Good evening and welcome. Im can weinstein, resident and ceo of hunter and institute. For the condition of my voice. I really wanted to be here for the book forum for melanie kirkpatricks book thanksgiving, the holiday at the heart of the american experience. I want to thank our friends at the historic explorers club, especially the executive director and our good friend. I also want to thank the viewing audience on cspans book tv. Institute is a policy organization, we are based in washington dc. We are dedicated to voting u. S. National leadership for the sake of security, prosperity, and freedom. Most of our work is in the Public Policy space. Insecurity of work in asia. Isis,ked at fighting talked about trying to overcome the challenges of the iran deal. We this book is an outlier. We have to be thankful for many things. That isit is a book extraordinarily timely coming now at the end of what was by all accounts a very challenging election season. Whether you fell among those, i include myself among them who feel that there is the possibility of hope for a brighter future, or you are among those who felt the country is disgruntled by the result of the election. As the holiday approaches us, its an opportunity for all of us to come together in our families, whether we are in red america or blue america. Come together perhaps to celebrate the most american of all holidays and express our deep gratitudes for the common blessed blessings that we share. Thats why i think this is an external rebook, and would make a wonderful holiday gift for thanksgiving and beyond. It and she will happily sign it at the end of the event. The book begins with some reflections that i found profoundly moving. Visiting aks about high school in queens, Newcomers High School 850 students from 64 different countries. Women who arrived in our country, who are learning to be american. Clients strategic dj melanie has to teach a class. Its something all of us can identify with because as she points out, all immigrants share experience and all americans do, that the programs left four and experience here. My mother, who came to this country at the age of eight was a refugee of nazi germany. When she was alive, everythings giving was deeply moving, we have helped keep gratitude for what this country gave her, gave us. And the immense blessings. This book is deeply touching, uplifting, its a wonderful examination for the history of the holiday and the lessons that it teaches us. For those of you who dont know her well, she is a senior fellow assistant, former Deputy Editor of the editorial page of the wall street journal. She is well known analyst of asia and known for her first from north korea, which tells the incredible story of the brave men and women he had asias underground world and the incredible efforts they do to help peoples capability. Since no good deed goes unpunished, we have decided to six her good friend, also known to all of us here from her articles on wall street journal from her appearances on wsa opinion live. As a member of the wall street Journal Editorial Board and my personal hero for sucking it to mika brzezinski. Conversatione a about the book and we will open up some questions for the audience. Do, thanky further you. Thank you. Would like to offer my thanks to the viewing audience out there on cspan, thank you for tuning in. And to all of you for being here. Note, this is a very deeply moving moment for me. Melanie is a mentor of mine. She is somebody i have always admired and aspired to be more like as a journalist and as a person. Its really wonderful to be here to celebrate her and to have a about her latest book. Its also a very important place for us to be, because for those of you who dont know, as a girl from buffalo going to japan, this is like going to the top of everest in 1800. Its wonderful to be here at the explorers club. Thanksgiving is an unusual book. In really the best sense of the word, it weaves together history, religion, politics, cultural issues, feminism. Our purpose here today is to give you a sense of why melanie wrote this book, what interest you do in the topic, what interested you in the topic. I wanted to start by asking, every author has an up session. You have to have an obsession to write a book. What obsessed you about thanksgiving . The motivated you to do kind of work and the research that resulted in this . First, let me say a few thank is. And thexplorers club Hudson Institute for having me here. I was very grateful for hudsons support in writing this unusual book. Thank you very much. Also a hudson trustee and senior fellow that i would like to thank. Role,rustee has a third he is also my husband. David, he wasck my first editor and my best editor. He never let me get away with anything. It couldnt have been as good a book as it was without you. I would like to thank my stepdaughter, who is also here with us. She did some of the research for me. She spent many hours lookingi wy at microfilm at the Public Library and reading 19thcentury magazines trying to find references to thanksgiving. Thank you, jacqueline. And last thank you, its wonderful you are here. I appreciate you coming. You dont know what questions to expect. On book first began september 11, 2001. I was in Downtown Manhattan that day, i saw the towers fall. Like Many Americans in the wake of the terrorist attacks, i began to think and read more about what it means to be an american. My search put me to william offords marvelous book plymouth plantation, he was the longtime governor of them is plantation. He wrote this wonderful book about the journey from england to holland on the mayflower to the new world. And the first few decades here. I got interested in the subject. Journalist, i started trying to find out more about it. Because i was in the happy position of being a Senior Editor at the wall street journal, i could indulge my interest by writing an occasional article on thanks giving, which i did. When i retired from the journal, after writing the book on north korea, i decided to turn to thanksgiving. Thanksgiving and my interest in the subject really covered many of the same things i had covered as a journalist at the wall street journal. I was able to pursue my interest in politics, religion, economics to a certain extent, and in american culture. I seeg except for this book as a totality of a lot of what i have learned over my career. Its also a very american thing that we can see to examine, we have actual artifacts and firsthand accounts of thanks giving. You write about a museum you visited. Hall inu go to pilgrim plymouth, massachusetts, you can see artifacts that were held by the pilgrims. One of the artifacts that blew me away was William Bradfords bible. Its on display there, it is a geneva translation of the bible, which he dated the King James Version which predated the King James Version. More people believe this was a more authentic translation than ones that followed. William bradford late in life taught himself hebrew, he would read the first books of the bible of the Old Testament in the original language, a language that god gave. Im glad weve turned to religion, there are many themes in the book, that religion seems to me the strongest theme. The holiday is fused with religious meaning. Did that derive from europe . Did it come from a particular place . As ive learned, the idea of celebrating thanksgiving was a judeochristian tradition. Then, some people thought holiday may have come from the jewish holiday of suck off, i hope on pronouncing that correctly. Dont really know, but certainly protestant denominations and catholics celebrated, villages, ceremonies of eggs giving in the old world. In the pilgrimscase, they had thanksgiving days usually associated with the communal meal. But with the pilgrims and Early English settlers celebrated were for specific benefits and since, such as the rainfall that saved a harvest, or a military victory, or good health. We transformed it to thanksgivings for general blessing. This was controversial. Some people argued that if you had a thanksgiving for general blessings, you would take for granted, and you would forget to be thankful. It wasnt until the end of the 18th century that massachusetts, which was one of the holdouts, began to celebrate annual thanksgivings for general blessings. Thanksgiving came from the judeochristian tradition, its thought, it wasnt always celebrated as a secular holiday. There was some sort of dispute when we celebrated thanksgiving as to who could participate and what it was for. You have an anecdote in the book, the Jewish Community thought they were left out of thanks giving because it was proclaimed, they were . How did that come about . The governor of South Carolina in 1844 issued a thanks giving proclamation that was exclusively for christians. Charleston has a venerable jewish tradition, the first Jewish American to be elected to a political appointment was a jew from charleston. The first to die in the revolutionary war, the first jew was in charleston,. They have a long historic tradition. They objected and said we are not going to celebrate thanks giving because you excluded us. Theres quite an expensive written debate about this. In the end, the governor was completely entrenched in his viewpoint. He wrote back saying america is a christian country, this is only for christians. They didnt celebrate it, others were excluded, too, such as unitarians. Then his term of office ended at the endoftheyear, the new governor issued a new proclamation. T lets go back to how we go our modern thanksgiving. George washingtons proclamation, how did that come about . George washington is an important figure in the history of thanksgiving. On his first proclamation, the first proclamation of any president , was his proclamation for a National Thanksgiving. Believe it or not, it was controversial. Congress had been meeting in downtown federal all since march of 1789, september came along and they were ready to take a break. Jersey waman from new to washington and ask him to issue this proclamation. Congress objected to it, and a debate ensued. They raised issues that are still relevant today. They said he did not have the executive authority under the constitution to issue such a proclamation. Was that jeffersons argument . When he became president , he refused to issue a proclamation using this argument. He had issued proclamations when he was governor of virginia. That was the first objection. The second objection had to do with religious freedom. The congress had just abated the first amendment, the idea of separation of church and state was very much in their mind. Was gued that religion thanksgiving was a religious holiday, therefore the president should not issue a proclamation. How did washington walk that line . Washington, wise as in so many things, he had a brilliant solution. He issued a proclamation then sent it to governors of 13 states with a cover letter requesting them to celebrate thanksgiving. Not telling them to do so. There were two other first he called for the last thursday of november. Second, on thanksgiving day he made a charitable contribution. Usually he was quiet about such things, but this time he did so publicly, because i think he wanted to set an example for people to think of the poor on thanks giving day. Third, his proclamation was entirely inclusive of all religions, thereby setting the example for future president s to include all religions. We have talked about the religious theme, or on the political thing, we see the tension between the states and the federal government. We also see a kind of cronyism thanksgiving, when you write about fdr and his decision to change the date of thanksgiving, talk about that. Fast forwarding to the 20th century. Had the dumb idea that if he moved the date of thanksgiving forward by one week, it would extend the Christmas Shopping season and the economy would boom. Americans would have in only too happy to spend more money if they had it, but they didnt have it. It was a failure. Admitted that. Along the way, it was very interesting as to how americans responded. Some people, some states just said we will follow the president s example. Others were outraged. Of1939, you had the example half of the state celebrating on the original traditional day, the last thursday of november. The other half celebrating on roosevelts day which came to be known as, franksgiving, after franklin roosevelt. In texas, they announced they were going to celebrate both dates. What happened during the civil war . Lincoln andvil war, Jefferson Davis in the early part of the civil war, each issued days of proclamation four days of thanksgiving to give a thanks for military victories. In 1863, lincoln did something different. He issued a proclamation for a general thanksgiving following washingtons tradition, and called on all americans, north and south, to give thanks for the blessing of the country. If you think about that, one of the bloodiest years in our countrys history where americans were killing each other, the battle of gettysburg had recently taken place. And here was lincoln, asking people to be thankful. I think what he was doing was pointing the way to what the country was going to be like after the war. This is a fabulous book, everybody should buy it copy. Thank you cspan. Just history, it doesnt teach you about the religious roots of the politics of it, which are reflected in our own modern culture. Theres also these interesting figures. That you profile at different points. Of them is a lady named since we are talking about the 6 the civil war, Sarah Josephine hill, is anyone in the audience similar with sarah joseph a hell . Only a few. Audience, and you talk a little bit about her and how she fits into thanksgiving . What her role was in our holiday . She was widely known as the godmother of thanks giving. She was an editor of the 19th century, she was born in the late 18th century in new hampshire. Thatenius as an editor was she thought americans wanted to read about american things. Believe it or not, this was unusual in the early part of the 19th century. Back then, magazine editors would wait for the magazines from london to arrive, then they would take the material from the british magazines and publish them in american magazines. Different, sheng started hiring american writers to write for her, including nathaniel author, and edgar allen poe, who went on to describe her as a woman of masculine energy. She was editor of the most widely circulated magazine of the precivil war era. One of the great editors in American History. Her passion was thanksgiving. On, she believed a National Thanksgiving would be a way to unify the country. It was splitting over the issue of slavery. Her magazine,n, she of she would run editorials, writing about the different states that had a giving, because thanksgiving was called by governors. Thatould publish fiction was sent around thanksgiving, trying to create a very happy, sentimental feeling for the holiday. She also published recipes, she may have been the first editor to publish recipes, which sounds pretty amazing. American recipes using american ingredients . Thats right. In addition to her work at the magazine, she would write hundreds of letters over the decades to what we would call opinion makers today, politicians, and others who had influence. 1863, sheuntil writes them, asking them to support the campaign for a National Thanksgiving. In 1863, lincoln did her call. She lived a very long life, until her 80s or 90s. She did, i think she was 90 when she died. When asked late in my about this, she said she was very happy that we had a National Thanksgiving, but there was one thing that remained which was it had to be enshrined in a legislation. That didnt happen until 1941, when congress did so, and roosevelt signed into law. Under that law, thats the law to which we celebrate the fourth thursday of every november. This is like thinking from a fire hose, you would think its 400 pages, but its not. We have a religious aspect, a political aspect. Thats because i was used to writing editorials, which are short. Its a great book, you should definitely buy it. Religion, politics, a feminist figure in sarah joseph a hail. We havent talked about food. Theres also a culinary history here, too. What was thanksgiving like for the people who originally celebrated it . If you wanted to eat today what the pilgrims and the indians ate, you would have to put venison and corn, oysters, and muscles on your thanks giving menu. There may have been a turkey there, bradford in his description of the first theksgiving references abundance of wild turkey in the area. There was no pie, because they did not have wheat flour, there were no potatoes, which had not made their way to this part of new england yet. And there were no cranberries, probably november is, because if you have ever bitten into a cranberry, you would understand why you would not have them without sugar, and they had no sugar. No apples, apples were brought later in the 17th century. The phrase american as apple pie did not apply. That was all a lie . In a way. Has readings in the back, it contains these two accounts we have of the original thanksgiving, no longer counts not long accounts . That meal that they celebrated changed through the years, not because of the food we imported, but also the availability. Theres one passage where you talk about oysters some great to me, but they are expensive, but they werent always that way. In the 19th century, they were cheap food. Oysters were popular for thanksgiving. As were chestnuts, which were also inexpensive before the great plate in the 20th century that killed them off. Speaking of the culinary history, one of my favorite stories has to do with president coolidge. After lincoln named the first , then hethanksgiving passed away, every president after has called for thanks giving. Starting with grants presidency, there was a man who raised turkeys in rhode island. He was the poultry king of rhode island, he would send a turkey to the white house for things giving. He did that thanksgiving. He did that until he died in the wilson administration. His cudgel after his death, and the president started getting turkeys from around the country. Mississippi had a different idea, they sent pres