Thanksgiving Day

Lost History: Meet the ‘Mother of Thanksgiving,’ Hannah Mather Crocker

Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday: invented in New England, proclaimed by George Washington, stamped into our national calendar by Abraham Lincoln, and celebrated with turkey, stuffing, dressing, love, laughter, and thankfulness with a similar distinctiveness all over this vast country of ornery and often deeply divided people.

PLYMOUTH, MA - NOVEMBER 20: Members of a colonial fife and drums corps march in the annual Thanksgiving Parade November 20, 2004 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The parade, part of a weekend of holiday festivities called "America's Hometown Celebration," commemorates the Plymouth Colony's first Thanksgiving feast of 1621. (Photo by Michael …