Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1914 — Thanksgiving Day One Hundred Years Ago [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Thanksgiving Day One Hundred Years Ago

M CENTURY ago, the celebration of Thanks\jY\ giving day was confined to New England. Even had it been the national holiday it is today, the struggling young republic of the United Shat.es in-the

year of grace 1814 wotUd have feasted on turkey and trimmings without enthusiastic thanks, for the nation was In the gloomy midst of the second war with Great Britain and it had mighty little to be thankful for. The capital had been captured *by the invaders and the* public buildings at Washington had been put to the torch. While the little American navy had won wonderful victories against great odds and written a chapter in history that makes our blood thrill with admiration, yet Great Britain, with its big fleets, was still mistress of the seas and American commerce ceased to exist. On land the American army, rent with dissentions and generated by political incompetents, made a record of humiliating defeats, the sting of which was to be removed in 1815 by the signal victory of Jackson and his backwoodsmen over the tried veterans of Pakenham at New Orleans. Political animosities flamed at a white heat unknown today. Sectional feeling was high and' bitter. The national treasury was practically empty. Grass grew in the streets of the cities and shipping rotted at the wharves. Busi- 1 ness and industry were paralyzed and the nation tottered on the verge of bankruptcy. The collapse of the young republic with its five or six million people scattered over an immense territory, was freely predicted, now that England’s hands were loosed by the fall of Napoleon. Only in New England in 1814 was Thanksgiving day observed, and even In the ancient birthplace of the holiday it is safe to say that the celebration was far from being the joyous feast of the past For New England as a whole had a big, bitter grouch and didn’t care who knew it. The New England states were fiercely hostile to the war and had been hardest hit by its effects. Its commerce, the chief source of its wealth, had been completely destroyed by Jefferson’s embargo law and the blockade of its ports by the British fleet. Its militia were not permitted to serve beyond the borders of New England, and the leaders and a great part of the populace openly and warmly advocated secession from tlie Union either as an Independent republic or as an English province or colony. Under such circumstances, Thanksgiving in New England in 1814 took a somber and more religious cast while the Thanksgiving sermons, once a significant feature of the day, were shadowed by gloom and saturated with pessimism. It was under conditions as inauspicious as these that the homegathering feast of old New England was ushered in. How profound the change wrought by a century in the life of the Republic! Thanksgiving day, this year, will be observed by almost if not quite a hundred million people, the citizens of a great and prosperous nation, the richest in the world and the most powerful ever conceived in the loins of time. A century ago, the day was observed by not quite a million and half New Englanders

alone amid gloom, uncertainty, apprehension and poverty following the ravages of war. A century ago, the Federal Union was an experiment in government that, in the minds of many, was foredoomed to failure. There was no nation 7 ; rather a loose confederation of hostile sections and jealous states. It was out of the struggles and sufferings of this very war that the American nation was born. Today, 100,000,000 Americans, in identity of political and social ideals, language and institutions, present a picture of the most thoroughly nationalized country of which history has record. But in a hundred other ways did the Thanksgiving of 1814 differ from the one to be celebrated this year. Of course there were the fundamental essentials of turkey, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce; there were the homegathering of relatives and the reunion of the family around the old hearthstone. But beyond that all has changed with the passage of the fleeting years. Could a boy or a girl o's today, by some of time, be transported back to one of those old fashioned Thanksgiving day of a century ago, he or she would think they were being robbed of their holiday rights. Even the wealthiest people of those old days could not have on their Thanksgiving table many of the things found today on the tables of the humblest citizen. In fact, there was a great poverty of vegetable variety on the Thanksgiving table a century ago. No asparagus, no sweet potatoes, no string beans, no corn, no green peas, and so on down the attractive list that constitutes the appetizing trimmings of the Thanksgiving table of today. The tin can era had not yet dawned, and its possibilities of; smashing seasonable monotony were undreamed of even by epicures. And there was the same poverty in Thanksgiving fruit The list practically started and ended with apples—-and-Of a kind that most farmers now feed only to their hogs or leave to rot on the ground. Grapefruit was a word not yet invented; oranges would have been worth their weight in gold; and the banana was to await many years for its .introduction to the American housewife. Nor would it have been possible for the voracious youngster of that day to gorge himself with luscious grapes and delicate raisins. Pineapple was another unknown word. Of course there were njits, but only of native varieties. Almonds, Brazil nuts, pecans and the English walnuts, without which no Thanksgiving table of today would be considered complete, were then unknown luxuries. The farmer of that day was a slave of the season and the produce of his toll was governed strictly by the calendar.- There were no hothouses to force fruit and vegetables out of season. The good people of those days would have considered it almost sacrilege, an attempt to improve on the divine plan of things. A request for strawberries or cucumbers at Thanksgiving would be equivalent to an application for admission to an asylum for the Insane. But the difference does not end with a comparison of the eatables of the feast a century ago and today. It is even more startling when we com-

pare the task of preparation now . and then. The good housewife of 1914, if called upon to get up a Thanksgiving feast with the utensils and under the kitchen conditions of 1814, would throw up her hands in despair, and if the task was put up to the average servant of today would jump her job in an instant The hardworking housewife of a century ago, had neither range nor cook stove. They had not yet been invented. Her turkey and her pies were baked in the great fireplace, and her fuel was wood, for coal was not yet used. If relatives were to be invited to Thanksgiving homegatherings in those old days, the invitations would have to be dispatched weeks and perhaps months in advance -of the event, for it required the best part of a week for a letter to travel from Boston to New York, as long a time, in fact, as it now takes to cross the continent. Were it addressed to Chicago, a mere trading post at that time, it would be sent the previous July. And the invitation itself would be written with a quill' and blotted with sand, ijor in thqgie days there were no steel pens, no typewriters, no blotters, no gummed envelopes, no postage stamps. And the son or daughter in the city who wished to return to the old homestead for Thanksgiving in 1814 faced an ordeal before which most of us today would quail. For traveling a century ago .was a hazard and a peril. The railroad was at that time undreamed of, and all inland travel was by river or road. If a man on his way to a Thanksgiving feast at the old homestead in the country was thrown from his horse in the road, breaking a leg or arm, his case was one to be pitied. For most of the doctors of those days were ignorant and careless. If amputation was necessary, the victim was generally held down by main strength while saw and knife cut their agonizing way through the tortured flesh and bone. For 1814 was before the days of anesthetics. Ether, chloroform, cocaine and morphine were as yet unknown, and as for antiseptics, the protection against germ infection, of the wound, that was to wait for more than fifty years. There was no quinine, no strychnine, no tincture of iron, no carbolic acid —in fact, there were scarcely any of the common and familiar drugs of today! There was no pepsin for that Thanksgiving indigestion, and a cold or a toothache was a thing to be dreaded.

In literally millions of homes on Thursday, the Thanksgiving dinner will be preliminary to a visit to a football game or a theater, things impossible to the sturdy stock of 1814. In fact, the religious feast of our grandsires has become to a-large and, growing extent a part of a sporting and amusement holiday in,which real Thanksgiving, in the sense of the origin of the day, is conspicuous J>y its Absence. Nevertheless, when a person stops to think about it, comparing the material comforts of today with those of a century ago, considering the marvelous growth of the republic in wealth and prosperity, the wonderful advancement of education, science and knowledge—there are many profound reasons why this annual feast of ours should be preceded by a moment, at least, of solemn and reverent thankfulness.