“… acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People”. Thanksgiving in Post-Civil War American Visual Culture

Abstract

In nineteenth-century visual culture, representations of the Thanksgiving dinner became an indicator of disputed concepts of national and cultural identity, participation issues and the construction of a common system of values in the United States. Although not institutionalized as a national holiday until 1941, nationwide Thanksgiving Days repeatedly had been decreed to celebrate significant moments in US history, though until the mid-nineteenth century they were very seldom depicted. As the tradition spread, images of the festive meal - focusing on the motif of serving and carving the turkey - framed American history according to white Anglo-Saxon protestant values. Stressing traditional demarcations between gender, class, and ethnicity, starting during the Civil War, the motif was used to convey notions of inclusion and exclusion.