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Nov. 23, 2021 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin

30:45

Historian Debunks the Most Common Thanksgiving Lies | Melanie Kirkpatrick | ACADEMIA | Rubin Report

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dave rubin

05:17

melanie kirkpatrick

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melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		In the research for this book, I spoke to teenagers at Newcomers High School in New York City, which is a high school for immigrants who have just arrived.
		And most of the kids I talked to were going to celebrate their first Thanksgiving in just a few weeks.
		Their enthusiasm for the holiday was very, it affected me very profoundly.
		They identified with the pilgrims.
		Now, let me give you a couple of examples.
		One boy who identified as a Tibetan, although that country hasn't existed since China took it over in 1950, he said he was a pilgrim.
		it over in 1950. He said he was a pilgrim. Why? Because his family, like the pilgrims,
		came to America to practice their religion.
		In China, he said, he couldn't practice the Tibetan Buddhism of the Dalai Lama.
		Then a little girl spoke up, and she said, Oh, that's like my family.
		We came here from Egypt because we're Copts, and Copts are an early version of Christianity, an early sect of Christianity.
		So these kids really got it.
		And then a week or two later, after Thanksgiving, I went to a Hanukkah party of a group from my husband's family.
		And I met a kid who was attending one of the most prestigious public high schools in America.
		Hearing that I wrote a book on Thanksgiving, he started, he said, oh, that's the holiday that we celebrate for murdering all the Indians.
		And, you know, I thought.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		The prestigious high school.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		OK.
unidentified		Yeah.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		So who got it right?
unidentified		(upbeat music)
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		I'm Dave Rubin and joining me on this very special week is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute,
		author of Thanksgiving, the holiday at the heart of the American experience
		and the presenter in the PragerU video, Lincoln and Thanksgiving, Melanie Kirkpatrick.
		Welcome to The Rubin Report.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		It's wonderful to be with you, especially on Thanksgiving week.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		It seemed like you were the person to talk to on Thanksgiving.
		I have a lot of questions about Thanksgiving.
		You're the, are you the preeminent Thanksgiving expert in America?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't want to sound immodest, but perhaps so.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Pretty good.
unidentified		All right.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		So I have a lot of questions about tryptophan, but I think you mostly want to focus on the history of Thanksgiving.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Is that correct?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Sounds like a good idea, though.
		Tryptophan has come up.
		You know, it's one of the reasons everybody loves Thanksgiving.
		It helps put you to sleep.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Puts you to sleep, you unbuckle the pants, you're good to go.
		All right, so let's talk, because this actually is a very special Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving 2021.
		This is the 400th anniversary of Thanksgiving.
		I feel like a lot of people don't know that.
		So let's do a little 101.
		What happened 400 years ago, back in 1621?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		The first thing I'll mention is that there are two eyewitness accounts by pilgrims of the First Thanksgiving, and neither one of them uses the word Thanksgiving, which is kind of interesting.
		That's been imposed on it over the centuries.
		But it dovetails with the pilgrim's idea of what a Thanksgiving is.
		It's a day for expressing gratitude.
		It was always a religious holiday.
		But the event of 1621 was probably more of a harvest festival.
		But that doesn't mean we can't call it a Thanksgiving, because If you read those two first-person accounts by Pilgrim Edward Winslow and William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony, they present an event that was very much like the one we celebrate today, at least in spirit.
		The spirit of gratitude was at the forefront.
		It was a time of sharing, it was a time of fellowship, and it was a time of peace.
		It was a time of sharing, it was a time of fellowship, and it was a time of peace.
		And one of the things I object to is the modern-day progressive interpretation of that day as
		the beginning of a period, you know, the destruction of the Native American peoples.
		And that's completely wrong, because if anything, the first Thanksgiving points the way to the multicultural people we have become, because the Native Americans and the Indians were celebrating together peacefully and in harmony.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so it's hard for a lot of people to believe that, and I don't want to dwell on it because it's not true.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		You discuss it in the book, you discuss it in the PragerU video, but can you just, just for another minute or two, just explore that a little bit, that, you know, people have this idea that they were just there to kill each other or whatever it is, whatever the modern version of all this is, but really, 400 years ago, the Native Americans and the Pilgrims were sitting down and they were saying, hey, we can be thankful together on this land, peacefully together.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, they were.
		And the Pilgrims had a lot to be thankful for, for the assistance of the Native Americans.
		They would not have, they probably would not have survived had they not received the instruction from the Native Americans on how to plant, where to find good hunting grounds and good fishing waters.
		So, and they knew it.
		They, there were 52 pilgrims present at that first Thanksgiving.
		And most of that, only about half of them were men.
		And yet there were 90 Indian warriors present.
		So you can see why they might have been a little wary.
		And that was probably one reason that they decided to have a shooting presentation.
		They showed the Native Americans, you know, how their guns and how they could use them.
		And it might have been, in part, a warning.
		But at the same time, they were very grateful for the help of the Native Americans that made it possible for them to survive.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		So you tell the story of Thanksgiving because it didn't exactly become a holiday right then and there, that there are two sort of people that were integral to the story of Thanksgiving.
		One of the people we know well, one we don't know as well, although you just wrote a book, I believe, about the second person.
		So tell us about those two people.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		The first one is President Lincoln, and the second is Sarah Josepha Hale, and the link between the two of them is Thanksgiving.
		Hale was the most influential woman of the 19th century.
		She was editor of Godey's Ladies Book for 50 years, and this was one of the most widely read and widely circulated magazines In the 19th century.
		And it's kind of an amazing story of how a widow with five small children rose to such an exalted position.
		But she did.
		And she was very keen on using, well, let me back up.
		She was born in 1788.
		And she believed that while America had been unified politically through the revolution, It was not unified culturally, and she set out to help do that in her magazines.
		She published American authors writing on American subjects, which seems unusual from
		the point of view of the 21st century.
		But back then, it was commonplace for publications to steal articles from Britain or other publications
		and republish them without credit in their own publication.
		But she had a different vision for her magazine.
		She wanted to have a focus on America and a focus on American authors.
		So she published such authors as Edgar Allan Poe and the young Harriet Beecher Stowe and
		many, many others.
		But the idea of Thanksgiving was part of her vision of creating an American culture.
		Thanksgiving was very popular in New England, of course, and she had grown up loving the holiday.
		There were Thanksgivings celebrated in the other states and territories as well, but The governors of the states didn't coordinate on the holiday.
		And sometimes some states didn't bother to celebrate at all.
		So you had a situation, for example, in 1837, Hale was living in Boston, which celebrated On one day, she was from New Hampshire, which celebrated on another day, and her magazine was headquartered in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania wasn't celebrating at all that year.
		So, her vision was to have Americans celebrate on the same day every year.
		She thought that giving thanks, the idea of coming together to give thanks as a nation would help.
		It had a higher moral principle, she believed, and that it would bring the country together in a positive way.
		And as the country moved closer to civil war, she hoped that it would prevent that war.
		Obviously, she didn't succeed, but in 1863, President Lincoln took up her idea, which had been rejected by four previous presidents, and decided to call a national Thanksgiving.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		So basically it took over 200 years of sort of a mishmash of, you know, who's doing it?
		When are they doing it?
		Why are they doing it?
		And then finally Lincoln said, okay, we're all going to do it.
		And then did everyone kind of fall in place and immediately say, let's do it?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		The South didn't want to listen to Lincoln during the Civil War, of course, but the Union rallied very positively to his call.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		And after the war, the southern states slowly, you know, one by one, came together as well on Thanksgiving Day.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, one of the things you mentioned in the PragerU video is that the people were actually eating the same stuff in many cases that we eat now.
		I mean, it was turkey and pumpkin pie, which is sort of... Yeah!
		It's fun that we're still eating the same stuff a couple hundred years after.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it is, and you know, that goes back much farther.
		In 1863, in the 1800s, I found many examples of turkey and pumpkin pie appearing on Thanksgiving menus.
		Those were native to the country, to North America at least, so it's not surprising.
		There have been many changes in the menu over the years, too.
		For example, in New England, chicken pot pie was a standard feature of the Thanksgiving buffet.
		Venison also appeared on a lot of Thanksgiving tables.
		And the tradition of pies was, you didn't have just one, you had an array, a big selection of pies at the time.
		So, but from the beginning, I think Thanksgiving has been a feast.
		And that certainly is true today.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you know, I don't wanna focus on the cancel culture aspect of this.
		We did a show on Christopher Columbus a couple of months ago and I try not to focus on all of that stuff.
		However, this is now a holiday that is sort of under attack.
		It represents the goodness of America and all the good things that we should be thankful for.
		And there's an awful lot of people that aren't thankful for these days or aren't thankful for everything we have these days.
		What can we do to push back on that?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, we can learn the history of the holiday, for one thing.
		The teaching of the holiday has been poor over the years.
		Native Americans understandably object to what, at least when I was growing up, the focus on the generosity of the pilgrims rather than on the generosity and assistance of the Native Americans.
		So we can get that right.
		in teaching children about the holiday.
		I also think we can listen to immigrants when it comes to their understanding of the holiday.
		Thanksgiving is a rite of passage for most immigrants to America.
		It's part of joining the American family.
		This is a very positive thing.
		And in the research for this book, I spoke to teenagers at Newcomers High School in New York City, which is a high school for immigrants who have just arrived.
		And most of the kids I talked to were going to celebrate their first Thanksgiving in just a few weeks.
		Their enthusiasm for the holiday affected me very profoundly.
		They identified with the pilgrims.
		Now, let me give you a couple of examples.
		One boy who identified as a Tibetan, although that country hasn't existed since China took it over in 1950, he said he was a pilgrim.
		it over in 1950. He said he was a pilgrim. Why? Because his family, like the pilgrims,
		came to America to practice their religion.
		In China, he said, he couldn't practice the Tibetan Buddhism of the Dalai Lama.
		Then a little girl spoke up, and she said, oh, that's like my family.
		We came here from Egypt because we're Copts, and Copts are an early version of Christianity, an early sect of Christianity.
		So these kids really got it.
		And then a week or two later, after Thanksgiving, I went to a Hanukkah party of a group from my husband's family.
		And I met a kid who was attending one of the most prestigious public high schools in America.
		Hearing that I wrote a book on Thanksgiving, he started, he said, oh, that's the holiday that we celebrate for murdering all the Indians.
unidentified		And, you know, I thought... The prestigious high school.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so who got it right?
		So education is one thing.
		And let me end on a positive note here, though.
		You know, yes, progressives are out to cancel Thanksgiving, but I don't think they have a hope of success because Americans like this holiday so much.
		And even if they don't fully grasp the history of it, or even if they pay lip service to
		the cancel culture, they're not going to stop celebrating Thanksgiving.
		And also, I think a lot of the very positive aspects of Thanksgiving are going to continue.
		Families are going to come together.
		Americans have a tradition of inviting people who have no place to go for Thanksgiving.
		And most of all, I love the idea of Thanksgiving generosity, which the idea that Thanksgiving is a holiday when we think carefully about those who are less fortunate among us.
		And you think of all the non-profits, all the non-religious, all the religious organizations, and also all the individuals who make sure that people who are in jail, people who are in hospital, and people who have no family all have an opportunity to have a good Thanksgiving dinner.
		And this is a real hallmark of the holiday and of American generosity.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I have to say that, you know, over the last couple of years, as some of our freedoms have felt like they're disappearing or at least being challenged in very bizarre ways, I've definitely become more appreciative.
		I've always loved Thanksgiving because of the food and the smells and the people and the family and all that.
		You mentioned at the beginning that this was really thought of as a religious holiday at first, which is sort of not the way I think most people think of it because they think of it sort of as our main secular holiday in America.
		Can you talk about that a little bit?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think a better way to think of it, Dave, is that it is the only holiday, probably anywhere in the world, that is open to all religions and to none.
		So it doesn't matter what your religion is.
		It doesn't matter where you came from.
		It is every American's holiday.
		So yeah, it used to be, even when I was growing up, that people went to church.
		The night before Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving morning, that doesn't happen very much anymore.
		But if there is a day that a family says grace before a meal, it is Thanksgiving day.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so you mentioned before that Abraham Lincoln, obviously, first we have the Civil War, so now he's got to get the South to kind of come on board all of this.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Was everybody immediately celebrating Thanksgiving after, or did it really take some time?
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		It took a while.
		I don't recall off the top of my head the dates when Southern states individually began to celebrate, but certainly by the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century, there was unity in the states.
		And let me tell you a funny story about what happened in the 1930s.
		During the Depression, FDR had the dumb idea that if he moved the date of Thanksgiving to allow more time between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas, it would help the economy.
		His theory was that Americans would have more days to go Christmas shopping, and that would be a boost to the holiday.
		Well, I think Americans would have liked to spend more money on Christmas presents, but they didn't have.
		The idea flopped.
		For three days, though, Americans had to either celebrate on the New Day, which was a week earlier than the traditional date, or celebrate on the traditional date.
		And the country was split about 50-50.
		And the holiday became known as the Democratic Thanksgiving and the Republican Thanksgiving, which was very funny.
		But there were a few states that had the best idea of all.
		They celebrated on both days.
		And I know Texas and Colorado were among them.
		I've forgotten what the third is.
		But then in 1941, it was clear that Roosevelt's idea for a new date for Thanksgiving was a flop, and Congress finally acted and passed a resolution naming the fourth Thursday of November as the official Thanksgiving date.
		And finally, Thanksgiving was written into law, and we've celebrated on that date.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		As a Thanksgiving historian, does it madden you that Friday after Thanksgiving has now become Black Friday, which is now leaking into Thanksgiving?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the new thing is now that the store is open actually on Thanksgiving Day, the one day we're supposed to set aside to be thankful and we've allowed it to become this sort of commercial madness.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't like the leakage into Thanksgiving Thursday, I say.
		But I like, I don't mind Black Friday.
		I think it's actually a sign of the health of our economy, the prosperity of the American people, and we should give thanks, we should pay thanks, give thanks for that.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		How did football?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Oh, go ahead.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, football.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		What about football?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, how did football become a part of this whole thing?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		I thought football was supposed to be on Sundays.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, I am not a fan of football, and this was the hardest chapter for me to write, but I did a lot of research and I got it.
		As you may recall, the first American football game was played by Princeton and Rutgers in 1869.
		And then in the 70s, Princeton, which is my alma mater, I will say, and Yale played a Thanksgiving Day football game.
		It was their championship game.
		That moved to New York City in the late 1870s or around 1880, and New Yorkers took it up.
		Even if they couldn't go to the game, they came out in force walking the streets.
		They would go up and down Fifth Avenue wearing orange and black for Princeton or blue for Yale.
		And they really adopted this football championship game in a big way.
		And, of course, New Yorkers have always been trendsetters, and the rest of the country began to take up the idea of Thanksgiving Day football.
		A lot of town high schools would have their championship game on Thanksgiving morning and then go home for dinner.
		And then I guess some people had the idea in the early 20th century that this would be good for pro football, too.
		And the Detroit Tigers were the first team to play a Thanksgiving Day game, which they of course still play.
		And then the Dallas Cowboys took it up Thanksgiving football was controversial in the 19th century.
		which I think changes every year that that plays. But Thanksgiving football was controversial in the
		19th century. Ministers and rabbis and others complained that it took, it diverted attention
		from the true meaning of the day. But, you know, I think we could have turkey and football and
		gratitude all in the same day.
		We can multitask.
		Americans are good at that.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Although I'm sure there were some people, of course, that probably felt that people shouldn't be, you know, forced to work that day or that sort of thing, too.
		But you think we can fit all those things.
		What are some of the crazier traditions you've heard?
		I assume that there's all sorts of different Thanksgiving traditions all over the country.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Gosh, yeah, there are.
		The meal is the number one tradition.
		Sarah Josepha Hale, whom I mentioned is the godmother of the modern-day Thanksgiving, she was the first one to bring recipes, to put recipes in a magazine or newspaper, to create a recipe section.
		And she published lots of recipes, culled from around the country, for Thanksgiving Day feasts.
		I heard of some crazy pies, like sweet potato pie.
		I had never heard of that, but apparently it's popular in the South.
		There's a pie called Marlboro pie, which is a kind of apple-lemon pie.
		Which was very popular in the 19th century.
		But crazy customs.
		A lot of people go around the table and ask every individual to say something that he
unidentified		is grateful for.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Other families find something to read about Thanksgiving for the family table.
		I actually, at the back of my Thanksgiving book, include readings for Thanksgiving Day.
		They're short, very short readings from over 400 years of American history about Thanksgiving.
		And then there's a custom that my family has adopted.
		I won't call it a crazy custom, but it's a different custom.
		It's called five kernels of corn, and it dates back to the late 19th century.
		People would put five kernels of dried corn on their table, and the corn represented The generosity of the native people who taught the pilgrims how to grow corn, and it also represented the starving time of the pilgrims in Plymouth Colony when they, by legend says, were given only five kernels of corn to eat every day.
		So I like that.
		I like that idea.
		Five kernels of corn.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		How does our Thanksgiving, some of the traditions, the foods, all that compare?
		You know, like we just had Canadian Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks ago.
		I assume other countries have some version, maybe not called Thanksgiving, but you know, sort of a more secular day of thanks type of thing.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, most of the thanksgivings around the world are religious in nature, or at least originated as such.
		China has a kind of thanksgiving.
		It's more of a harvest festival.
		So do the two Koreas.
		Brazil has a Thanksgiving that is modeled on the American Thanksgiving.
		The ambassador from Brazil to America in the late 1940s loved Thanksgiving, and so he went home and took it with him to Brazil, and they now have such a holiday.
		And Canada's holiday is interesting.
		It's on our Columbus Day weekend.
		The idea of celebrating Thanksgiving was carried to Canada by British loyalists, American loyalists, excuse me, who fled during the Revolution to usually Nova Scotia, because there was a close tie between Boston and Halifax at the time.
		And they took the holiday with them, and it spread around the country of Canada.
		It doesn't have the same meaning for Canadians though that it has for Americans because it doesn't have an association with anything in the Canadian history.
		So it's how Canadians enjoy the day and have a meal A harvest meal that's similar to ours.
		They don't feel the connection to it that we feel.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
		So it really was an export from us to them.
		Yeah.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
unidentified		What else?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		What else do people need to know on this Thanksgiving before I let them dive into their turkey and stuffing and all that good stuff?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Their sweet potato pie.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, in response to your question about Black Friday, I also wanted to mention Giving Tuesday, which you may have heard of.
		It's a relatively new campaign, which was originally organized by the 92nd Street Y
		in New York City, which has Jewish roots.
		And the idea was to set up online opportunities for people to donate to their favorite nonprofits and charities.
		It's been very successful.
		It raises millions and millions of dollars every year.
		And I love the idea that Giving Tuesday is connected originally to our Thanksgiving Day.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Do you know the actual website we can send people to?
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		We'll find it if not.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't.
		I believe the way it works is that you go, well, I'm not sure.
		See if you can find a link.
unidentified		That would be great.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm guessing there's a Giving Tuesday website, but if not, obviously on that Tuesday before Thanksgiving, you can donate to wherever you'd like.
		Well, we're gonna link to the PragerU video down below.
		We're gonna link to the book, which I've got right here.
		And I've enjoyed this talk, and I can very simply say happy Thanksgiving to you.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		And back to you, Dave.
melanie kirkpatrick ▲ ● ▼		I wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼		If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about academia instead of nonstop yelling, check out our academia playlist.
		And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, check out our full episode playlist.
		They're all right over here.

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