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Pam Frese is a professor of anthropology at The College of Wooster, where she joined the faculty in 1986. She is an authority on symbolic anthropology, American Culture, Latin American Culture, and women's studies. She is particularly well known for her expertise on civil-religious holidays, including Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Frese received her bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and her master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. |
As one of America's most cherished holidays, Thanksgiving is steeped in tradition and ritual. Pam Frese, professor of anthropology at The College of Wooster, has studied the origin of these practices and offers insight about the historical foundation of the holiday and the ways in which it has evolved over the years. How did the first Thanksgiving come about and what might it have been like? The spirit of reciprocity and exchange among Native Americans likely set the stage for the first Thanksgiving. They were remarkably well adjusted and surprisingly generous to the settlers. Archaeological records show that Indians had successfully adapted to the land: they hunted, planted, and harvested crops. The colonists, on the other hand, did not do well in their first harvest of corn, rye, barley, and wheat. So the Indians, who realized that the settlers did not have enough food, brought along deer and an assortment of wild birds, including turkey, quail, and grouse. They also cultivated medicinal herbs, some of which are used in dressing and cranberries - both staples of today's traditional Thanksgiving meal. The celebration reportedly lasted for three days, which may explain why today's Thanksgiving is really more than a one-day event. The big feast is on Thursday, with leftovers on Friday; and perhaps another gathering, like an extended family reunion, on Saturday. Sunday is generally left as a day of travel. When did the first Thanksgiving take place? It wasn't the first harvest season for the Pilgrims. The first celebratory feast with the Native Americans that we know today really occurred during their second year in the New World. Confident that they had enough surplus food for the second winter, the Pilgrim settlers joined the Native Americans to celebrate the harvest and give thanks for the bounty of the land. Who were the early settlers and what were their interests in the new world? One group of Pilgrims came to the new world in search of religious freedom because in England they were persecuted for their religious practices, which were quite strict and conservative. Another group, known as the Separatists, were not as conservative or as religiously conscious. They had more of a financial interest and wanted to pursue the lucrative fur trade in the New World. How did Thanksgiving come to be a national holiday? There had been Thanksgiving celebrations across the land for years, but there was no unified date until a woman named Sarah Josepha Buell Hale began to generate momentum for the designation of a national holiday. As editor of Godey's Ladies Book, a major women's journal that was created before the Civil War, her journal usually featured stories on motherhood, fashion, food recipes, and direction in appropriate social etiquette. Hale had political connections with important society women and national government officials. She began to campaign for a national day of Thanksgiving during the terms of several U.S. Presidents before Abraham Lincoln. After the Civil War began, Lincoln agreed to create a national day of thanksgiving to help heal the wounds of a divided United States. Hale gained access to Lincoln through her husband's brother, who was a friend of the President. For Lincoln, it was more of a political gesture. Through the Thanksgiving recipes printed in Godey's Ladies Book, Hale actually established the menu for Thanksgiving that most Americans recognize today. How did the Thanksgiving meal evolve into the feast we enjoy today? Hale is believed to have had a role in this as well. She is credited with introducing sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, and the centerpiece of the meal, turkey. Pilgrims would not have made today's versions of pumpkin pie, cranberries and other sweets because they did not have white sugar. After the Civil War, multiple cookbooks featuring traditional meals and recipes began to emerge. These cookbooks became so important in establishing American food patterns because many white women no longer had household and kitchen slaves and now had to cook for themselves. Nationally published cookbooks, most from publishers from the North, listed appropriate recipes for the entire nation and ultimately established the traditional Thanksgiving meal. How did football become such a big part of Thanksgiving Weekend? A common practice from the early Thanksgiving celebrations was the participation in hunting and games of physical prowess and manly skill. In this country, fathers would hunt with their sons while the women remained at home to cook the family feast. Many families today still find the men hunting over Thanksgiving as an important family tradition. Extended families still participate in outside sports, like touch football games on Thanksgiving morning. And certainly on a national level, the Thanksgiving meal is always followed by a glut of college and professional football games on television throughout the weekend. |
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