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Pilgrims and Progress: How Magazines Made Thanksgiving

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Anne Blue Wills
Anne Blue Wills
Affiliation:
Anne Blue Wills is an adjunct assistant professor of Humanities at Davidson College.
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Extract

William Bradford wrote, at the beginning of his history Of Plymouth Plantation, “I must begin at the very root and rise” of the story, setting events down “in a plain style, with singular regard unto the simple truth in all things.” He intended to produce an accurate and clear account of the way the Plymouth settlers' lives unfolded. Readers after postmodernism may note with skepticism the governor's claim that his portrayal set down only the perfectly discoverable truth of the matter. Yet certain sparely depicted moments in his history lead us to accept the description “the simple truth” as the only one appropriate to his work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 138 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2003

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References

1. Bradford, William, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647, ed. Morison, Samuel Eliot (New York: Knopf, 1952), 3.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., 90.

3. Ibid. The celebration, as Morison noted (90 n. 8), was more fully described in a letter of Edward Winslow's, included in a collection of extracts from Winslow's and William Bradford's journals known as Mourt's Relation, by the otherwise unknown author of its preface, Mourt, G. (Bradford, , Of Plymouth Plantation, 64 n. 2).Google Scholar

4. On “inventing traditions,” see the chapter by Eric, Hobsbawm by that title in Hobsbawm, and Terence, Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–14Google Scholar. On Thanksgiving's origins, see Appelbaum, Diana Karter, Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1984)Google Scholar; The Folklore of American Holidays, ed. Hennig, Cohen and Coffin, Tristram Potter (Detroit, Mich.: Gale, 1987), 331–51Google Scholar; Douglas, George William, The American Book of Days (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1937).Google Scholar

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6. Ibid., 22, 135.

7. The phrase comes from Perry, Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap, 1939), 37.Google Scholar

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9. Hambrick-Stowe, , Practice of Piety, 127.Google Scholar

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13. Ibid., 19.

14. Pleck, Elizabeth H., “The Making of the Domestic Occasion: The History of Thanksgiving in the United States,” Journal of Social History 32 (1999): 775–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pleck, expands these ideas in Celebrating the Family: Ethnicity, Consumer Culture, and Family Rituals (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

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16. It has been suggested to me that the religious press might have played at least as great a role in promoting Thanksgiving as did the popular “secular” periodicals treated here. My sense is that although the aggregate circulation of denominational and religious publications might have rivaled that of the “secular” periodicals I discuss here, the reach of any single religious magazine fell far short of a Godey's or a Ladies' Home Journal. In addition, it seems that these religious periodicals were largely concerned with intradenominational matters—polity, theology, missions—and that before the Civil War, if attention fell on extraecclesial subjects, such attention focused on the question of slavery. See John, Tebbel and Zuckerman, Mary Ellen, The Magazine in America, 1741–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 86Google Scholar. Also Mott, Frank Luther, A History of American Magazines (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938), 2: 60–78; and 3: 63–89.Google Scholar

17. Horton Davies quoted in Hambrick-Stowe, , Practice of Piety, 100.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 132.

19. Cf. Rom. 11:22.

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23. Ibid., 24.

24. Ibid., 26, 21.

25. Ibid., 30, 31, 32, 34–36.

26. Ibid., 23, 42–43.

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30. Mott, , History of American Magazines, 1: 581; 2: 539. Godey's had reached an unprecedented circulation of 150,000 by 1860 but faded from then until its demise in 1898. Ladies' Home Journal grew to 440,000 in circulation by 1889 and approached one million by the turn of the century.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., 3: 6, qualifies the accuracy of circulation figures for publications from the era before circulation audits. He explains that publishers carefully guarded and even fudged their figures for the sake of boosting advertising revenue. Nevertheless, he estimates circulation for most of the nine publications I examined for this essay. He does not mention Chambers's Journal in any volume of his history. The Chautauquan, published from 1880 until 1914 for men and women enrolled in the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, enjoyed “wide circulation” by 1885, when more than 20,000 people each year enrolled in the CLSC (3: 173, 544). The Cosmopolitan began publication in 1886; between 1892 and 1898, its circulation grew from 100,000 to 300,000 (4: 480 n. 1, 484). Harper's New Monthly Magazine, which originated in 1850, had more than 100,000 subscribers during the 1870s and reigned as one of the “leaders in the field of national illustrated monthlies” during the period of 1885–1905 (2: 383 n. 1; 3: 6; 4: 43). Mott gives no specific figures about Littell's Living Age but notes that the years 1865 until 1885 were the magazine's best (3: 256). Mott is silent also on figures for the Magazine of American History, published from 1877–1917, but suggests that the numbers were impressive when he observes that Martha J. Lamb bought the magazine in 1883 and “made it a paying venture for the ensuing ten years” (3: 260). The more specialized sporting magazine Outing, which ran from 1882 until 1923, built a circulation of around 20,000 subscribers by 1886, around 90,000 a decade later, and a little more than 100,000 during the period 1905–10. My thanks to Gina Petrie, E. H. Little Library, Davidson College, for her assistance with circulation figures.

32. On the shift in late-nineteenth-century myths of Thanksgiving's origins, see Siskind, , “Invention of Thanksgiving,” 181–85Google Scholar. “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book, November 1897, 559–60, gave a historical, pre-U.S. picture of thanksgiving traditions.Google Scholar

33. Hambrick-Stowe, , Practice of Piety, 102, citing Luke 10:2, Rev. 14:15–16, and Rom. 8:23.Google Scholar

34. Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table: Our National Thanksgiving Day, the pledge of American Union forever,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1865, 445. She repeated this debt to the Pilgrim Fathers in “Editor's Table” columns from November, 1865, 1870, and 1873.Google Scholar

35. Sarah, Hale, Northwood; or, Life North and South: Showing the True Character of Both, 2nd ed. (New York: H. Long and Brother, 1852), ivGoogle Scholar. Taylor, William R., Cavalier and Yankee: The Old South and American National Character, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 138–39.Google Scholar

36. Hale, , Northwood, 83, 86, 92, 91.Google Scholar

37. On her estimates of the spread of Thanksgiving celebrations, see Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1864, 440Google Scholar; ibid., November 1870, 470; she cited the exact same figures in November 1872 (462) and 1874 (472).

38. Ibid., November 1865, 445.

39. Ibid., November 1864, 440.

40. Ibid., November 1867, 447.

41. Ibid., November 1876, 473.

42. Ibid., November 1870, 470.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., November, 1871, 471, for a typical appeal that Thanksgiving be “assured to us by law.” Hale made similar public requests every year until her retirement in 1877.

45. Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1873, 471.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., November 1876, 473.

47. The classic statements of “woman's sphere” ideology can be found in Barbara, Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood,” American Quarterly 18 (1966): 151–74Google Scholar; Cott, Nancy F., The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and more recently, Colleen, McDannell, The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840–1900, Religion in North America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), especially 1–19, 77–107, and 127–49.Google Scholar

48. “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, November 1872Google Scholar. See Hambrick-Stowe, , Practice of Piety, 99, 100, on “lecture days.”Google Scholar

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50. Susan, Coolidge, “Thanksgiving Surprise,” Ladies Home Journal, 11 1890, 3.Google Scholar

51. Bernard, Bailyn and others, The Great Republic: A History of the American People (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), 435, 452.Google Scholar

52. Cameron, Anna Alexander, “Some Thanksgiving Dishes for Harvest Tables, from Maine to Texas,” Ladies' Home Journal, 11 1890, 21.Google Scholar

53. MrsRorer, S. T., “A Thanksgiving Dinner,” Ladies' Home Journal, 11 1890, 20.Google Scholar

54. “Shooting the Thanksgiving Turkey,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, November 1879, 1 (illustration)Google Scholar; Armstrong, W. H., “A Thanksgiving Shooting Trip,” Outing, 11 1898, 121–22Google Scholar; Hallowell, Florence B., “Linda's Responsibility,” Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, 11 1889, 6.Google Scholar

55. For example, , S. G. B., “Thanksgiving,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1863, 429–32Google Scholar; Frost, S. Annie, “Effie's Thanksgiving,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1871, 428–32Google Scholar; and Augusta de, Bubna, “Number Seventy-nine: A Thanksgiving Romance,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1878, 389–91.Google Scholar

56. Will, Carleton, “The Grand Old Day,” Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, 11 1888, 1.Google Scholar

57. Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1876, 473.Google Scholar

58. Ibid., November 1864, 440. For fiction highlighting Thanksgiving charity, see Brander, Matthews, “A Thanksgiving Dinner,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 12 1893, 28–34Google Scholar; Portor, Laura Spencer, “The Yielding of Hezekiah Craddock: A Thanksgiving Story,” Godey's Magazine, 11 1897, 451–61Google Scholar; Douglas, Letitia Virginia, “Carlo's Thanksgiving,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1890, 417–18.Google Scholar

59. Frost, S. Annie, “Rosa's Thanksgiving at Brookhaven,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1868, 417–50Google Scholar; quotations from 418, 420, 421. See also a similar but later conversionary tale: Wilson, Olivia Lovell, “The Tola of Mustard-Seed: A Thanksgiving Tale,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1891, 367–75.Google Scholar

60. On wealth, envy, and the dangers of both vices, see a story by Sterling, M. D., “Myrtle's Thanksgiving,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1891, 408–11Google Scholar. Family ties work miraculous transformations in other stories; for example, Putnam, George I., “New England's Children: A Thanksgiving Story,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1893, 605–11.Google Scholar

61. Spofford, Harriet Prescott, “A Thanksgiving Breakfast,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 11 1895, 923–33, quotations from 924, 932, 933.Google Scholar

62. Handy, Robert T., A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), esp. 64–69Google Scholar; and Moore, R. Laurence, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, chap. 2. In the Presbyterian Church's mission magazine, an article contemporary to the Spofford story bears witness to these Protestant worries: “New England, Roman Catholic,” The Church at Home and Abroad (March 1893): 202–3.Google Scholar

63. Tenney, Julia M., “Thanksgiving on Herring Hill,” The Chautauquan, 11 1897, 193–201; quotations from 200, 201.Google Scholar

64. Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1875, 474.Google Scholar

65. Thorpe, Rose Hartwicke, “A Song of the Thankful Time,” Ladies' Home journal and Practical Housekeeper, 11 1890, 1.Google Scholar

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68. “Thanksgiving in the Olden Time,” Ladies' Home Journal, November 1884, 1.Google Scholar

69. Maria, Clark, “Thanksgiving Offering,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1849, 312.Google Scholar

70. Bailyn, and others, Great Republic, 425, 429 (on “invisible hand”), and 431. See Lamb, “One New England Thanksgiving,” 514; her childhood Thanksgiving remembrance includes the recounting of her aged host's “mental nourishment and encouragement” to his young guests: “he taught us other things worth knowing, as, for instance, that man is equal to his aspirations and can obtain whatever he labors for.”Google Scholar

71. Rev. Talmage, T. DeWitt, , D. D., “Under My Study Lamp,” Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, 11 1890, 13.Google Scholar

72. Sarah, Hale, “Thanksgiving Day,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1872, 419.Google Scholar

73. Catherine, Owen, “Thanksgiving Dinner, and how to cook it,” The Cosmopolitan, 09 1886, 193Google Scholar; Sangster, Margaret E., “Thanksgivin' Pumpkin Pies,” Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, 11 1889, 7Google Scholar; Kelly, William D., “The Twilight of Thanksgiving,” Ladies' Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, 11 1890, 4Google Scholar; and Wendell, Anna Whittier, “Thanksgiving at Uncle Gideon's,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1890, 402–9.Google Scholar

74. My thinking here is informed by Joel, Kovel, White Racism: A Psychohistory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

75. Norton, Charles Ledyard, “Thanksgiving Day, Past and Present,” Magazine of American History, 12 1885, 561.Google Scholar