BackStory

The following links and documents relate to the BackStory episode “American as Pumpkin Pie: A History of Thanksgiving”, originally broadcast in November of 2010. You can listen to the entire episode here.

All Centuries

• The history of politicizing Thanksgiving and Columbus Day
• A collection of Thanksgiving history from History News Network
• “The Thanksgivings”: an Iroquois prayer of thanksgiving
• 500 years of Thanksgiving history
• Recollections of Thanksgiving, from the frontier to New York City
• Presidential Thanksgiving proclamations: typescripts and original documents
• A set of primary source materials from the Library of Congress for classroom use

18th Century

• How did the colonial townspeople of Virginia and Maryland supply themselves with food and fuel?
• More from James McWilliams on the Pilgrims’ struggles with New World agriculture
• Anne Blue Wills’s article on Pilgrims and progress (PDF)
• Compare competing “first Thanksgivings” in Virginia, Texas, and Florida
• Firsthand accounts of the Plymouth thanksgiving: Edward Winslow and William Bradford

19th Century

• The evolution of Thanksgiving into a “domestic occasion“
• A documentary about Sarah Hale from PBS
• Sarah Hale: letter to Abraham Lincoln; editorials penned in Godey’s Lady’s Book
• Domestic manuals by Sarah Hale: Receipts for the Million, Modern Household Cookery, Lessons from Women’s Lives, Traits of American Life, and The Good Housekeeper
• “The Soldier’s Thanksgiving,” a poem included in care packages to Union fighters during the Civil War

20th Century & Beyond

• A booklet (for purchase) and photoessay about the annual Thanksgiving presidential turkey pardon
• The first Thanksgiving football broadcast in 1934
• “A Day of Thanksgiving,” a patriotic film from 1951, explores one family’s response to lean times
• The American Can Company presents “The Miracle of the Can,” ca. 1956
• “Poultry on the Farm,” an educational film from 1937