Episode Three chronicles thanksgiving's transformation during the eighteenth century from regional religious observance to national political tool. Claire Delish explores how New England colonies regularized annual autumn thanksgivings while other regions practiced the holiday sporadically or not at all. The episode examines evolving food traditions as turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pudding became thanksgiving staples in prosperous households. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress used thanksgiving proclamations to build unity and frame independence as divinely sanctioned. The centerpiece is George Washington's landmark seventeen eighty-nine thanksgiving proclamation, the first presidential thanksgiving connecting the holiday to the Constitution and American national identity. The episode also covers the controversial debate over federal religious proclamations, Thomas Jefferson's principled refusal to declare thanksgivings, and the subsequent forty-six year gap before Lincoln revived the practice, leaving thanksgiving as primarily a state-level celebration.
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Episode Two examines the famous sixteen twenty-one Plymouth harvest feast and its aftermath, revealing the reality behind the Thanksgiving myth. Claire Delish explores what actually happened during that three-day gathering between fifty colonists and ninety Wampanoag people, including the authentic foods served like venison, wildfowl, and corn, while debunking myths about pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. The episode traces how this single event was not called Thanksgiving and was never repeated annually, then follows the development of actual colonial thanksgiving traditions throughout the seventeenth century. These were solemn religious observances proclaimed irregularly by Puritan leaders for prayer and fasting, not festive meals. The episode also addresses the deteriorating relationship between colonists and Indigenous peoples, culminating in King Philip's War, and examines how different colonies established their own varied thanksgiving practices during this formative century.
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Episode One explores the rich tapestry of harvest thanksgiving traditions that existed long before the Pilgrims arrived in America. Host Claire Delish examines the sophisticated ceremonial practices of Indigenous peoples across North America, including the Haudenosaunee seasonal thanksgivings, the Green Corn Ceremony of Southeastern tribes, and the Wampanoag harvest celebrations honoring the Three Sisters crops. The episode then crosses the Atlantic to discover European harvest festivals like England's Harvest Home, Lammas, and Michaelmas, along with similar traditions in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. These ancient practices of gratitude, community feasting, and agricultural celebration from both continents set the foundation for what would eventually become the American Thanksgiving holiday, revealing a much deeper and more complex origin story than the simplified Plymouth narrative.
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