The Making of Thanksgiving: From Colonial Feast to National Myth

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The Making of Thanksgiving: From Colonial Feast to National Myth

James Morgan

The Original 1621 Feast — A Colonial Event

In the autumn of 1621, roughly fifty surviving members of the Plymouth Colony joined ninety Wampanoag people under Chief Massasoit for a three-day harvest feast. The event was born out of gratitude for a successful harvest following a brutal first winter that had killed nearly half the settlers. Yet, contrary to popular imagery, it was not called “Thanksgiving,” nor did it resemble the solemn religious days of thanks observed by Puritans in England. Instead, it was a secular harvest celebration — filled with feasting, games, and military displays — not unlike English “harvest home” festivals. There is no record that it became an annual tradition, nor that it carried any special spiritual or political meaning. The colonists were still subjects of King James I, their survival tied directly to English supply lines and investors. The goods they produced — furs, fish, and timber — were exported to England for profit. In that sense, the 1621 feast was wholly an English colonial occasion, rooted in the mercantile system of empire, not the birth of a new nation. Only centuries later would this simple local celebration be elevated into the mythic “First Thanksgiving” — reinterpreted as a moral origin story for the United States.

Forgotten for Centuries (1600s–1700s)

Following the 1621 feast, no record suggests that the colonists repeated it annually, and the event faded from memory. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, colonial leaders across British North America occasionally declared days of “thanksgiving,” but these were ad hoc religious observances — typically responses to droughts, military victories, or deliverance from disease. There was no fixed calendar date, and each colony, and even each town, held them independently. Virginia, for instance, had earlier held a thanksgiving service in 1619, while Massachusetts Bay later declared similar observances in the 1630s. These occasions bore little resemblance to a shared holiday; they were local fasts and feasts centered on providence and repentance, not civic unity. Moreover, the original Plymouth story wasn’t even accessible to later generations. Edward Winslow’s brief description in Mourt’s Relation (1622) was obscure, and William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation remained unpublished and largely forgotten for two centuries. As the colonies grew wealthier and more diverse, memories of the early Pilgrims receded into the background. By the time of the American Revolution, few citizens would have recognized the 1621 feast at all — it had no role in shaping the emerging identity of the colonies or the early United States.

The Early Republic — A New Nation Seeks Origin Stories

When the thirteen colonies declared independence from Britain in 1776, they severed political ties but not cultural memory. The new republic still sought a moral origin story — a moment of divine favor that could legitimize its destiny apart from monarchy. Early leaders turned to the idea of national gratitude as a civic virtue. George Washington’s 1789 proclamation of a “Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer” was not about Pilgrims or Plymouth; it was about giving thanks for the new Constitution and the survival of liberty. Presidents John Adams and James Madison later issued similar proclamations, each time linking thanksgiving to national stability and moral order. However, these were one-time declarations, not a recurring holiday. The dates varied, and many Americans resisted federal involvement in religious observances. Still, the idea of Thanksgiving as a civic expression of gratitude took root. It was a ritual that could unite a diverse people under a sense of shared providence. The emphasis was not on colonial heritage but on American exceptionalism — a belief that divine favor guided the nation’s founding. Thanksgiving thus began its transformation from scattered local fasts into a symbol of republican virtue and unity.

The 1820s–1840s — The Pilgrim Myth Is “Discovered”

The early nineteenth century brought renewed fascination with America’s colonial beginnings. In 1820, while the nation celebrated the bicentennial of the Mayflower landing, scholars rediscovered the Pilgrims’ forgotten writings. The manuscript of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, which had languished in a London library, resurfaced decades later and became a cultural sensation. Romantic historians and clergy in New England quickly elevated the Pilgrims into icons of moral courage and divine purpose. In sermons, textbooks, and orations, they were portrayed as religious refugees who crossed an ocean to found a society based on freedom of conscience — an appealing narrative at a time when America sought moral legitimacy. The Plymouth story also gave New Englanders a claim to be the nation’s cultural and ethical cradle, rivaling the South’s dominance in politics and economics. The humble harvest feast of 1621 became a symbol of divine favor and cooperation, even though the historical details were sparse. The legend of Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower Compact, and the “First Thanksgiving” were all reshaped into a coherent national myth — one that celebrated perseverance, faith, and unity over profit and empire.

1840s–1860s — Sarah Josepha Hale and the Campaign for a National Holiday

Enter Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, one of the most widely read magazines in antebellum America. For nearly two decades, Hale led a tireless campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Through persuasive editorials and letters to every sitting president from Zachary Taylor to Abraham Lincoln, she argued that Thanksgiving would strengthen moral values, foster domestic unity, and heal sectional divisions. Hale’s vision transformed Thanksgiving from a regional observance into a sentimental family tradition. Her magazine published menus, poems, and illustrations that standardized the imagery: the roast turkey, pumpkin pie, family gathered around a table, and domestic tranquility. This was the moment Thanksgiving began to resemble the modern holiday — a blend of religious gratitude, culinary ritual, and national identity. In a nation increasingly divided over slavery, Hale saw the holiday as a peaceful common ground between North and South. By appealing to faith and family, she sought to unify the country through shared cultural memory. Her campaign created not just a holiday, but a mythology — one that made the Pilgrims’ feast a symbolic ancestor of American domestic virtue.

1863 — Abraham Lincoln Makes It Official

The Civil War was tearing the nation apart when Abraham Lincoln, influenced by Sarah Hale’s appeals, issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation in October 1863. His words reframed the holiday as an act of national gratitude amid suffering. He invited all citizens to give thanks for “fruitful fields and healthful skies,” despite the nation’s turmoil, and to pray for healing and peace. Lincoln’s genius lay in linking the moral endurance of the Pilgrims with the resilience of the Union. The proclamation came at a time when the North needed a unifying narrative — one that reminded Americans of shared origins and divine purpose. By fixing Thanksgiving to the last Thursday of November, Lincoln institutionalized a day that transcended regional and religious boundaries. It was no longer just a New England custom; it became a national ritual of reconciliation. The imagery of the Pilgrims — humble, faithful, and enduring — offered a model for a divided nation’s moral rebirth. Thus, the myth of the “First Thanksgiving” was fully nationalized, transformed into an emblem of unity, faith, and the enduring belief that the American experiment was under God’s providential care.

1870s–1920s — Textbooks and Monuments Rewrite the Story

Following the Civil War, America entered an era of reconstruction and nation-building, and schools became the primary engines of cultural memory. In the 1870s and beyond, textbook authors, reformers, and artists recast the 1621 feast as a moral parable for the new generation. Illustrations showed Pilgrims in neat black hats breaking bread with friendly Native Americans, omitting the harsh realities of colonization and displacement that followed. Thanksgiving pageants in schools turned the event into a ritual of innocence and harmony, teaching children that America’s beginnings were peaceful, grateful, and cooperative. Monuments rose in Plymouth, Massachusetts; parades and speeches celebrated the Pilgrims as the first Americans. This narrative served a political function: it offered a unifying myth for an increasingly diverse immigrant nation, providing a shared “origin story” that transcended race and class. The Thanksgiving myth thus became a tool of cultural assimilation, teaching newcomers what it meant to be American — grateful, industrious, and faithful. It was less a record of history than a moral instruction, turning memory into national identity and myth into heritage.

20th Century — The Modern American Tradition

By the twentieth century, Thanksgiving had completed its evolution from a colonial anecdote into a deeply rooted national tradition. Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt reaffirmed it annually, while Norman Rockwell’s 1943 painting Freedom from Want immortalized the modern image of the holiday — a family gathered around a turkey-laden table, embodying comfort, unity, and abundance. In 1941, Congress and President Roosevelt officially fixed the holiday as the fourth Thursday of November, codifying what Lincoln had begun. Commercial culture soon intertwined with the tradition: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade debuted in 1924, while football games and televised festivities became modern rituals. Yet the mythic story of Pilgrims and Wampanoag remained central, even as historical scholarship began to question its accuracy. By the late twentieth century, Native American groups began observing a National Day of Mourning alongside Thanksgiving, challenging the celebratory narrative and urging a fuller reckoning with the colonial past. Still, the day endures as a paradox — part myth, part memory, part modern tradition — reflecting both the beauty and complexity of America’s ongoing effort to define who it is, and how it began.Write your text here...