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Thanksgiving

About This Item

  • Title: Thanksgiving
  • Date: 25 November 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01231
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 25 November 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Thara Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Thanksgiving." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01231.xml (TEI)
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THANKSGIVING.

To-morrow is set apart by the Governor of the State,1 in accordance with a time honored tradition, as a day of general Thanksgiving to the Ruler of human events for the many mercies vouchsafed to us during the year that is past.

From the time when the first day of Thanksgiving was appointed by the primitive settlers of New England, the holiday has been a favorite festival among our people, hardly knowing a rival in their affections. Among the Yankees it is an institution, indeed, and throughout the North its annual recurrence is looked for with pleasure as a season of innocent mirth, of generous cheer and of homely but heart-felt enjoyment.

This year, the day finds us in the midst of trouble, and grumblers and complainers may ask what we have to be thankful for? But such will not be the spirit of the majority. They will remember the overflowing harvests which have gladdened the eyes of the husbandman. They will remember the blessings of a profound peace which have been granted us, while other nations are suffering the horrors of war. They will remember the thousand mercies which have been showered upon us as a community and as a nation, and will cheerfully acknowledge the superintending care of Divine Providence over us during the twelvemonth that is past.

Let us then be not unmindful of the many blessings which have been bestowed upon us. Let us keep up this good old holiday in the same spirit which moved the Mayflower men in its institution—and let it be a holy-day indeed and observed as such. Let us thank Heaven for its favors, forget not the destitute and suffering, and spend an old-fashioned Thanksgiving, one and all.

Notes:

1. John A. King (1788–1867) served as the governor of New York from 1857 to 1858. He also owned and worked on a farm in the village of Jamaica, Long Island. Whitman briefly described seeing King and his family residence in "Letters from a Travelling Bachelor, Number IV" (New York Sunday Dispatch [November 4, 1849]). [back]

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