Primary sources from the American Colonies…

It’s November, and in the United States that means the start of the holiday season with Thanksgiving. It is impossible to celebrate Thanksgiving without acknowledging the role of the Native Americans in that first feast.

I have long been fascinated by ephemera as a window into the past. And with Thanksgiving coming up, I thought it would be fun to look at food-related ephemera. To that end, I’ve found some digitized collections of menus, pamphlets, and other culinary items.

How did the holiday go from pagan festival to party time? And how did Gilded Age Halloween socials become children’s trick-or-treating?

A deep dive into the Film Collections on Internet Archive.