Mary Had a Little…Turkey?

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What does the poem Mary Had a Little Lamb and Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday have in common?

Sarah Joseph Hale, born in New Hampshire in 1788, is largely responsible for both.

After being widowed, and with five children to support, Sarah wrote poetry as a way to make a living, and one of her most enduring poems is Mary Had a Little Lamb. Sarah became the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, a family-oriented magazine in 1841.  As editor, she began to crusade for a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to commemorate the pilgrims’ famous feast. Interestingly, the southern part of the United States was slow to get on board, as they considered the feast of 1610, when supply ships finally reached Virginia, to be a more important occasion.

Thanksgiving was unofficially celebrated in the Northeast and Midwest throughout the 1840s and 1850s, but it wasn’t until the contingency of southern states were absent from congress, due to the Civil War,  that Abraham Lincoln was able to declare Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday in 1863. For some time after the way, the southern states considered Thanksgiving a Yankee Abolitionist Holiday, but eventually  unity was reestablished and turkey and cranberries became part of a national tradition.

Now, about the turkey…

In Sarah’s day, people assumed that the pilgrims ate turkey as part of their feast due to the abundance of wild turkeys on the east coast, while in actuality, they probably ate venison. A turkey is a practical centerpiece for a celebratory dinner, being larger than a goose and able to feed more people.  Godey’s Lady’s Book featured many recipes for Thanksgiving and many of them featured turkey. Other publications pushed the idea of turkey being the traditional protein for the Thanksgiving feast, including Georgia’s Augusta Chronicle, which in 1882 announced, “Every person who can afford a turkey or procure it will sacrifice the noble American fowl to-day.”

Do you celebrate with a traditional turkey dinner? Or do you create your own traditions?

 

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Jeannie Watt raises cattle in Montana and loves all things western. When she's not writing, Jeannie enjoys sewing, making mosaic mirrors, riding her horses and buying hay. Lots and lots of hay.

33 thoughts on “Mary Had a Little…Turkey?”

  4. Hey Jeannie! My husband fries a turkey and I bake a ham. Yes, a traditional dinner with dressing. Most of our family likes dark meat. But, since my husband fries one, we all seem to like it.

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Many blessings to you all!

  5. My husband & I like to go to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving dinner. He loves the traditional much more than I do, so that’s our go-to for traditional. We celebrate Thanksgiving & Christmas together with his extended family in early December & we usually do Mexican (my fav). He has a large family, so it’s a LOT of work to do traditional, so the cooks usually opt for something easier… & who doesn’t love Mexican?! 🙂

    I enjoyed reading about Sarah Joseph Hale & how Thanksgiving Day got started.

    Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours! God bless.

  7. We have turkey on Thanksgiving Day with all the trimmings. Thank you for sharing. It is fascinating History.

  9. We do a turkey at Thanksgiving, and I’ll sometimes cook one for Christmas, too. There’s nothing like leftover turkey sandwiches!!

  12. We have a turkey, breast only, because I cannot seem to make a turkey that I can stand to eat. They are tough. I keep trying every year. Maybe I will be successful this year, especially if I let my husband take it on himself. He has become a very good cook over the last few years. And he never wanted to do any cooking!

  13. Good afternoon, we always have the traditional Turkey dinner for thanksgiving. Thank you for sharing this part of History, it is so very interesting, I enjoyed it and I learned some things I did not know, Thank you. May you and your Family have a Blessed Thanksgiving.

  14. We do something different, we don’t care much for Turkey. I only have three to cook for and don’t need a lot of leftovers.

  15. We stay pretty much traditional for Thanksgiving. We all like turkey, dressing, and all the fixings. A full turkey makes so much food that you need a large group of people to eat it and to prepare for lots of leftovers. We do fix some of the dishes at other times of the year, but not all at the same time. Doing it once a year as part of a family gathering makes the meal all the more special and meaningful.
    I hope you and your family havae a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

  16. Always fun to see history brought to the front. There are many such stories in how things came to be. Thank you for telling the stories. Myself, I like to serve the Turkey with Cranberry Sauce recipe that was served on the Titanic on the evening it struck the iceberg. 🙂 April 14, 1912. Wonderful recipes.

  17. Thanks for sharing this bit of history. When mom was alive we always had turkey on Thanksgiving. Since she died, my sister and I have changed things up every year. Last year we had chicken crepes and ham. the year before we made crock pot stroganoff. This year there was a request for turkey.

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