Every schoolchild knows the story of the first Thanksgiving
feast: the Pilgrims and the Indians in
1621. There was sporadic adherence to it
among the Colonists in the ensuing years however, usually reserved for celebrations
of the endings of droughts, successful harvests, or victories in battles. Not until 1777 did the Thirteen Colonists
commemorate it as an actual day of Thanksgiving. It was slow to catch on, though, and it
continued its snail’s pace in reaching its place as an inviolable piece of
American life, a resistance that held fast despite the 1789 declaration by George
Washington that Thursday, November 26 would be “a public day of thanksgiving
and prayer,”[1]
with the distinct purpose of “giving thanks for the opportunity to form a new
nation and the establishment of a new constitution.”[2] I find it fascinating that it took an
invincible midlife woman to inspire its ultimate establishment as a revered national
holiday, an influence that only made its mark nearly two and one half centuries
beyond the 1621 gathering of the continent’s indigenous people and their interlopers.
Sarah
Josepha Hale was her name, and writing was her game, and hers is a prime
example of the pen being mightier than the sword. This nineteenth-century Mother of American
Thanksgiving is best known as the author of the nursery rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb, but she enjoyed
a diverse writing career, one spanning six decades, during that time authoring
several hundred poems and two dozen books, among them her hugely successful, first novel, an accomplishment that made
her one of America’s premier women novelists. In the United States titled Northwood:
Life North and South, and in England as A New England Tale, the pre-Civil War book also established her as
one of the first of either gender to espouse in print the premise that “While
slavery hurts and dehumanizes the slave absolutely, it also dehumanizes the
masters and retards the psychological, moral and technological progress of the
world.”
Hale
was the progenitor of several other progressive programs, among them her support
of equal education for American females, particularly higher education for
young women. She demonstrated her
commitment through her efforts in the founding of Vassar College, a
groundbreaking event in the annals of women’s rights that she upheld
unfailingly in her long writing and advocacy career. In addition to establishing the first day
nurseries for working women as well as public playgrounds, she was the first
editor of the first women’s magazine, a publication in which she broke
tradition and featured works by American writers rather than just reprinting
periodicals from England. The
prestigious literary prize, the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, is named for her.
An
active and vociferous patriot, Hale understood the unifying nature of
Thanksgiving better than most, and in an effort to have it designated as a
national holiday, she wrote thousands of letters to movers and shakers of the
country, including five Presidents of the United States, among them Zachary
Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pearce, James Buchanan, and finally Abraham
Lincoln. Gaining the ear, or rather the
eye, of Lincoln, her letter convinced him to support legislation establishing a
national holiday of Thanksgiving. The
year was 1863, the mid-point of the Civil War.
The hope was that it would help in coalescing the nation and its
culture.
In the words of my friend and
fellow author, Donna R. Wood in her wonderful blog, Butterfly Phoenix, “…As we gather at our tables of
Thanksgiving, let us remember those who are not feasting at tables surrounded
by family and friends. Let us remember
those who are gathered at tables where quarrels and discord are the norm. And, let us be thankful for those who would
lay down their lives for us, those who are taking their feast in a tent
somewhere in the world; alone without the benefit of family.”
Happy Thanksgiving, one and
all.
My latest novel, Guardians and Other Angels is available in paperback and eBook for Kindle, or your PC and laptop, and other downloading devices at http://www.amazon.com/Guardians-Other-Angels-Linda-Greene/dp/1897512562/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338336762&sr=8-1. The book is also available in paperback at barnes&noble.com.
To read excerpts of my current and future books, please log onto www.booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com.
To view an exhibition of some of my artwork, I invite you to log onto www.gallery-llgreene.com.
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