The twisted history of Presidents' Day

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 201

Monday Feb 18th is Presidents' Day right?

On the face of it this holiday seems pretty straightforward.  It's called Presidents' Day, it's a national holiday and it celebrates the birthday of Presidents Washington and Lincoln.

Sorry. There is no such thing as a national holiday. There are federal holidays where federal offices are closed. Monday is a federal holiday.

According to the Federal Gov the third Monday in February is officially called ---Washington's Birthday---not Presidents’ Day. It officially and legally has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln.

Oh I can hear the traffic on google...

Why is that?
Hard to believe, but Abraham Lincoln was never honored with a Federal holiday. I know you’re going to send me to websites that say Monday is a national holiday called President’s Day.  Remember, there’s no such thing as a national holiday and that isn’t how you’d spell Presidents’ Day anyway. (There’s lots of iffy info on the Internet.)

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that you may remember having off on Lincoln’s birthday. You may have, many states used to have a State holiday for Honest Abe.  No surprise that Illinois was the first in 1892.

But states are not obliged to adopt federal holidays, which only affect federal offices and agencies. While most states have adopted the federal celebration of Washington's Birthday, a dozen of them officially celebrate something they call Presidents' Day. A number of the states that celebrate Washington's Birthday also recognize Lincoln's Birthday as a separate legal holiday. Illinois the land of Lincoln is one.  New York State is another it celebrates: Feb 12^th Lincoln’s birthday and Feb 19^thWashington’s Birthday.

What gives??? Here goes...

The original holiday commemorated GW's B-day.  It was first held the last
full year of his presidency on Feb 11th 1796. However, by then Feb 11th was no longer his birthday.

Wha?

George Washington was born on Feb. 11, 1731, however, this was according to Ye old Julian calendar. In 1752, Britain and her American Colonies switched to the Gregorian calendar, which changed the New Year from March back to January (we'll talk about this again when we get to our April Fools posting). The switch also made dates jump ahead an additional 11 days. Thus, in 1752 Washington began blowing out birthday candles on Feb 22nd.

Not everyone was happy with celebrating GW's b-day --whatever the date. Thomas Jefferson and his pals thought it all a little too similar to adulation of royalty like the damned Brits.

These disagreements lasted until Washington kicked the bucket in 1799.
Congress then passed a resolution calling on the nation to observe February 22, 1800 in his honor. But it was not a federal holiday.

Since he was a southern boy, GW's b-day was always big in the South; in fact, Richmond Virginia was officially celebrating it before he became President. But, the observance didn't really catch on nationwide until 1832 just after what would have been his 100th birthday. By then, GW had pretty much been elevated to American Sainthood.

One notable birthday party happened in 1850 in La-La-land. There, a fancy dress ball was held in honor of Washington where only L.A.'s upper crust were allowed to attend. They arrived in Hummer coaches at Graumann's Colonial. The hoi polloi (lower classes from Greek “the many”) retaliated by firing a canon into the ballroom, killing several partygoers.

Okay, so here's where things get hinky.

In 1864 Old Abe gets whacked.
He was killed on Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Here in New York signs were put up along Broadway that said,  "Our Christ has fallen" GW may have reached Sainthood but now he had some competition.

(The fact that Old Abe was at the theater on Good Friday should give you a good indication that he wasn’t a religious man, and that there once was a time when you didn’t have to cater to the Religious right to get elected.)

Congress held a memorial service the following year on Abe's b-day Feb 12th. After that, some northern states declared Abe day an official state holiday but Ole Abe was still quite unloved in the south and they didn’t come to the party.  Which is why Lincoln's Birthday never became a Federal holiday.

The oddest part of the story is that George Washington's birthday didn't become an official federal holiday until 1885, a full 21 years after Lincoln's death.  It seems to me they could have declared a Combo deal Presidents' Day then, but didn't. The slight to Abe looks political and intentional. Especially when you learn that Robert E Lee’s birthday, Jan 19th, is a state holiday in Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Virginia. It’s celebrated as Confederate Heroes day in Texas. Alabama, Mississippi Florida also celebrate the birthday of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. But no Abe Lincoln.

In 1971 in an attempt to give folks 3-day weekends, the observation of Washington's Birthday was officially shifted to the third Monday in February by order of legislation HR15951. Some reformers had wanted to change the name of the holiday as well, to Presidents' Day, to honor both Abe and George, but Congress rejected that proposal. I’m not sure if this was due to the Southern Congressional Caucus. But the result was the holiday remained and still officially remains: Washington's Birthday.

Here’s where the confusion comes in---President Nixon not only had a hard time understanding and following the Constitution, Tricky Dick didn't understand the difference between an Executive Order and an Executive Proclamation. He made a proclamation calling it Presidents' Day saying it was to celebrate all presidents, even himself, but a Presidential Proclamation carries no legal standing. Which is why Monday still officially celebrates George Washington not Abraham Lincoln.

Abe & George's Excellent New York Adventure

If you care to celebrate the day, you dear citizen of Gotham are once again in a most envious position.

You can stand outside the 42^nd Street library in the middle of Fifth Ave –the spot where in 1776 General George Washington rode his horse attempting to rally his troops in a battle against British Soldiers.

You can go uptown to Fort Washington where, duh, Washington’s fort stood. 

Stand at the Fulton Ferry landing in Brooklyn next to the Barge Music boat. Look for a rock and plaque that marks the spot where GW stood as he evacuated his army after they were beaten by the British at the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776.

Go over the George Washington Bridge, which rises above the very spot where once again he and his entire army evacuated the city.

You can walk over to Union Square Park and stand in front of the old site of Virgin Records ( Now a Citibank) across from the equestrian statue of George Washington. A colonial Inn once stood here on the road just outside of New York (Wall street area). In 1783 after the Revolutionary War General Washington waited here until he got word that the British Army had finally evacuated the city. Then Washington mounted his horse and rode downtown and reoccupied New York. (I say, is that why there's an equestrian statue of Washington here?)

Washington on Broadway the day the Brits evacuated.

Or you can walk out beside Citibank at 14th and Broadway ( the old Virgin Records site) and stand in the street, in the middle of Broadway. Abraham Lincoln’s funeral cortege rode over this spot in 1864; all the buildings and lampposts were draped in black.  Look up at the building opposite you Shoe Mania! 

Teddy Roosevelt in 2nd floor window on left
Lincoln in box on street.

If you were here that day you would have seen a young boy looking out the 2nd story window watching the procession. The boy would one day grow up to be President, his name Theodore Roosevelt. (You can visit his boyhood home a mere 3 blocks from here The building that stood on the procession route was his Uncle’s house.

You can walk through the lobby of City Hall where Lincoln’s body was placed to await mourners.

Walk outside into City Hall Park and stand where George Washington stood when he first heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud to his troops.

Washington sworn in at Wall and Bwy. Trinity Church in the bkgrd.

Or go a few blocks south to Wall and Broad and stand where George Washington was sworn in as our first President- (I say, is that why there’s a big statue of Georgie here?) Yes, New York was the nation’s first Capital.  Washington lived at 39 Broadway.  And worshiped at St. Paul’s church across from City Hall Park, where you can still see his pew.

The First White House

Or  go over and stand next to the Brooklyn Bridge anchorage near Pearl Street. Where the first “White House” stood.  Washington’s home when New York City was the United States first capital.

Or walk through the Washington Square Arch put here to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Washington Inauguration.

Or go to the Metropolitan Museum and see the famous paintingWashington crossing the Delaware.

Or go into Kean’s Chophouse at 72 west 36^th and see the original Ford’s Theatre Playbill from the night Lincoln was assassinated.

Or Visit The Forbes Galleries at 62 Fifth Ave. and see a handwritten letter by Mary Todd Lincoln contesting some charges for Abe’s Inauguration suit. 

Mrs. Lincoln's fave store Victoria's Secret

Or walk into a store she frequented–Arnold Constable’s Dry Good store at Fifth Ave and 19^th street. (The French 2^nd Empire building that now houses Victoria Secret.)

Lincoln at Cooper Union

Or you can walk over to Astor Place—and go to the auditorium of Cooper-Union where Lincoln gave his famous speech that concluded:

LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Or walk into McSorley’s Old Ale house across the street where old Abe threw one back after his speech.

But do celebrate.

One last thing ---as a copywriter I’m struck by the fact we think we’re pretty hot stuff when we can use 72 words to communicate something in a 30 second tv spot. Read below and see what a truly inspired writer can do with 256 words.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

 But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.



Worth remembering – both the man and the words.

Happy whateva.

Dano

President of Curious New Yor

The Origins of Valentine's Day

Okay, so what's with the little fat guy with the bow and arrow? 

Well, by now you know the drill. 

Many present day Western holidays can be traced back to the Greeks. 

Somewhere along the line the Romans borrowed those ideas and not long after, the Christian Church changed their meaning to put a "holy" spin on them.

They became known as holy days--- holidays. 

St. Valentine's Day is no exception.

Snap zoom back to Greece. 

EROS - son of Chaos

Chaos

Aphrodite

Eros is the god of love. 

He was not only exotic he was erotic. He was the son of Chaos “the original primeval emptiness of the universe.”  (Imagine what that title would look like on a business card.) 

Later tradition held that Eros was the son of Aphrodite; goddess of sexuality (root word for aphrodisiac)

In this version the paternity is a little fuzzy. 
His pops was either Zeus (Bill Gates), Ares - the god of war (Donald Rumsfeld) or Hermes, the Divine messenger of the Gods (and one hell of a scarf maker.)  

Ares --the God of War (not to be confused with the astrological sign of the ram Aries) always traveled with an entourage that included his sister Eris, and her sons Phobos, Metus, Demios and Pallor . 

In English his homies are: Discord, Panic, Fear, Dread, and Terror.  (Phobos gives us the word for “fear of”: phobia. Pallor’s terror makes us “pale”.)

Eros had two sidekicks: Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire). Isn’t it always longing and desire that gets humans into trouble with things erotic?

Eros getting younger...

Eros was an adult but through the ages he was depicted younger and younger until he appeared as  a cherub-like infant. Kind of a fat, horny little butterball.

And younger.

In many illustrations Eros is shown blindfolded because, of course, love is blind. Eros was armed with both darts and arrows. Once wounded by their magic tips the victim will either fall uncontrollably in love or have total disinterest in the first person they see.

Before we go on a Roman holiday let’s swing by India for a second.

In another one of those one-world connections, there is a Hindu love god called Kama (as in Sutra.) 

He also carries a bow and arrow. He isn’t winged but flies on the back of a parrot or a sparrow and is accompanied by a honeybee, which symbolizes love’s sweetness and its sting. For some bizarre reason in modern day India young Indians have taken a liking to Cupid over Kama and send each other Valentines, instead of Kamas. Go figure.

Okay back to Europe.

Along come the Romans.  They swipe most of the Greek gods and give them new names. Aphrodite becomes Venus (Venus is the root word for venereal).  Ares the God of war becomes Mars (Mars is the root word for "martial" i.e. warlike.)

Eros becomes Cupid, son of Venus and Mercury the Roman messenger of the gods. 

Since Mercury was kind of a Divine Federal Express service he has become the patron god of the Business world. You’ll see him all over the place here in the capital of Capitalism. 

You’ll see him and his little winged hat on the front of Grand Central Terminal.

 
















You’ll also see a stylized version of his helmet as ornaments jutting out from the Chrysler Building.

This god not only got his own day of the week--Wednesday (or in Spanish Miercoles, in french Mercredi) you'll even find this pagan god next to "In God we trust" on our money.

Okay, enough mercury madness--I'm becoming mad as a hatter. (there's a connection there if you want to look it up)

So Cupid gets married to Psyche.

Cupid leading Psyc

Psyche translates to "Soul" and is the root word that Sigmund Freud gave to his new science, which he called "Psyche-ology", it would later lose the e. He kept the mythology though, as in an “Oedipal complex” based on the Greek character: Oedipus. 

So Cupid is known for leading Psyche. Which is a beautiful allegory for the soul being lead by love.

  
Okay, so now we got this little fat guy shooting people in the ass with arrows. My guess is when he shot em in the butt they yelled "Damn Cupid" and later he became known as Dan Cupid. Just a guess there.

In Rome, February 15th was traditionally the time of the Lupercian festival, a purification fest, an ode to the god of fertility and a celebration of sensual pleasure, thus a time to meet and greet a prospective mate. During this festival, half naked male runners smacked women in the butt with leather thongs called "februa" in the belief that the act would make a barren woman fertile. Februa and the festival day of Februarius on Feb.15th is where the month of February gets its name. 

In the 5th Century, when the Roman Catholics were running Rome, the church decided folks were getting just a little too randy. There was a little too much thong-slapping going on. 

So in the year 496 Pope Gelasius outlawed the pagan festival and began promoting a Saint who had been beheaded by Emperor Claudius in 278 A.D. for marrying young lovers, his name --- St. Valentine. 

St. Valentine getting past the velvet ropes and into heaven

His feast day was set, conveniently enough, one day before the Lupercian festival.
Eventually the Lupercian orgy died down but traditions don't die as easily.  

Nowadays, no one knows who the hell St. Valentine was or whether to spell it Valentine's Day or Valentines Day. They even forget to use his hard earned title of Saint. But everyone knows the little fat bastard armed with bow and arrow.
 

In other words, Cupid is still around 1,516 years after he was outlawed.
 

An outlaw of love.
 

Happy Februarius Everyone.
 

And a happy thong-slapping to all of you.

Dano Cupid 

The Origins of Mardi Gras

HAPPY “SHROVE TUESDAY” EVERYONE! 

Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pancake Day, Fastnacht.

Whatever.

What’s all this fuss about a plain old Tuesday? 

Well, it’s all because of a dirty Wednesday.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which gets its first name from the ashes of burnt palm fronds that are placed upon a supplicant’s head, made in the sign of the cross. For the Christian congregations that celebrate it, Ash Wednesday is considered the beginning of Lent -- the 40 days that lead up to Easter. (The word Lent is derived from the Old English word for spring “lencten”) 

Originally, the 40 days of Lent were meant to be sort of a religious boot camp to prepare converts to Christianity. Ash Wednesday was the kick-off that lead up to Super Sunday--Easter, when the converts would be baptized.  Eventually there was just about no one left in Rome to convert, so Lent itself was converted into a time of penance, of fasting, of abstinence.  Folks abstained from all sorts a good stuff including meat or “carne” (carne – flesh, the root word for  “carnival”). They also gave up eggs and dairy products. So on Tuesday, the day before the start of the Lenten fast, folks cleared out their cupboards of all the foods they couldn’t have for the next 40 days. They cooked ‘em up and ate like pigs. In essence they feasted before the fast. In France a fattened ox was paraded through the streets before the big communal BBQ, and thus the day was given the name Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday.)

The English do things their own way (like drive on the left hand side of the road) so they called this day Shrove Tuesday from an Olde English word “shrive” which means to confess, to clean out your soul. The English have a tradition of eating a dinner of  “Shrove cakes” dripping in butter. They are pancakes made with the eggs and dairy products you’re expelling from your home. And that’s why Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Tuesday.(I smell a product tie-in with Denny’s.)

Lent has a symbolic undertone as a time of cleansing in preparation for Easter and spring. You first cleanse your cupboard, then your soul and eventually the entire house is purified. In the Ukraine, people traditionally whitewashed their homes inside and out.  Today we know this as Spring-cleaning.

The more astute readers of this blog may remember last year's Passover memo and have already noticed the similarity between Shrove Tuesday and the Jewish Passover tradition of all non-kosher foods containing yeast being consumed or disposed of before the holiday begins. It's also no coincidence that the celebration of Passover occurs very close to the Christian Lenten fast.  We'll get into that in a few weeks with an Easter/Passover posting. But for now we'll Passover that subject. Ugh.

Over the years the religious side of Shrove Tuesday has been replaced by the Narlins party down, shake your booty, Fat Tuesday  “Hey Mista Throw me zumthin” Cajun communal celebration.

King cake (originally 3 Kings Cake celebrating the Epiphany) with plastic baby Jesus inside.

Why New Orleans? And what’s a Cajun?

In 1763 the French and the English concluded one of their frequent World Wars with the Peace of Paris. We call it the French and Indian Warbecause here the colonists fought the French and their Indian allies. In Europe it was referred to asthe Seven Years War. It began in Western Pennsylvania and spread throughout the world. The French lost the war and in the process they lost the part of New France called Canada. The English expelled many of the French from the land of the loon. In particular the French who lived in an area along the Eastern coast called Acadia. The Brits renamed it New Scotland –Nova Scotia. The French migrated from Canada to the French territory along the Mississippi named for King Louis called Louisiana. When they got there folks asked them who they were and they replied: "Acadians." Apparently they slurred their speech because they were thereafter referred to not as Acadians, but Cajuns. It seems the Cajuns did a lot of slurring. We know their music as Zydeco. A strange word with an even stranger origin. The first big hit in this musical style had the title:“The String beans are too salty.” Of course its title was in French: “Les Haricots sont trop sel.” Somehow, haricots, pronounced: Arr-ree-co, morphed into “Zydeco.”

Okay, enough linguistic lunacy.

Point is the French Catholics in New Orleans kept alive the ancient Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras approach to Lent.

It’s obvious that Mardi Gras has a seamy undertone; its wild pagan sexual abandon is very close to the surface. Interesting isn’t it, that Tuesday/Mardi is named for a pagan god – Mars? Similarly, Tuesday is named for Tiw the Teutonic god of war.

Mardi Gras retains the concept of feasting before the fast, but folks gorge on sex and alcohol, not buttered pancakes. It’s more about booby flashing then soul searching. This non-religious celebration has more to do with the human flesh meaning of carne –carnal knowledge, than that of eating animal flesh – carnivorous.

Fun Mardi Gras Fact: In Athens, during the 6th cent. B.C., a yearly libidinous celebration in honor of the god Dionysus (Bacchus) was the first recorded instance of the use of a parade float. 

But as we’ve seen before, many religious holidays are instituted to suppress the pagan, bacchanalian side of society. No big surprise then, that it was during the Roman Empire that pagan carnivals got way out of hand. The major Roman carnivals were the Bacchanalia, the Saturnalia, and the Lupercalia. 

Lupercalia still lives today in St. Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras. It was held annually on Feb. 15. This Roman fertility festival consisted of male youths who ran around town dressed in costumes (animal skins) slapping passersby on the rump with strips of goatskin. (Goats were the embodiment of sexuality; goats –horny—get it?) This was supposed to induce fertility and ward off evil. The straps were called “Februa” and thus February got its name. But you already know that from my last Valentine’s Day post.

In Europe, the tradition of fertility celebrations persisted well into Christian times.  Since they were deeply rooted in European folklore it was difficult for the church to stamp them out. So they were finally accepted and modified into church sanctioned events with the sexuality dialed way down, i.e. St. Valentine’s Day celebrates love not lust.

But as we can all plainly see on the news tonight, the pagan part of the Shrove Tuesday religious celebration has reared its horny little head.

Well that’s about it, I gotta go eat my pancake supper, get all my doubloons ready for my throws; go join my krewe, the Mystick Krewe of Comus  ‘n sashay down Bourbon Street.

Laissez les   bon     temps  rouler!
Let    the  good    times   roll!

Happy Lupercalia everyone!

Fat Dano

The origins of Thanksgiving -the American Holyday.

Cultures around the world have historically celebrated their harvests with thanksgiving ceremonies. The Greeks thanked Demeter, goddess of grain. The Romans had a similar goddess called Ceres, from whom we get the word cereal, her festival was called Cerelia and was held on Oct 8th. The ancient Egyptians celebrated their harvest festival in honor of Min, their god of vegetation and fertility. The Chinese celebrated their harvest festival called Chung Ch'ui. The Jewish autumnal celebration is called Sukkoth, the English have autumnal feasts, the Germans have Oktoberfest.


We Americans are the only turkeys who actually celebrate with turkeys.


So some history:
Thanksgiving is the preeminent American holiday. It deals with our forefathers being led by God to this virgin land and through hard work and fair play turning the wilderness into one of the world's great civilizations.


It's a nice story. However, several important things were left out of the story. It's pretty obvious that the Native Americans have their own version of events. But there’s another group left entirely out of the story -- the Spanish. They had settlements in the New World a full hundred years before the English. More to the point, the first known thanksgiving feast in North America was celebrated by Francisco Vasquez De Coronado when he dined with the Teya people in May of 1541--- in of all the non-New Englandy places but Texas.


French Huguenots in Jacksonville Florida held the 2nd Thanksgiving celebration in 1564. There were no known native guests but I’ll bet the Frenchies ate better than the Puritans up in New England. The third Thanksgiving was held by Spaniards right after they massacred those French Huguenots, when Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles put on a feedbag with the natives in St. Augustine, Florida in 1565.


Despite these facts, we nail our hat to the notion that America is a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation and so went looking for a proper English origin for our country and settled upon the Pilgrims. Yet even the English had earlier settlements than Plymouth. Jamestown, Virginia was founded 12 years prior. We don't trace our origins back to Jamestown because it was a disastrous failure ---those pilgrims feasted upon each other. Cannibalism makes a poor foundation to build a myth upon.


So selected history has skipped over the Spanish, the French and Jamestown and instead chosen the Pilgrims.


Okay, let's start with them.




They were called Pilgrims.


Incorrecto


The term "Pilgrims," referring to religious travelers, wasn't used to describe the early Plymouth colonists until the early 1800s, when someone found a phrase used by the 2nd Governor of the Colony, William Bradford "they knew they were pilgrims" and that became their cleaned- up alias as we reinvented the Puritans. Before we discover why America needed to reinvent the Puritans, let’s find out a thing or two about them. By the way, a great way to learn about them is to read MAYFLOWER by Nathan Philbrick.

The Pilgrims were Puritans. Puritans were religious fundamentalists (Did someone say Taliban?) who believed that the Protestant Reformation hadn’t gone far enough to eradicate the influence of the Catholic Church in merry Ole England. They felt the Church of England was merely the Catholic Church dressed up in other vestments. They intended to purify the Church of England. The people we call Pilgrims called themselves ‘Separatists.” Because they were on the radical fringe of the Puritan sect. They didn’t believe that the Church of England could be made more “pure”. Instead they wanted to separate and form their own religious haven somewhere outside of England. First in the Netherlands and then the land of the free, home of the five-dollar footlong.


Puritans didn't celebrate standard Christian holidays, no Christmas, Easter, no nothin'. They celebrated the Sabbath and had two other religious days held whenever warranted. There was a day of fasting that was held when bad things happened. When good things happened, they had a day of thanks for God's providence. These two special days were never held on the Sabbath, instead they were usually held on meeting day - Thursday. Which is how Thanksgiving Day wound up on a Thursday.


They were also millenialists; people who believed the end times were at hand. And that in 1620, as foretold in Revelations, the world was entering into the Time of the Saints. In 1618 a comet had appeared across Europe. It was considered the starting gun for the end times. But first there would be a thousand year reign by Christ before the final judgment. At first they felt that England was the New Jerusalem and later decided that America was the New Jerusalem. (They wouldn’t be the last religious group to hold that belief. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons –another separatist who would take his congregation outside the United States to the Indian territory of Utah-- not only believed that America was the New Jerusalem, he thought it was also the old one. He claimed that the Garden of Eden had been in Missouri. Hmmm. Adam and Eve walked around naked; maybe that’s why it’s called the Show Me State.)


Oddly enough after they were settling in New England and lost half of their colony to disease, the plain old Puritans back in England actually took over the place. Oliver Cromwell one hard-ass Puritan defeated the Royal forces in the English Civil War, had the King executed and made himself Lord Protector and began instituting a Puritan nation. And as an aside he slaughtered untold tens of thousands in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell was the cause of “The Troubles” in Ireland. He gave his protestant soldiers most of the land in Northern Ireland as payment for services rendered. He died and was buried in Westminster Abbey. When the Royalist took over again, his body was disinterred, beheaded, and left hanging outdoors for a few years.


So to wrap it up-- the name "Puritan" doesn't hold a lot of positive connotations. Their reputation wasn't enhanced much after the Salem Witch hunts. "Pilgrim" sounds so much nicer.




Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving non-stop since T-1 back in 1621 


Their 1621 three-day potluck dinner was the first Survivor Cast Party.
Half the colony had died over their first winter. In 1621 thanks to the injuns they had a good harvest -- they’d live another winter, let’s party on down.


1622 went without a Thanksgiving.


Then in 1623 a drought ending rain sent by God was reason enough for a 2nd Thanksgiving party. It’s unclear if any Natives attended.


From then on it there wasn’t an annual autumnal feast, just the sporadic Day of Thanks when something good happened.


I’m getting the impression that some of what I learned about the first Thanksgiving isn't true.


Pretty much. But what's important isn't that you were taught a false history. The interesting thing is why you were taught this little morality play.


You undoubtedly learned back in grade school that:


A. The Pilgrims carved a civilization out of an uninhabited wilderness. 
The New World wasn't uninhabited land waiting to be settled. The estimated population of Europe at the time of Columbus was 70 million. The population of the Americas (North & South) is put at 100 million. History acknowledges the advanced societies of the Aztecs and Mayans and their vast cities. But we are told that the North American natives were wild savages. Did anyone ever tell you about Cahokia, Illinois, a Native American settlement with a population of 40,000? No, of course not, if the Natives had settlements then we really couldn't call the Pilgrims "settlers" could we?


The truth is there were no cloven-hoofed animals in the Americas and thus when the East Coast natives began having contact with European traders they had no immunity to the garden-variety anthrax and other diseases like smallpox that the Europeans brought with them.


(They did have some payback though, they gave Europeans venereal disease. In Native Americans it manifested itself as a minor flu virus. When it hit Europe it became deadly. So it's somewhat odd that the Europeans gave the disease a humorous name. The word “venereal” comes from Venus the goddess of love.)


In Massachusetts members of the well-established Wampanoag settlement had been wiped out by plague contracted from Europeans. King James II gave thanks to "Almighty God in his great goodness and bounty towards us for sending this wonderful plague among the savages." When the Puritans arrived they took over the homes, possessions and most important-- the already cleared fields. The remaining natives were kind to the Puritans because their decimated tribe desperately needed allies to protect them against their enemy, the Narragansetts. The Puritans had guns.

Actual Photo taken by Mayflower Passenger Ezikiah Kodak

B. The Pilgrims were headed for Virginia but a storm blew their tiny Mayflower off-course and God guided them to Plymouth. 


Well kinda.


They were headed for the future site of New York City, which the English considered the northern boundary of Virginia; the western boundary was the Pacific Ocean. But Henry Hudson working for the Dutch had already sailed up the river that bears his name in 1609. And the Dutch were already making plans to start a colony there. Which they did 4 years after the Puritans landed in Plymouth. While the Puritans were living in the Netherlands the Dutch offered them a patent to colonize New York. When the Puritans turned down the offer it’s believed that the Dutch sabotaged their efforts to sail, delaying their journey so that they arrived in winter.


They got lost along the way and couldn’t get the Mayflower to clear the shoals off Cape Cod and instead just went ashore.


There’s also an unlikely conspiracy theory out there that the Puritans were headed to New England all along. Remember Squanto from the story, the kind Indian who taught them how to place a fish in the ground when they planted corn? He really did exist. He had been kidnapped by sailors and brought to Europe as a slave. He learned English and met with Fernando Gorges, the leader of the Plymouth Company BEFORE they left England for Holland and told them about his beautiful village of Pawtucket, which the Puritans would later rename "Plimouth."


C. The Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock.

Sorry. Never happened. The exploring party landed in Plimouth/Plymouth/Patuxet on December 21, 1620. Not one of them ever mentioned anything about a rock in their journals. William Bradford, one of those “pilgrims” wrote the seminal book: Of Plimouth Plantation. He never mentioned a rock. In later years the rock part was dreamt up to add a "Upon this rock I will build my church/ nation" twist to the story. This supported the theme that America was the New Jerusalem.

Whatareyatalkinabout? I’ve seen it. I’ve been to Plymouth Rock, stood on the marble altar looking down at it, the very bedrock of our nation.

Yeah, well that rock was plopped there in 1920. Remember that year when we talk about immigration later on in this post.   The first recorded mention of the rock was in 1741, a full 121 years after the supposed event. Some 94-year-old coot told folks that his pappy told him that a rock in the harbor was where the “Pilgrims” had set foot.  Townsfolk dug up a portion of the rock and put it into storage and forgot it. 300 years after the landing when the Pilgrims had been rediscovered it was rediscovered and placed at its present site. An “altar” was built around it so that Americans had a proper place to worship our newly minted origin myth.

D. Thanksgiving was the very first Woodstock

Peace and love between Whites and Natives. The Puritans were only slightly less brutal to the Native Americans than other colonists. They took a few shots at the first native they sighted. They then immediately looted the homes and graves of the natives. Up until the Mid-1800's the few visuals that depicted Puritans, were usually battle scenes. One you may have seen is of Puritans fleeing a shower of arrows. They didn't carry those cute little muskets for nuthin. Within 50 years of the Mayflower’s landing most of the New England natives were decimated. You know about the Mayflower carrying a ship full of colonists, but have you ever heard of the Seaflower? It was a ship that left Plymouth fifty years later loaded to the gills with Indians being sold as slaves to work in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean.

To recap: 
They weren't called Pilgrims, it wasn't called Plymouth, there was no Plymouth Rock, and they didn't get along too well with the natives. They didn't carve a civilization from out of the wilderness. And God didn't lead them there. There was however turkey and some tasteless sugar-free pumpkin pie if that makes you feel any better.


Okay, so then how did this one shot celebration of a few religious extremists become a beloved national holiday?


It's pretty simple. All cultures have an origin myth. Whether it is Romulus and Remus being raised by wolves and founding Rome, or Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. (And before I get comments from those who believe in the literal existence of Adam and Eve --remember the definition of a myth: a traditional story accepted as history that serves to explain the worldview of a people)


Anthropologists lay out certain rules for origin myths:

1. It constitutes the history of the acts of the founders
2. It is considered to be true.
3. It tells how an institution came into being
4. In performing the ritual associated with the myth (think of turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie) one experiences knowledge of the origin and claims one's patriarchy.
5. Thus one lives "the myth" as a religion.


So Thanksgiving has become our quasi-religious holiday, where our families gather around the altar (the dining room table) and recount the story of how God gave this land to us Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or if you prefer –us White folk.


The odd thing is that the Father of our Country, George Washington would be totally lost if you invited him to your Thanksgiving Dinner with the cute little cardboard cutouts of Pilgrims on the table. Why? Because the Pilgrim story of Thanksgiving really didn't take hold in America until the late 1880's.


George would have known that up in New England they celebrated an autumnal feast. But it was strictly a regional celebration. There was good reason why Thanksgiving was big in New England. When the Puritans controlled the Colony, they disliked the pagan origins of Christmas celebrations and so for many years it was illegal to take off on Christmas Day in Massachusetts.


"For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county."

From the records of the General Court,
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659 


In England the Christmas feast was traditional. So New Englanders who weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas coped by turning the New England Thanksgiving celebration into a food feast, an oral orgy with traditional Christmas foods and pies.


Other regions of the country where Christmas was indeed celebrated began looking jealously at New England. Why couldn’t they have a food orgy in autumn too? It kind of reminds me of Christian children who complain that they don’t get 8 days of Hanukkah gifts, too.


If you Google Days of Thanksgiving the results are very confusing, because there were other days in other colonies called Days of Thanksgiving, but these had nothing to do with Puritans.


On Nov. 1, 1777 The Continental Congress suggested a National Thanksgiving be held. But it was in response to the defeat of the British General Burgoyne in Saratoga, New York. For that matter the Queen of England declared a Thanksgiving Day when the Spanish Armada was defeated.


After the War of 1812, New York State declared a Statewide Day of Thanksgiving.


But by the mid-1800’s other states began to celebrate a Thanksgiving Day. This had nothing to do with Pilgrims, Indians or the NFL. It was merely the growing popularity of a Yankee celebration that moved west with settlers from the Northeast. Kind of like the present day growing popularity amongst Anglos of the Mexican Cinco de Mayo celebration.


Which is where Sarah Josepha Hale comes into the picture.
She was a New England gal. A writer. You know one of her poems: Mary had a little lamb. She was the Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey of her day. She was also the editor of a very influential women’s magazine called Godey’s Ladies Book. It not only contained articles like “Refreshing Drinks for Summer ” It also introduced women readers to the likes of Goethe and Cervantes. She became a one-woman committee to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. She wrote non-stop letters to legislators. As tensions heated up before the Civil War she promoted a National day of Thanksgiving as a way to prevent hostilities. Didn’t work.


Here’s one of her editorials if you’re interested:


We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY Of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people.
Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of wordliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart…

Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the "feast of fat things," and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men. Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day of AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world. 


During the Civil War the South declared a National Day of Thanksgiving after their victory at Bull Run. Not to be outdone, President Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving for April 13th, 1862 to celebrate the Union victory at Shiloh, and again on Aug. 6th, 1863 for the victory at Gettysburg.


But the idea of a national holiday where we sat down ate and gave thanks for our abundant blessings didn’t take traction until ole Abe declared a National Day of Thanksgiving for the fourth Thursday of November in 1863.


Here’s the Proclamation in Abe’s own words:


The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

After Abe, every single President would annually declare a National Day of Thanksgiving. (It took many years before Thanksgiving became popular in the South. It was considered just another piece of Yankee cultural imperialism being forced upon poor Dixie.) The date of Thanksgiving would hop around. Eventually it fell upon the last Thursday in November. But more important, as you may have noticed in the above proclamation there was no mention of the first Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Puritans or any of that crap.


They weren't mentioned until Hebert Hoover's proclamation in 1931.


How did the Pilgrims reappear after 300 years?


Beginning in the late 1800's the Puritans began to re-emerge, repackaged and repositioned. They were characterized as religious pilgrims on a divine mission to carve a civilization out of the wilderness. Considering the fact that the West had just been "won" and the Native Indian population wiped out, this was a very convenient myth to bandy about. It was our Destiny, our Manifest Destiny to own this land.


The myth of the Pilgrims (like the myth of Columbus) was rediscovered and refashioned to fit America's new concept of itself. The country was flush with money; many Americans were enjoying the fruits of the Industrial Revolution. It is no coincidence that by the late 1800’s the emerging Middle Class could afford factory made chairs and dishes and so hold a proper Thanksgiving Feast. Look at all these consumer goods –look at this civilization we’ve carved from the wilderness! Praise the Lord and pass the Sears-Roebuck catalog.


By the time old Herbie Hoover was in office in the 1930's the myth of the Pilgrims had taken hold.

In the early 1900's America was being overrun with immigrants. 1,280,000 entered the country in 1907. Worst yet, they were Catholics and Jews! The myth of different ethnic groups sitting down peaceably at the same table, a Protestant table no less, was mighty potent. And so the story was taught to American schoolchildren. The story became one of the most important founding myths of our nation. As schoolchildren we were all taught to take part in the myth by cutting up paper plates to make turkeys.

Ku Kluxgiving

In 1915, eight years after that peak year of immigration, the KKK came out of the linen closet.  There are two things about their re-emergence that are quite interesting.  One:  their first act was a lynching.  No big shock. But it was of a Jewish man, not a black man. And number two, they were officially and intentionally rededicated on Thanksgiving Day.

The second coming of the Klan was an anti-immigrant movement. It was anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, Pro-protestant.  The Thanksgiving story of the Puritan origins of America was proof positive to the boys in da ‘hoods that they were on a mission from God and so chose that as their born again birthdate.

1915 happened to be the year that D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was released.

In it the Reconstruction Era Ku Klux Klan is pictured as the protector of southern civilization and female chastity protecting civil society from savage black animals.  The film shows the use of burning crosses.

That was historically inaccurate. In reality many of the original founders of the KKK were Scots-Irish, descendants of Cromwell’s soldiers.  There weren’t uneducated rednecks.  Their organizational name is Greek, the language of the learned. In Greek, kuklos means circle. Take "Ku Klux" and add a little Scottish word to fill out the alliteration and you have Ku Klux Klan.  Their symbol was a circle with a St. Andrews Cross, an X  the flag of Scotland.  In Scotland when they wanted to gather the klans they would light these X shaped crosses on hilltops. (By the by, the Confederate flag is a St. Andrews cross.)

But the second coming of the Klan took that Hollywood mistake and used it as a branding symbol. The Fiery Cross, symbol of their Christianity, read “Protestantism”.

You had to be a white protestant male to belong to the KKK.  And this was no small, inconsequential movement.  There were 14 million KKK members out of a population of 114 million Americans. There were also Junior KKK members and a women's organinzation-- the WKK, who aren’t counted in that number

The Reconstruction Era Klan was called the Invisible Empire.  But you’ll notice no one is hiding his face in the 1926 photo above.  These folks considered themselves patriots, America firsters. God gave this land to White Anglo Saxon Males and they weren’t going to let some greaseballs, micks and hymies take it over.

And this wasn’t just some southern hick thing.  The KKK was huge in the America's northern cities and states

(Indiana was ground zero). It was also big  in the outlying areas of major cities that were full of immigrants. At this time 1 in 6 people on Long Island were Ku Klux Klan members.

The 2^nd coming of the Klan died out just before World War Two, only to re-emerge in the 1950’s as an anti-civil rights organization.

But their connection to Thanksgiving is rather unsettling.It is the symbolism of Thanksgiving that were were trying to connect with.  In my opinion their biggest connection to Thanksgiving is that they were a bunch of turkeys.

So five years after the KKK is refounded on Thanksgiving Day, the Plymouth Rock is dusted off and immigrant children are spoon fed turkey, cranberries and a cute little story: that our forefathers were led by God to this virgin land and through hard work and fair play we turned the wilderness into one of the world's great civilizations. Pass the gravy.

Enough twisted history. The truth about the holiday is almost as depressing as the real story of Christmas which we'll learn next month.

So there you have it. 

Here we are approaching everyone's favorite holiday, one that centers on food, family and football.


You don't have to buy any presents, nor Valentine chocolates or flowers; all you have to do is buy into the myth of our Pilgrim forefathers.


But then, now you know better, you know the truth.


Gotta go, there are a bunch of cute little Pilgrims outside burning a woman alive at the stake.




Happy Bird Day Everyone.


Dano




New York Thanksgiving connections:


Within 30 years of the Puritans coming ashore in Plymouth they had spread south and were on the outskirts of the Dutch Colony of New Netherlands. They founded a city outside of New Amsterdam. They named it for the New Ark of the Covenant. You know that town as Newark. They also settled Suffolk County on Long Island and named one of their first towns after Oliver Cromwell’s birthplace: Huntingdon, England. Today, that town is known as Huntington, Long Island.






Of course NY’s biggest Thanksgiving Connection is The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. It began in 1924 when all those immigrants who had just flooded the island of Manhattan eagerly embraced the Pilgrim Myth. Macy’s immigrant employees marched down Broadway dressed like Indians. Herding a bunch of animals borrowed from the Central park zoo. Eventually the animals would be replaced by Animal balloons. The entire interesting history of the parade can be found www.macys.com/campaign/parade/history.jsp


The film A Miracle on 34th Street has wedded Macy’s to not only Thanksgiving but also the American Christmas celebration. The parade scenes were shot at an actual 1946 Macy’s parade, which looks downright dorky. You’ll remember that the film featured the rivalry between the two dept store giants: Macy’s & Gimbels. As in the phrase “Does Macy’s tell Gimbels?” The phrase is still alive but Gimbels isn’t, except for an old painted wall sign. Stand on the corner of 7th Ave at 31st street (near Penn Station) Look east and on your left up top you’ll see “Gimbels” calling out to you from Christmas past.




One other weird Macy’s thing. The Macy’s were an old whaling family. One of the first of the whalers had a star tattoo, which became the family emblem, and eventually Macy’s logo. When the whaling biz died out they turned their ships into cargo ships and brought goods to NY and sold them by the wharves of South Street. They did so well they opened a store. Then, many stores. And once a year you’ll notice that Macy’s still has “a whale of a sale” to honor their Whaling heritage. You are now one of six people in the world who knows this.


So what became of those cute little Puritans?
The United Church of Christ traces itself back to the Mayflower. Those Puritanical dudes dressed in black have become one of the most progressive, liberal congregations in America. A few years ago CBS refused to sell them air time on the Superbowl because the commercial showed, blacks, Latinos and gays in their congregation with the line Jesus didn’t discriminate, neither do we.
Apparently that was way too radical of an idea.


Liberal Puritans---- That’s something to be thankful for.