Why are the Pilgrims’ pants always falling down? Because they wear their belt buckles on their hats.
That’s the only Thanksgiving joke I know, unless you count the holiday itself, which I’ve always felt is one of the less weighty celebrations. Yes, we give thanks for the bounty we enjoy, but we also use the long weekend to gear up for the winter holidays and get together with relatives we often don’t care for to eat a meal we’ve often grown tired of.
But as a pure slice of Americana, Thanksgiving is tops. Here is a 1932 conception of the first Thanksgiving by J.L.G. Ferris, followed by several drawings of the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth in 1620.
Click on any image to see a larger version.
At its core, Thanksgiving is the American version of a harvest celebration, which is a time-honored tradition among many cultures. We round up the last of the fall vegetables and other foods, decorate with things that are yellow and orange, and eat a lot. Here is a 1885 cartoon showing the ghost of turkey past by Oliver Herford, and a 1907 William Allen Rogers cartoon showing lambs celebrating Thanksgiving.
But we put our own spin on the classic harvest celebration with our emphasis on the meal and the tradition of featuring turkey and other staples that are native to America. Here is a stereoscopic picture of the classic Thanksgiving table in 1923, a 1869 Thomas Nast cartoon from Harper’s Weekly titled “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner,” a 1912 lithograph from Puck magazine of a Thanksgiving “scene” in old Plymouth colony, and another Puck cover illustration from 1897 (which references political corruption in New York).
As is typical of American holidays, the celebration of Thanksgiving has moved around quite a bit. It was not until a Federal law in 1941 that Thanksgiving was officially set as being the fourth Thursday in November. But presidents have always gotten in on the act. Here from 1921 are two pictures of Presidential turkeys arriving at the White House, and a 1929 picture of the Presidential turkey entourage.
The precise origins of many of the traditions we celebrate have been obscured over the decades, and a concerted effort was made after the Civil War to standardize some practices to help unify the country. But clearly the focus on the turkey was widely popular. Here from 1919 are two pictures of people bringing home turkeys, followed by a 1912 image of turkey-raffle winners bringing home the goods, and finally a 1900 picture of a woman dressing a turkey in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
One practice we’ve lost is that of Thanksgiving “masking.” Before Halloween became its own widely celebrated holiday, kids dressed up on Thanksgiving and went door-to-door in search of apples and other harvest goodies. Here are a series of pictures from 1911 showing Thanksgiving maskers and the practice of scrambling for pennies thrown to them.
Family gatherings are central to Thanksgivings past and present. Here is an early depiction of the bad manners sometimes displayed at Thanksgiving, first from 1896 by Alice Stephens, followed by a 1901 Collier’s magazine cover illustration by Edward Penfield, a 1895 Art Nouveau drawing by Will Bradley, and a Harper’s Bazaar cover of the same era.
Whenever there is excess consumption, there’s an opportunity to focus on those less fortunate. Here is an 1871 photograph by Weller of a beggar boy’s Thanksgiving, and a 1916 cartoon by John Tinney McCutcheon.
I’ll end with a series of Jack Delano photographs taken in 1940 as part of the Farm Services Administration photography project. These are all of the Crouch family of Ledyard, Connecticut, having their traditional Thanksgiving get-together. I suspect it looks very similar to many Thanksgivings of yesterday and today. First, a butcher named Metzendorf prepares the Crouch family turkey. Then, Mrs. T.M. Crouch prepares dinner, Mr. Crouch bastes the turkey, and the Crouch daughter surveys the various pies on display in the home.
And is seems that family dynamics haven’t changed all that much over the decades. Here, the Crouch men wait for dinner while reading the paper, the kids gather at the small table, the turkey gets carved, and everyone sits down for the family meal.
Whether you have a traditional family celebration, go out for Thanksgiving dinner, or skip the proceedings entirely, I hope you have a great long weekend. And for those of you in other countries who don’t celebrate the holiday, well, some people would say you’re fortunate!
This article was last modified on May 18, 2023
This article was first published on November 26, 2008
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