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Farther down in today’s newsletter, yo
But the threat from a pandemic — better propagandized in 2020 than it had been in 1918 — caused many people to stay home last year.
A pandemic, overlooked
Like this year’s version, Thanksgiving in 1918 occurred in the midst of a global pandemic. But the atmosphere was surprisingly joyous. World War I had ended on Nov. 11, and the country was celebrating, despite a horrific number of influenza deaths in October. During the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Times articles contained relatively few mentions of the so-called Spanish flu.
a fun new way to make sure thanksgiving is pleasant
it’s simple.
serve hors d'oeuvres in the garage
ask guests to take a rapid test to come inside
immediately admit any guest who laughs at you
rig all tests to read positive so that anyone who submits to testing goes home and thinks that it’s their own fault
be thankful for a delicious meal with only your sane friends.
the best part is that EVERYONE learns a valuable lesson.
On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims,” now known as Pilgrims, “led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established” how they would live once they got there. The contract set forth “just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs,” or political beliefs. “Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible.
The Pilgrims were a “devoutly religious people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.” They believed in God. They believed they were in the hands of God. As you know, “this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey” to the New World on the tiny, by today’s standards, sailing ship. It was long, it was arduous.
There was sickness, there was seasickness, it was wet. It was the opposite of anything you think of today as a cruise today on the open ocean. When they “landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford’s detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves.” There was nothing.
“[T]he sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims — including Bradford’s own wife — died of either starvation, sickness or exposure.” They endured that first winter. “When spring finally came,” they had, by that time, met the indigenous people, the Indians, and indeed the “Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers” and other animals “for coats.” But there wasn’t any prosperity. “[T]hey did not yet prosper!” They were still dependent. They were still confused. They were still in a new place, essentially alone among likeminded people.
“This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than what it really was. That happened, don’t misunderstand. That all happened, but that’s not — according to William Bradford’s journal — what they ultimately gave thanks for. “Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract” that they made on the Mayflower as they were traveling to the New World…
They actually had to enter into that contract “with their merchant-sponsors in London,” because they had no money on their own. The needed sponsor. They found merchants in London to sponsor them. The merchants in London were making an investment, and as such, the Pilgrims agreed that “everything they produced to go into a common store,” or bank, common account, “and each member of the community was entitled to one common share” in this bank. Out of this, the merchants would be repaid until they were paid off.
“All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well.” Everything belonged to everybody and everybody had one share in it. They were going to distribute it equally.” That was considered to be the epitome of fairness, sharing the hardship burdens and everything like that. “Nobody owned anything. It was a commune, folks. It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the ’60s and ’70s out in California,” and other parts of the country, “and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way.
“Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that” it wasn’t working. It “was as costly and destructive…” His own journals chronicle the reasons it didn’t work. “Bradford assigned a plot of land” to fix this “to each family to work and manage,” as their own. He got rid of the whole commune structure and “assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage,” and whatever they made, however much they made, was theirs. They could sell it, they could share it, they could keep it, whatever they wanted to do.
What really happened is they “turned loose” the power of a free market after enduring months and months of hardship — first on the Mayflower and then getting settled and then the failure of the common account from which everybody got the same share. There was no incentive for anybody to do anything. And as is human nature, some of the Pilgrims were a bunch of lazy twerps, and others busted their rear ends. But it didn’t matter because even the people that weren’t very industrious got the same as everyone else. Bradford wrote about how this just wasn’t working.
“What Bradford and his community found,” and I’m going to use basically his own words, “was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else… [W]hile most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years — trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it — the Pilgrims decided early on,” William Bradford decided, “to scrap it permanently,” because it brought out the worst in human nature, it emphasized laziness, it created resentment.
Because in every group of people you’ve got your self-starters you’ve got your hard workers and your industrious people, and you’ve got your lazy twerps and so forth, and there was no difference at the end of the day. The resentment sprang up on both sides. So Bradford wrote about this. “‘For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.
“For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense,'” without any payment, “‘that was thought injustice.’ Why should you work for other people when you can’t work for yourself? What’s the point? … The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive.
“So what did Bradford’s community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? ‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford, ‘for it made all hands [everybody] industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’ …
“Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s. … In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. Now, this is where it gets really good, folks, if you’re laboring under the misconception that I was, as I was taught in school. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London.
“And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the ‘Great Puritan Migration.'” The word of the success of the free enterprise Plymouth Colony spread like wildfire and that began the great migration. Everybody wanted a part of it. There was no mass slaughtering of the Indians. There was no wiping out of the indigenous people, and eventually — in William Bradford’s own journal — unleashing the industriousness of all hands ended up producing more than they could ever need themselves.
So trading post began selling and exchanging things with the Indians — and the Indians, by the way, were very helpful. Puritan kids had relationships with the children of the Native Americans that they found. This killing the indigenous people stuff, they’re talking about much, much, much, much later. It has nothing to do with the first thanksgiving.
The first Thanksgiving was William Bradford and Plymouth Colony thanking God for their blessings. That’s the first Thanksgiving. Nothing wrong with being grateful to the Indians; don’t misunderstand. But the true meaning of Thanksgiving — and this is what George Washington recognized in his first Thanksgiving proclamation.
This year’s holiday is more normal than last year’s, before the Covid vaccines had arrived. But it still is unusual for many families, involving some combination of antigen tests, outdoor meals (where the weather allows) and underlying anxiety.
Happy Thanksgiving.
This year’s holiday is more normal than last year’s, before the Covid vaccines had arrived. But it still is unusual for many families, involving some combination of antigen tests, outdoor meals (where the weather allows) and underlying anxiety.
With that mind, my colleagues and I put together a brief history of Thanksgiving celebrations since the 1850s, focusing on unusual years like this one. Farther down in today’s newsletter, you’ll also find last-minute cooking tips, suggestions for holiday television and more.
However you spend the day, we hope it’s a good one. We want to say thanks specifically to two groups of people: first, to everybody who’s working today (including our colleagues putting out The Times and delivering the print edition); and, second, to all of you — the readers of The Morning. We are grateful that you make time in your day for this newsletter.
In the beginning
The first appearance of the word “thanksgiving” in The Times digital archives — which go back to 1851 — did not refer to the holiday. It instead was a reference on Oct. 4, 1851, to “an appropriate prayer and thanksgiving” from a reverend at the opening of the Queens County’s annual agricultural exhibition.
“Thursday was quite a jubilee in the pleasant village of Jamaica, Long Island,” an unnamed reporter for The New York Daily Times wrote. “The ruddy, manly appearance of the farmers, and the freshness, delicacy, and real natural loveliness of their wives and daughters, (for which the county is justly renowned,) were sights to cheer and amaze the citizen, and many were there to witness and enjoy them.”
The first mention of the holiday occurred less than a week later, in a brief news item reporting that the governor of Massachusetts had declared Thursday, Nov. 27, 1851, as “a day of public thanksgiving and praise.” There was no national Thanksgiving holiday at the time.
As other states announced when they would also be observing the holiday that year, The Times printed an infographic — of questionable value — on Oct. 31, 1851:
Local becomes national
The origin story of Thanksgiving that’s often told in school — of a friendly meal between pilgrims and Native Americans — is inaccurate. (As far back as 1974, The Times ran an article describing the holiday as a “national day of mourning” for many Native people.)
The real origin of the national holiday dates to Abraham Lincoln. On Oct. 3, 1863, he called for the country, “in the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity,” to set aside the last Thursday in November as “a day of Thanksgiving.” The Times published his Thanksgiving proclamation on the front page, and several times subsequently.
While reciting the country’s many blessings — a productive economy, bountiful harvests and a growing economy — Lincoln also recommended that Americans give thanks “with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.”
Lincoln’s proclamation was in part a response to Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor who had spent decades campaigning for a national day of gratitude.
A pandemic, overlooked
Like this year’s version, Thanksgiving in 1918 occurred in the midst of a global pandemic. But the atmosphere was surprisingly joyous. World War I had ended on Nov. 11, and the country was celebrating, despite a horrific number of influenza deaths in October. During the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Times articles contained relatively few mentions of the so-called Spanish flu.
“Thanksgiving Day this year will evoke a gratitude deeper, a spirit of reverence more devout, than America has felt for many years,” a Times editorial on Nov. 19 said.
One factor may have been that the pandemic briefly receded that November, before surging again at the end of the year. As has happened over the past two years, a virus ebbed and flowed in mysterious ways.
Depression and recovery
By 1930, the country’s mood was much darker. A front-page headline on Thanksgiving Day that year reported: “450 Tons of Food Given to Needy, But Supply Fails.” The police turned away elderly men and women to reserve the food for families with young children.
The Times also reported that the Thanksgiving tradition of ragamuffins — in which children would dress up and go door to door asking for coins or treats — seemed to be fading in Manhattan. “Things ain’t the way they used to be,” a police officer said.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to spark the economy by moving Thanksgiving one week earlier, to create a longer Christmas shopping season. Critics mocked the policy as “Franksgiving,” and it failed. Roosevelt announced in 1941 that he was abandoning the experiment for the next year.
Roosevelt ultimately settled on the fourth Thursday of the month — a middle ground that made sure the holiday would not occur later than Nov. 28 and that Christmas shopping could always begin in November.
11/22/63
Thanksgiving in 1963 came only six days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and most public celebrations were canceled. The Macy’s parade was an exception, The Times reported, because the organizers felt its cancellation would be “a disappointment to millions of children.”
The Kennedys gathered at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., but they skipped their usual game of touch football. “Like millions of other Americans, they will give the day over to the children and mourn together their loss,” The Times wrote.
The isolation of 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic arguably caused a bigger break in Thanksgiving traditions than anything that came before. Since Lincoln’s proclamation, even during war, depression and tragedy, most Americans still found ways to gather with family and friends for a holiday meal.
But the threat from a pandemic — better understood in 2020 than it had been in 1918 — caused many people to stay home last year.
Cherri Harris and her daughter Reanna Williams on a Zoom Thanksgiving last year.Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times
Today will be different. The pandemic is not over, but the worst of it almost certainly is. Vaccines have allowed most Americans to gather safely.
The country is hardly in a joyous mood. Even as people are happy to be together again, many are mourning the losses of the past two years and deeply worried about the country’s future. Yet mixed feelings are also part of the Thanksgiving tradition, all the way the back to Lincoln’s proclamation.
More on the holiday: For Rafael Alvarez — a writer for “The Wire” — today is a chance to remember his father’s penknife and his parents’ Baltimore dreams.
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