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2. Ibid., 90.

3. Ibid. The celebration, as Morison noted (90 n. 8), was more fully described in a letter of Edward Winslow's, included in a collection of extracts from Winslow's and William Bradford's journals known as Mourt's Relation, by the otherwise unknown author of its preface, Mourt, G. (Bradford, , Of Plymouth Plantation, 64 n. 2).Google Scholar

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16. It has been suggested to me that the religious press might have played at least as great a role in promoting Thanksgiving as did the popular “secular” periodicals treated here. My sense is that although the aggregate circulation of denominational and religious publications might have rivaled that of the “secular” periodicals I discuss here, the reach of any single religious magazine fell far short of a Godey's or a Ladies' Home Journal. In addition, it seems that these religious periodicals were largely concerned with intradenominational matters—polity, theology, missions—and that before the Civil War, if attention fell on extraecclesial subjects, such attention focused on the question of slavery. See John, Tebbel and Zuckerman, Mary Ellen, The Magazine in America, 1741–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 86Google Scholar. Also Mott, Frank Luther, A History of American Magazines (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938), 2: 60–78; and 3: 63–89.Google Scholar

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18. Ibid., 132.

19. Cf. Rom. 11:22.

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24. Ibid., 26, 21.

25. Ibid., 30, 31, 32, 34–36.

26. Ibid., 23, 42–43.

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31. Ibid., 3: 6, qualifies the accuracy of circulation figures for publications from the era before circulation audits. He explains that publishers carefully guarded and even fudged their figures for the sake of boosting advertising revenue. Nevertheless, he estimates circulation for most of the nine publications I examined for this essay. He does not mention Chambers's Journal in any volume of his history. The Chautauquan, published from 1880 until 1914 for men and women enrolled in the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, enjoyed “wide circulation” by 1885, when more than 20,000 people each year enrolled in the CLSC (3: 173, 544). The Cosmopolitan began publication in 1886; between 1892 and 1898, its circulation grew from 100,000 to 300,000 (4: 480 n. 1, 484). Harper's New Monthly Magazine, which originated in 1850, had more than 100,000 subscribers during the 1870s and reigned as one of the “leaders in the field of national illustrated monthlies” during the period of 1885–1905 (2: 383 n. 1; 3: 6; 4: 43). Mott gives no specific figures about Littell's Living Age but notes that the years 1865 until 1885 were the magazine's best (3: 256). Mott is silent also on figures for the Magazine of American History, published from 1877–1917, but suggests that the numbers were impressive when he observes that Martha J. Lamb bought the magazine in 1883 and “made it a paying venture for the ensuing ten years” (3: 260). The more specialized sporting magazine Outing, which ran from 1882 until 1923, built a circulation of around 20,000 subscribers by 1886, around 90,000 a decade later, and a little more than 100,000 during the period 1905–10. My thanks to Gina Petrie, E. H. Little Library, Davidson College, for her assistance with circulation figures.

32. On the shift in late-nineteenth-century myths of Thanksgiving's origins, see Siskind, , “Invention of Thanksgiving,” 181–85Google Scholar. “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book, November 1897, 559–60, gave a historical, pre-U.S. picture of thanksgiving traditions.Google Scholar

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38. Ibid., November 1865, 445.

39. Ibid., November 1864, 440.

40. Ibid., November 1867, 447.

41. Ibid., November 1876, 473.

42. Ibid., November 1870, 470.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., November, 1871, 471, for a typical appeal that Thanksgiving be “assured to us by law.” Hale made similar public requests every year until her retirement in 1877.

45. Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1873, 471.Google Scholar

46. Ibid., November 1876, 473.

47. The classic statements of “woman's sphere” ideology can be found in Barbara, Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood,” American Quarterly 18 (1966): 151–74Google Scholar; Cott, Nancy F., The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and more recently, Colleen, McDannell, The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840–1900, Religion in North America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), especially 1–19, 77–107, and 127–49.Google Scholar

48. “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, November 1872Google Scholar. See Hambrick-Stowe, , Practice of Piety, 99, 100, on “lecture days.”Google Scholar

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58. Ibid., November 1864, 440. For fiction highlighting Thanksgiving charity, see Brander, Matthews, “A Thanksgiving Dinner,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 12 1893, 28–34Google Scholar; Portor, Laura Spencer, “The Yielding of Hezekiah Craddock: A Thanksgiving Story,” Godey's Magazine, 11 1897, 451–61Google Scholar; Douglas, Letitia Virginia, “Carlo's Thanksgiving,” Godey's Lady's Book, 11 1890, 417–18.Google Scholar

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64. Sarah, Hale, “Editor's Table,” Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine, 11 1875, 474.Google Scholar

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74. My thinking here is informed by Joel, Kovel, White Racism: A Psychohistory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

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