Thanksgiving. Melanie Kirkpatrick

Thanksgiving - Melanie Kirkpatrick


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       ALSO BY MELANIE KIRKPATRICK

       Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad

      © 2016 by Melanie Kirkpatrick

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

      First American edition published in 2016 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.

      Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com

      The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48—1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

      FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

      Design, composition, and illustrations by Katherine Messenger, www.KatherineMessenger.com

      LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

      Names: Kirkpatrick, Melanie, author.

      Title: Thanksgiving: the holiday at the heart of the American experience / by Melanie Kirkpatrick.

      Description: New York: Encounter Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016018851 (print) | LCCN 2016019723 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594038945 (Ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Thanksgiving Day—History. | Holidays—United States—History. | United States—Social life and customs.

      Classification: LCC GT4975 .K54 2016 (print) | LCC GT4975 (ebook) | DDC 394.2649—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016018851

       To my sisters, Holly and Robin,

       and the memory of our parents,

       Bill and Virginia

       CONTENTS

       CHAPTER 5: Thanksgiving’s Godmother

       CHAPTER 6: The Turkey Bowl

       CHAPTER 7: Happy Franksgiving

       CHAPTER 8: Day of Mourning

       CHAPTER 9: Helping Hands

       CHAPTER 10: Turkey Day

       Afterword: Five Kernels of Corn

      Readings for Thanksgiving Day

      Thanksgiving Recipes and Bills of Fare

       Pompkin Pudding & Tarts

       Cranberry Pie

       Cranberry Sauce & Roast Turkey

       Civil War Dinner for Wounded Soldiers

       Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Pie

       Fannie Farmer’s Thanksgiving Dinner

       Succotash

       World War I Thanksgiving Dinner

       Turkey, Chicken,or Macaroni?

       Thanksgiving Dinner at the White House

       A GI Thanksgiving

       Oysters for Thanksgiving

       Indian Pudding

       Acknowledgments

       Notes

       Index

       INTRODUCTION

       Newcomers

      A few days before Thanksgiving, I took the subway from Manhattan to the New York City borough of Queens. It was one of those November mornings that signal Thanksgiving is near—a cloudless sky, temperatures bracing enough to warrant diving into the coat closet to locate a scarf and gloves, and the sight of fallen leaves swirling in a neighborhood garden as I walked to the subway station. When my train exited the tunnel under the East River and clattered aboveground into Queens, I could see the sun sparkling on the water down below. A couple of miles south of the bridge I had just crossed, the East River empties into New York Harbor. It mingles there with the Hudson River, which flows into the harbor from its parallel route along the west side of Manhattan.

      When the one hundred and two English settlers now known as the Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower in the autumn of 1620, they intended to land not far from this very spot. The ship’s master, Christopher Jones, was steering for the mouth of “Hudson’s River.” The Hudson, as the river would come to be called, formed the northernmost border of the Colony of Virginia, where the English Crown had given the Pilgrims permission to settle. But the turbulent seas and fierce winds of the Atlantic pushed the Mayflower off course. The ship overshot its destination, ending up off the tip of Cape Cod in what is now Massachusetts. It was November. Winter was coming. The Mayflower had been in transit for two months, and provisions were running dangerously low.

      Master Jones informed the Pilgrim leaders that his ship could go no farther and told them to choose a spot to land. The Pilgrims selected a location with a deep harbor, an abundant source of fresh water, and a hill on which they could build a defensible fort. They named their new home Plymouth, after the English port city from which they had embarked on their journey to the New World. It became the first permanent European settlement in New England.

      My destination in Queens that autumn morning was a public high school for recent immigrants. Newcomers High School was founded in 1995 for the purpose of providing new arrivals with intensive instruction in the English language and an introduction to American culture, along with the standard high school curriculum. Once they are proficient in English, the students have the option of transferring to a mainstream city high school. Newcomers is housed in an imposing four-story brick edifice in Long Island City. The building first opened its doors in 1905, when an earlier wave of immigrants arrived in New York City with children who needed to be educated.

      Queens is one of the most ethnically diverse communities in America. It is home to


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