friendship and unity. And that's what Sarah Josepha Hale had on her mind when she sat down to write a letter to President Lincoln in 1863, deep into the Civil War. Hale had already spent years campaigning for a national day of thanksgiving, using her platform as editor of one the country's most widely-read magazines and writing elected officials to argue that Americans urgently needed a national story. But she'd gotten nowhere – until now.

Five days after reading her letter, Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. At the time, no one was talking about Pilgrims and Native Americans. But that too would change.

Today on the show: a Thanksgiving story you may not have heard, how it happened, and what it leaves out.

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Transcript

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1:24.3	We have a standing proof of this in the season they chose for the celebration of our annual festival, the Thanksgiving.
1:33.6	The funeral-faced month of November is thus made to wear a garland of joy.
1:48.0	No. Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story of Thanksgiving, the traditional one.
2:06.8	In 1621, when the English colonists, now known as the Pilgrims, were newcomers to this continent.
2:14.0	There was a major feast between the Wampanogs and the English of Plymouth.
2:21.8	That's a very real event.
2:23.5	The event that's now called the First Thanksgiving.
2:27.2	The suggestion is that the two parties got together for this feast out of innate friendship.
2:34.0	It's this odd little frozen in time fantasy moment of folks getting together and eating,
2:41.0	but you don't really know why.
2:42.5	This is Elizabeth James Perry.
2:45.3	I'm a member of the Aquino-Wampanag tribe of Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard, and I'm an artist,
2:53.3	and I'm an exhibit consultant as well.
	...

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