Myth of Thanksgiving
Everyone’s heard the classic tale of a peaceful gathering of Pilgrims and American Indians as the basis for our Thanksgiving celebrations. But this story is far from the truth. In this class, we divide fact from fiction to explore the real history of Thanksgiving. From a harvest feast in colonial New England, to the Civil War, to customs of the present day, we examine how Thanksgiving was established as a national holiday and why its origin story has grown to mythic proportions.