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| Advertisements like this focus on the meal and even add in stereotypical cartoons to sell the idea of Thanksgiving. This advertisement does not display the true history of Thanksgiving. |
Thanksgiving is a holiday in when we, the people of the United States, gather around a large feast to celebrate how thankful we are. We celebrated how the first pilgrims came to the United States to have religious freedom, and the sacrifices they had to make on the long trip there. We recall how the pilgrims landed and were greeted by some Indians, most notably, Squanto. The Indians taught us how to farm and we shared a great feast, with turkey, vegetables, and pie. This was my understanding of the first Thanksgiving and how it came to be, but with further research from four articles, I came to a new conclusion that, throughout history, Thanksgiving as a holiday has been commercialized through its food, story, and meaning.
In history class and movies that address the “first Thanksgiving,” we learn that the Pilgrims and Indians shared a large feast at the end of the harvest. Squanto taught the Pilgrims farming techniques and how to fish. A couple days before Thanksgiving I remember watching The Mayflower Voyagers, a Peanut's movie, where the cartoon walked the audience through the story of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. In the movie, it said that Squanto had learned how to speak English because some people came and kidnaped by some people and they taught him English. However, this has been altered to make it sound less extreme than it was, according to Maya Salam, who wrote Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving is Wrong, “he was captured by the English in 1614 and sold into slavery where he learned English. He then returned to his homeland (New England) in 1619, but when he arrived he learned that all of his people were dead due to smallpox. He did not meet the Pilgrims until 1621.” The Peanut’s movie did not explain the whole truth, but this fact would make it less appropriate for children. The change in this one fact in a prime example of how the facts within movies have been altered for the audience's sake. Another fact that has been proven somewhat wrong in the feast, specifically the type of meat that was served. Turkey has been the main meat advertised since the 1920s, according to Samantha N.N Cross. It has not been proven that Turkey was at the feast, but there also has not been proof of it not being present. I learned that for the most part, Turkey has been for advertisement. Not only has the turkey been advertised but also the “technologies” that help prepare the meat, such as thermometers, have been pushed on the market. Sides and deserts, such as cranberries and Pumpkin pie are a prime example of how marketing has wiggled its way into associating themselves with the holiday.
The only meaning for the holiday, that I was taught, was to celebrate the pilgrims. I never knew about the large impact Sarah Josepha Hale had on the holiday until I read Abraham Lincoln and the "Mother of Thanksgiving" by Samantha N.N Cross. She was a very driven woman that pushed for the holiday for three decades. She constantly wrote to the government, President Lincoln and the secretary of state to get the holiday approved as a holiday that would be celebrated throughout the United States. She also wrote multiple editorials and articles about the holiday to get her point across. By 1854 the majority of the states celebrated the holiday, but Hale’s goal was to have it spread all across the country. She believed it would “help unify and grow tensions and divisions between the north and south. Although Hale did not originate the holiday, she tried her very best to get it passed. The holiday had been used to celebrate the victories of wars and thanks to the people who served. The holiday that we know today was not permanently set until 1941.
I never realized how commercialized the holiday had become until I did this research. I learned many things that I never knew before, through the research of the holiday. Many things I had learned from movies and knowledge that I had been taught through the years when I was younger were proven false.
NYTs: Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving is Wrong
History.com: Abraham Lincoln and the "Mother of Thanksgiving"
Smithsonian: The Invisible Way That Marketers Set the Menus for Your Thanksgiving Feast
