Unit 2: No Thanks, No Giving (1ère G_gr2)

 The First Story of Thanksgiving

The document under study is a video published on History YouTube Channel in 2012. It is about the story of the first Thanksgiving and the evolution of the festival. We have learned that in 1621, the first Thanksgiving took place between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. It was a three-day festival. The Pilgrims organized this festival to celebrate their first successful harvest and invited the Native Americans who had helped them in the process. They ate venison, raw cranberries… They hunted and did other entertainments. Nevertheless, they did not have pumpkin pie, neither turkey nor potatoes, elements that belong to the modern Thanksgiving menu nowadays. The festival was not repeated after this event.

Only in 1789, President George Washington announced the first national Thanksgiving celebration on November 26^th. Afterwards, in the 19^th century, an author named Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for 30 years to make Thanksgiving an official national holiday. To do so, she created recipes to help people organize and prepare their own Thanksgiving dinner and rally her cause.

Homework: Learn the lesson.