“Red in Cranberry Dressed”
The Sauce-y Story of Thanksgiving Food in TR’s White House 🦃
It seems like time has flown by this year, and somehow, we’re already starting the month of November! At the end of this month, we’ll celebrate a holiday that has been observed in the United States for many years: Thanksgiving.
Although George Washington was the first president to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation, Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863. But Thanksgiving wasn’t observed consistently on the fourth Thursday of November until Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration.
Source: President Roosevelt signing his Thanksgiving Proclamation act. Library of Congress.
Instead, presidents before FDR like Theodore Roosevelt continued the tradition of their predecessors of selecting a day in November to observe Thanksgiving. During his presidency, TR issued eight Thanksgiving proclamations, including the one he is signing above in 1902 in which he states:
“The year that has just closed has been one of peace and of overflowing plenty. Rarely has any people enjoyed greater prosperity than we are now enjoying. For this we render heartfelt and solemn thanks to the Giver of Good; and we seek to praise Him not by words only but by deeds, by the way in which we do our duty to ourselves and to our fellow men.”
There are a lot of fun records in the Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library about Thanksgiving, including a gratitude list written by TR’s later daughter-in-law, Eleanor Butler Roosevelt, when she was a young girl in 1896. My favorite item is probably “nice hair,” which was first on her list.
Since food is such an integral part of Thanksgiving, I’m going to focus this issue of Missing Pieces on Thanksgiving food. As president, TR received many gifts of food from well-wishers for the holiday, including the iconic turkey, which TR received from Horace Vose of Rhode Island.
Source: Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library
Vose, known as the “Poultry King,” had begun his White House turkey tradition of sending the president a choice turkey around Thanksgiving in 1873 when he sent President Ulysses Grant a thirty-eight-pound bird and continued the tradition for forty years until 1913.
Vose always selected turkeys that were at least thirty pounds and sent them express directly to the White House. He sent his last Thanksgiving turkey to the White House to President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 a month before he died.
Ever year at Thanksgiving when he was president, TR received a turkey from Vose. By the end of his presidency, TR had come to see Vose’s turkey as an integral part of his Thanksgiving celebration.
In 1907, TR wrote to Vose, “Many thanks for the turkey. It would seem rather odd now to have Thanksgiving in the White House without a turkey from you.”
The digital library even contains a poem written by Francis Bowler Keene on Thanksgiving Day 1908 entitled “To roast turkey,” set to the tune of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” It’s likely that TR would have been familiar with this poem since it was published in the July-December 1911 issue of Life.
Although it’s hard to pick a favorite stanza—they are all hilarious—I think my favorite is the second stanza, though the third stanza is pretty good. The latter includes all the colors of the American flag describing a turkey, such as “red in cranberry dressed.”
Symbol of thankfulness
For blessings we possess
I love thee all.
Thy breast hath no alloy;
Thy joints no tongue can cloy;
Thy tail’s a juicy joy;
No taste can pall.
Source: L. Prang & Co. Wild Turkey, 1872. Library of Congress.
Today although we may associate apple pie with Thanksgiving, apples aren’t the first food that comes to mind for Thanksgiving. However, based on records that I’ve found in the digital library and other sources of the era, it seems like apples were much more likely to be associated with Thanksgiving during Theodore Roosevelt’s time.
For example, I found a poem, “Thanksgiving Acrostic,” in a teacher’s magazine published in Indiana called The Educator-journal in the August 1900 issue that specifically mentioned apples.
T is for Turkey, the biggest in town.
H is for Hattie, who baked it so brown.
A is for apples, the best we could find.
N is for nuts that we eat when we’ve dined.
K is for kisses for those we love best.
S is for salad we serve to each guest.
G is for gravy, that every one takes.
I is for ice cream, that comes with the cakes.
V is for verses on peppermint drops.
I’s for inquiries when anyone stops.
N’s for the way we nibble our cheese.
G is for grace when we’re done with all these.
TR himself enjoyed apples for Thanksgiving. He thanks William Peters Hepburn in a 1908 letter for the apples Hepburn sent, adding, “There is no one from whom I would rather have such a gift for the Thanksgiving dinner than from you, my dear sir.”
The year before in 1907, TR received apples from another man, Thomas J. Atwood of Sultan, Washington, who sent them via the Great Northern Express Company. In the letter that accompanied the apples, Atwood notes his tradition of sending fruit to neighbors and friends.
Although the president isn’t his neighbor, Atwood does consider him “a friend of the people” and therefore worthy of receiving apples. He states at the end of the letter that he hopes TR receives the apples before Thanksgiving: “Hoping that these apples will reach you in time for Thanksgiving . . .”
Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving with apples—or even turkey for that matter—this national holiday is a great opportunity to reflect on the blessings in our lives and come up with our own gratitude list that may or may not include “nice hair”!
Food was an integral part of Theodore Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving celebrations from Horace Vose’s turkeys to apples from well-wishers around the country. Do you agree with TR that it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a turkey, or do you have another favorite food? Cast your vote in the poll below.
I really like the poems, especially the one about turkey!