According to Elizabeth Pleck, what role did public school educators play in propagating the story of the “first Thanksgiving” in the Progessive era? How did educators frame Thanksgiving in order to encourage the cultural assimilation of ethnic, working-class schoolchildren and their immigrant parents?
Thanksgiving Discussion Question 2
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Public school educators taught children the story of the “first Thanksgiving” with the hope that the children would convince their parents to celebrate Thanksgiving thereby “incorporat[ing] immigrants into the nation.” They assigned student art projects and contests to teach them about the importance of holidays such as Thanksgiving. They believed that it was imperative for children to celebrate Thanksgiving at home because it would reinforce the patriotic values they were learning in school.
In the teachers’ propagation of the story of the “first Thanksgiving” they emphasized Thanksgiving as a secular, nationalist holiday, while purposely ignoring its Protestant roots. For example, although morning church services used to be an important aspect of Thanksgiving, Pleck shares that during the Progressive Era, “Families were expected to say grace before the feast, but churchgoing was no longer a required element of the ritual.” These schoolteacher’s efforts clearly worked because churchgoing is an even more obsolete aspect of Thanksgiving today. Further, they framed the Pilgrims as newcomers who immigrants and children of immigrants could relate to.
In The Making of a Domestic Occasion, Elizabeth Pleck argues that Progressive-era public school educators played a major role in popularizing the story of the “first Thanksgiving” as part of a broader Americanization effort. Teachers deliberately framed Thanksgiving as a secular, patriotic holiday rather than a Protestant religious one, making it accessible to immigrant and working-class children from diverse backgrounds. By emphasizing the Pilgrims as brave immigrants seeking freedom and democracy, educators created a symbolic connection between early settlers and new arrivals. This framing allowed immigrant children to see themselves as part of the American story rather than outsiders to it.
At the same time, schools used rituals, classroom decorations, performances, and lessons about Pilgrims and Native Americans to cultivate emotional attachment to the nation. Educators believed that if children embraced American holidays and traditions, they would carry these practices into their homes and influence their immigrant parents. Thanksgiving thus became more than a historical lesson. It functioned as a cultural tool designed to promote national unity, domestic stability, and assimilation. Through this reframing, schools helped transform Thanksgiving into a family-centered civic celebration that reinforced American identity across generations.
According to Elizabeth Pleck, public school teachers in the Progressive Era played a really important role in spreading the story of the “first Thanksgiving,” especially to immigrant and working-class kids. Schools didn’t just mention the holiday in textbooks; they made it come alive through plays, drawings, songs, and little classroom celebrations. These activities made the Pilgrim and Indians story feel simple, emotional, and easy to understand. Over time, this helped turn Thanksgiving into a shared national tradition. For many children, school was the main place they learned what Thanksgiving was supposed to be, and they often brought those ideas back home.
Teachers also used Thanksgiving to quietly push ideas about what “proper” American family life should look like. They described it as a peaceful, family-centered holiday with a big meal at home, gratitude, and good behavior around the table. Kids were taught not just the story, but also the “right” way to celebrate, including traditional foods and manners. The hope was that children would carry these habits back to their immigrant parents and slowly shape family traditions to match American middle-class values. So Thanksgiving wasn’t just about history or food, it became a way to help immigrant families feel more American and fit into the culture.
According to Elizabeth Pleck, public school educators played a decisive role in propagating the story of the “first Thanksgiving” during the Progressive era. The “first Thanksgiving” lessons aimed to assimilate ethnic, working-class children and, through them, their immigrant parents. Thanksgiving was reframed as a nationalist, secular holiday, obscuring its origins as a Protestant religious observance. Textbooks claimed that the Mayflower Compact was the “first democratic constitution in the New World,” presenting the Pilgrims as founders of American democracy. In reality, as we have discussed, the Mayflower Compact functioned more as a survival agreement for a small colony than as a sweeping constitutional blueprint. Yet in Progressive classrooms, it became evidence of America’s supposedly inevitable democratic destiny. Together, these lessons transformed Thanksgiving into a tool of cultural nation-building, using a simplified origin story to advance the assimilation of immigrant families.
Educators expanded social studies curricula to include calendric holidays as tools of civic education (7). As Pleck explains, selecting from the “national secular and religious calendar as a form of instruction was an exercise in cultural power, providing children with a dominant set of symbols” (7). Classrooms were filled with pumpkins, corn, turkeys, and images of Pilgrims and Indians, while students reenacted a harmonious feast between the two groups. Thanksgiving was framed as a celebration of “home and community,” with teachers seeking to forge an emotional connection between immigrants and the country. As Pleck notes, the deepest sense of patriotism develops in the home; therefore, “the celebration of holidays needed to reinforce the patriotism learned in school” (8). Immigrant children became cultural intermediaries, carrying these lessons home and encouraging their families to participate in an American ritual that signaled belonging.
The assimilation was subtle. It did not come by force; it came through crafts, costumes, and gratitude. By tying patriotism to domestic ritual and family unity, they made belonging feel intimate, subtly defining who counts as American and how Americanness should look, feel, and be performed.