Object: First Thanksgiving, 1621

First Thanksgiving, 1621

First Thanksgiving, 1621

Artist:

Edwin D WHITE

Description:

Edwin White (1817-77) The First Thanksgiving, 1621, 1857 Americans often inaccurately assume that the first Thanksgiving harvest festival gathering, in 1621, began an annual tradition. In fact, the establishment of the yearly celebration of Thanksgiving did not occur until after the writer Sarah Josepha Hale successfully lobbied President Abraham Lincoln to 'have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union festival.' The resulting Thanksgiving Proclamation of October 3, 1863, was undoubtedly also intended to encourage the celebration as an antidote to the suffering caused by the Civil War. Lincoln invited Americans '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.' Born in Massachusetts, White studied in Europe and subsequently taught at the National Academy of Design, in New York. By the middle of the 19th century, he became well known for major historical subjects, including Washington's Resignation of His Commission (1858, Maryland State House, Annapolis). Barbara Mitnik, for "History Painting" catalogue, 2007, Lafayette College

Credit:

Kirby Collection of Historical Paintings, Lafayette College, Easton, PA; Gift of Allan P. Kirby (class of 1915)

Collection:

Kirby Collection of Historical Paintings

Dimensions:

154.94 W x 104.14 H (in cm.)