It wasn't the Pilgrims. It sure wasn't the Indians. No, Thanksgiving was invented by a single mother of five children, a widow who became one of the most influential women in America after she suddenly had to earn her own living.
Her name was Sarah Josepha Buell Hale. She realized her best shot at liquidity was writing. She was devout, and for some reason, she had this idea that there should be a day in the national calendar for everybody to give thanks for all of God's gifts. At the time, this didn't sound weird at all.
She was yammering about it for decades. Apparently, nobody had ever thought of it as a national holiday. She even came up with the idea of making it a Thursday in late November. I kid you not. The harvest would be in, and the bugs and viruses of summer would be gone. (That used to be a big health problem).
Hale eventually wrote Abraham Lincoln to recommend Thanksgiving as a national holiday. As a strategy for emphasizing national unity, it was a winner, and he made it happen.
When Hale first got started as a breadwinner, she wrote a whopping two-volume novel called Northwood. As Victorian fiction goes, her novel wasn’t bad.
There is a long passage that details exactly what she meant by a Day of Thanksgiving. If you'll read it, you'll recognize how precisely a traditional Thanksgiving is based on it. I've quoted the passage below.
The year after the novel was published, Ms. Hale became the “editress” of the magazine that morphed into Godey’s Lady’s Book. The magazine thrived, and it became the go-to resource for upwardly mobile housewives of the 19th century.
Ms. Hale eventually shriveled up and fell off her editorial chair, and Godey’s followed her several years later.
I’ve tried to fix the weird spelling and punctuation that occurred when Google scanned the novel. Some of it was guesswork. I also added several paragraph breaks.
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From Northwood, Part I, by Sarah Josepha Buell Hale
Published 1827
BOSTON: BOWLES & DEARBORN.
Ingraham & Hewes, Printers.
A long table, formed by placing two of the ordinary size together, was set forth in the parlor, which being the best room, and ornamented with the best furniture, was seldom used, except on important occasions. ...
The furniture of the parlor consisted of a [bookshelf]; any sideboard and table, a dozen handsome rush-bottomed chairs, a large mirror, the gilt frame covered with green gauze to prevent injury from [dirt] and flies, and on the floor was a substantial, [but] manufactured carpet, woven in a curious manner and blended with all the colors of the rainbow.
Seldom were the junior members of the family allowed the high privilege of stepping on this carpet excepting at the annual festival, and their joy at the approaching feast, was considerably heightened by the knowledge that it would be holden in the best room.
The table, covered with a damask cloth, vying in whiteness, and nearly equalling in texture, the finest imported, though spun, woven and bleached by Mrs. Romeiee's own hand, was now intended for the whole household, every child having a seat on this occasion and the more the better, it being considered an honor for a man to sit down to his Thanksgiving supper surrounded by a large family!
The provision is always sufficient for a multitude, every farmer in the country being, at this season of the year, plentifully supplied, and every one proud of displaying his abundance and prosperity.
The roasted turkey took precedence on this occasion, being placed at the head of the table; and well did it become its lordly station, sending forth the rich odour of its savoury stuffing, and finely covered with the frost of the basting.
At the foot of the board a sirloin of beef, flanked on either side by a leg of pork and joint of mutton, seemed placed as a bastion to defend innumerable bowls of gravy and plates of vegetables disposed in that quarter.
A goose and pair of ducklings occupied side stations on the table, the middle being graced, as it always is on such occasions, by that rich burgomaster of the provisions, called a chicken pie. This pie, which is wholly formed of the choicest parts of fowls, enriched and seasoned with a profusion of butter and pepper, and covered with an excellent puff paste, is, like the celebrated pumpkin pie, an indispensable part of a good and true Yankee Thanksgiving; the size of the pie usually denoting the gratitude of the party who prepares the feast. The one now displayed could never have had many peers.
[The English visitor, Mr.] Frankford had seen nothing like it, and recollected nothing in description bearing a comparison, excepting the famous pie served up to the witty King Charles II., and containing, instead of the savory chicken, the simple knight [sic].
Plates of pickles, preserves, and butter, and all the necessaries for increasing the seasoning of the viands to the demand of each palate, filled the interstices on the table, leaving hardly sufficient room for the plates of the company, a wine glass and two tumblers for each, with a slice of wheat bread lying on one of the inverted tumblers.
A side table was literally loaded with the preparations for the second course, placed there to obviate the necessity of leaving the apartment during the repast.
Mr. Romelee keeping no domestic, the family were to wait on themselves, or on each other. There was a huge plumb pudding, custards, and pies of every name and description ever known in Yankee land; yet the pumpkin pie occupied the most distinguished niche. There were also several kinds of rich cake, and a variety of sweetmeats and fruits.
On the sideboard was ranged a goodly number of decanters and bottles; the former filled with currant Wine and the latter with excellent cider and ginger beer, a beverage Mrs. Romelee prided herself on preparing in perfection.
There were no foreign wines or ardent spirits. Squire Romelee being a consistent moralist; and while he deprecated the evils an indulgence in their use was bringing on his countrymen and urged them to correct the pernicious habit, he practised what he preached. Would that all declaimers against intemperance followed his example.
Such, as I have attempted to describe, was the appearance of the apartment and the supper, when Mr. Frankford, ushered by his host and followed by Sidneyollowed by Sidney and the whole family, entered and took their stations around the table.
The blessing, which the saint, the father and the husband now fervently besought, was not merely a form of words, mechanically mumbled over to comply with an established custom, or perform an irksome duty.-— It was the breathings of a good and grateful heart acknowledging the mercies received, and sincerely thanking the Giver of every good gift for the plenteous-portion he had bestowed.
And while enumerating the varied blessings with which the year had been crowned.
Squire Romelee alluded to the return of the long absent child, and expressed his joy in thus, once more, being permitted to gather all his dear family around his table, his voice quivered; — but the tear which fell slowly down his cheek was unnoted by all save Frankford; the others were endeavoring to repress or conceal their own emotion.
The eating of the supper then commenced in earnest. There was little of ceremony, and less of parade; yet the gratified hospitality, the obliging civility and unaffected happiness of this excellent family left, on the heart of the foreigner, a lasting impression of felicity ....
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