TURKEY, ANYONE?

To greet all my American friends (and to amuse those with a taste for the curiosities of past generations) here are some intriguing – often, frankly, bizarre – Thanksgiving greetings from yesteryear...

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

GIVING THANKS

FOND GREETINGS 

to all my

AMERICAN FRIENDS

A CAUSE FOR THANKSGIVING

On 6 March 1943, The Saturday Evening Post published a painting by the great American pop artist, Norman Rockwell.

The first of four 'Freedom' pictures by Rockwell, it was entitled 'Freedom from Want' and became the archetypal image representing Thanksgiving...

This is not the first time this iconic image has appeared on this blog and I am reproducing it again today to bring Thanksgiving Greetings to all my friends on the other side of the Atlantic.   

It was later used as a US propaganda poster with the slogan: OURS... to fight for FREEDOM FROM WANT.

It is said that Rockwell fussed over this painting for a long time, concerned that it would convey overabundance rather than the theme of freedom from want.

Rockwell was well known for using friends and family as models for his paintings and the Rockwell family cook, Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton, was the model for the grandmother serving the turkey.  "I painted the turkey in Freedom From Want on Thanksgiving Day," wrote Rockwell, "Mrs Wheaton, our cook, cooked it, I painted it and we ate it."

I love Rockwell's wonderful composition – back-lit from the window with the light bouncing off the white tablecloth and best china – and, in particular, the way in which the senior couple are focused on the placing of the turkey and maintaining the order and ritual of the table.

I also enjoy the way in which the family circle is so intimate and tightly knit that the rest of the diners are only partially glimpsed. it is genius on Rockwell's part that they are are all learning forward in animated conversation with one another – with the one exception of the guy in the bottom right hand corner who is looking directly at the artist and, therefore, the viewer, and so makes us a guest at the table.

It also gives me an excuse to also blog again a delightful pastiche of Rockwell's original painting by a gifted Disney artist and illustrator, Charles Boyer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago...


Boyer's Disney-version of Rockwell is, of course, kitsch - but it is, surely, down-home-honest-to-goodness kitsch! And - on a day like today - I don't really need any excuse for juxtaposing the work of two of America's greatest popular artists.

Disney wasn't the first or last to parody the Rockwell painting and among those who have dragged out the turkey are the Muppets, the Simpsons, the superheroes and the cast of characters in Modern Family. Here are a few Thanksgiving meals to enjoy...

  

 

For anyone who'd like to know a little more about the festival of Thanksgiving observed by Britain's former colonists, you can read more about its origins on former post.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Bottom photography by Louis Stein

TURKEY TIME

For my friends on the other side of the Atlantic, today is, of course, Thanksgiving Day and if you'd like to know a bit more about this festival observed by Britain's former colonists, you can read more about its origins on former post.

Not for the first time on this blog, I am reproducing the following iconic image of the American family thanksgiving by the great Norman Rockwell...


I love Rockwell's wonderful composition – back-lit from the window with the light bouncing off the white tablecloth and crockery – and, in particular, the way in which the senior couple are focused on the placing of the turkey and maintaining the order and ritual of the table.

I also enjoy the way in which the family circle is so intimate and tightly knit that the rest of the diners are only partially glimpsed. it is genius on Rockwell's part that they are are all learning forward in animated conversation with one another – with the one exception of the guy in the bottom right hand corner who is looking directly at the artist and, therefore, the viewer, and so makes us a guest at the table.

It also gives me an excuse to blog a delightful pastiche of Rockwell's painting by a gifted Disney artist and illustrator, Charles Boyer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting some years ago...


Like Rockwell's original, Boyer's Disney painting is, of course, kitsch - but it is, surely, down-home-honest-to-goodness kitsch! And - on a day like today - I don't really need any excuse for juxtaposing the work of two of America's greatest popular artists.

And staying with Disney, here, for your amusement, is that comic triumvirate of Mickey, Donald and Goofy on the trail of the Thanksgiving turkey...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

GIVING THANKS

To all my American readers

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Post Script: LISAH asks (see comments below), "Does anyone know why Thanksgiving is held on a Thursday?" The answer is a little on the long side, but you'll find it on the website of The Belcher Foundation.

Any American readers (with time to kill while the turkey roasts - or digests!) are welcome to add to our sum total of knowledge on this Thursday holiday-thing which, to me, just seems like an excuse for an extra-long weekend!

Main image: © Norman Rockwell

TALKING TURKEY

For our American Cousins, today is a day for carving the turkey and giving thanks...


Thanksgiving Day (held on the fourth Thursday in November) is a quintessentially American celebration, dating back over 300 years to the days of the first European settlement founded in Plymouth, New England, on December 21, 1620.

Three years after the Pilgrim Fathers began a new life in a new world, the Colony's Governor, William Bradford, proclaimed the community's first day of thanksgiving with these words:

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience. Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

The celebration as it is observed today, dates from a later proclamation issued by President George Washington on the 3 October, 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and

Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

Washington also exhorted the people to join in a prayer that seems as timely - for the USA and, indeed for all nations calling themselves civilised democracies - as it did when America’s first President penned the words, 217 years ago…

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

I wish all my American friends - at home or abroad,
alone or with those whom they love -
A Very Happy and Peaceful Thanksgiving

[Image: Turkey Mosaic by Martin Cheek]