Of Grandeur and Gifts: A Small Glimpse into Victorian Birthdays

Recently I stumbled across a cute little tibdit on Victorian birthdays and gift giving that made me smile--and naturally think of Gone with the Wind, of course:

"Birthdays were celebrated in grandeur and gifts between the family members became integral to the Victorian Christmas. The wealthy looked upon fatherhood largely to lavish gifts and paying of sons debts, while in the middle-class, gift-giving was looked upon one's financial capabilities. Unfortunately, the mother very often could not compete in the area of gift-giving, thus the act of gift-giving become symbolic as to the exclusive duty of the father providing for his children."

--excerpted from The Victorian Father and Child

The quote above refers to Victorian England, but I couldn't help but think it had a nice parallel to Rhett and his approach to spoiling Bonnie rotten fatherhood. It's not hard to imagine Rhett going completely overboard in buying Bonnie birthday presents--and being rather generous to Wade and Ella too, for that matter. 

In fact, I often wish Gone with the Wind provided us more glimpses into how birthdays were spent in the Butler household. It would have be fascinating to see how Scarlett and Rhett celebrated each others' birthdays, for instance, both before and after their estrangement--or if they even knew each others' actual birthdays at all, given their mutual hesistancy to share personal details and Scarlett's secrecy over her exact age. I'd also love to see just how lavishly they celebrated the children's birthdays and what kind of gifts they bestowed. But, alas, we have so little to go on, beyond the few tantalizing details MM mentions about the day of Bonnie's birth.

So I'd like to turn it over to you all and get your thoughts. How do you think Rhett and Scarlett and family celebrated their birthdays? Or any other characters in GWTW for that matter?

A Very Victorian Valentine's Day Card

A poor card choice for Rhett.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Whether single or attached, we hope your day is a wonderful one filled with the people you love. In the spirit of the holiday, we're bringing you a look at Valentine cards of the Gone with the Wind era. So we hope this post will answer that burning, age-old question that haunts every Gone with the Wind fan: what kind of Valentine card could Rhett Butler have sent Scarlett O'Hara? 

The answer? Well, you'll be pleased to know that Rhett would have had any number of card selections at his disposal. So he could have selected a Valentine to precisely align with his current sentiments towards Scarlett, whether they be sentimental, bawdy, nostalgic, or combative. You see, by the 1850s Valentine cards were a booming business in the United States--more popular and plentiful than Christmas cards, in fact--and eager publishers printed cards for every possible market demographic. 

There were frothy, sweet cards for young lovers to exchange. There were sedate cards embossed with benign messages like 'friendship' and 'constancy' to bestow on acquaintances or family members. And then there were cards that appealed to a more earthy clientele, cards featuring comic scenes, bizarre creatures, or vulgar puns. Through it all, though, one thing was certain: then, like today, Valentine cards were an important part of commemorating Valentine's Day.

This 1869 article from Godey's Lady's Book nicely captures of the phenomenon of the Valentine card during the period:

"The great event of this month among lovers is St. Valentine' s Day. It is a day of pleasant and innocent excitement in the way of sending Valentines through the post. The ring of the door-bell on that day causes a great flutter among the ladies of the household. All is laughter and gayety, and if anybody is disappointed, she should put the best face on the matter possible. Already the store windows are profusely decorated with masses of highly-colored pictures representing cupids, nymphs, nuptials, verses, beautiful damsels, hideous deformities, and, indeed, every species of creature which the fastidious mind of the artist has conceived. All tastes can be gratified. There must be, we imagine, a large sale for this kind of goods, as every year brings forth an increased quantity."

--excerpted from Godey's Lady's Book, February 1869

As we end our look at the Valentine cards of the Gone with the Wind era, we'd like to leave you with a slideshow of twenty beautiful Valentine cards circa 1850s-1870s--any of which could have very well been Rhett's choice for Scarlett (provided he didn't choose to go the mocking or vulgar route, of course). Happy Valentine's Day!

Still haven't had enough Victorian Valentines? Check out the galleries on The Scrap Album for a great selection of both sweet and not-so-sweet Valentines.

'Tis the Season for Southern Cookin': A Christmas Feast

Merry Christmas! We hope you're enjoying a wonderful day with family and friends, lots of presents, and delicious food. As you sit down for your own Christmas feast this evening, we've got a holiday meal to offer you as well. We've cooked up you a lavish Christmas dinner, based on a Christmas menu listed in Atlanta's own The Dixie cook-book (1883). Below you'll find the full dinner menu, with recipes waiting for you after the jump. Enjoy! 

A Christmas Dinner Menu

Raw oysters served with sliced lemon

Turtle soup

Baked fresh fish

Roast turkey garnished with fried oysters

Mashed potatoes

Lima beans

Pickled beets

Mayonnaise of chicken salad

Celery

Cranberry sauce

Christmas plum pudding with rich sauce

Mince pie

Sponge and lady cake mixed

Fruit and nuts

Christmas Trees in the Era of Gone with the Wind

In 1870, Christmas was proclaimed an official federal holiday, in an effort to unite into one celebration a country that had been divided by a war. The foundations to this project lay in a series of elements that were already common to Christmas celebrations both in the North and in the South and that ultimately contributed to forging an American identity. It's on one of these elements that we are going to focus today: the Christmas tree.

The first Christmas trees appeared in the German communities of Pennsylvania in the first decades of the 19th century. Multiple accounts and sketches survive of these decorated trees, including a charming announcement from the Society of Bachelors in York, Pennsylvania  that in 1823 was promising to decorate its Christmas tree so that it would "be superb, superfine, superfrostical, shnockagastical, double refined, mill'twill'd made of Dog's Wool, Swingling Tow, and Posnum fur; which cannot fail to gratify taste." (Because, seriously, who wouldn't want a Christmas tree that is superfrostical and snockagastical at the same time?) The custom quickly became a point of fascination for Americans in the neighboring states and Christmas trees began to appear in parlors in New York and Boston.

By the early 1840s, the phenomenon of the Christmas tree had started to move southward.  In 1842, the citizens of Williamsburg, Virginia were buzzing with excitement to see the very first Christmas tree known to state history. It was Charles Minnegerode, a German-born professor of classics at William and Mary College, who introduced the first Christmas tree that holiday season, bringing over an evergreen to the home of his friend, Judge Nathaniel Beverly Tucker. Fortunately for us, a first-hand account of this 'inaugural' Southern Christmas tree has not been lost to the sands of time. A young Sarah Pryor, who you might remember from her account of the daring hoop skirt blockade runner, was on hand to recall the event in her memoir:

"The beautiful Christian custom of lighting a Christmas tree—bringing 'the glory of Lebanon, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box,' to hallow our festival —had not yet obtained in Virginia. We had heard much of the German Christmas tree, but had never seen one. Lizzie Gilmer, who was to marry a younger son of the house, was intimate with the Tuckers, and brought great reports of the preparation of the first Christmas tree ever seen in Virginia.

"I had not yet been allowed to attend the parties of 'grown-up' people, but our young friend John Randolph Tucker was coming of age on Christmas Eve, and great pressure was brought to bear upon my aunt to permit me to attend the birthday celebration... The tree loaded with tiny baskets of bonbons, each enriched with an original rhyming jest or sentiment, was magnificent, the supper delicious, the speeches and poems from the two old judges (Tucker) were apt and witty."
--excerpted from My Day: Reminiscences of a Long Life by Sarah Pryor (1909)

Throughout the 1840s and early 185os, Christmas trees continued to grow in popularity, spurred by three very powerful forces in Victorian America: religion, commerce, and the publishing industry. Sunday schools began to incorporate Christmas trees into their holiday season festivities. The cheerful evergreens served as an enchanting reminder to young children about the Christian messages of renewal and promise at the heart of the Christmas season. In addition, resourceful teachers constructed games based around the Christmas tree, where pupils would receive small trinkets or sweets from the tree's branches for correctly reciting Bible verses.

Outside of the religious sphere, the world of commerce had also started to capitalize on the novel concept of the Christmas tree. Christmas trees were likely first sold for profit as early as 1840, when an intrepid farmer's wife from New Jersey set out for New York City with a cart full of trees for sale. By 1851, one of the first Christmas tree markets in New York City was set up in Washington Square by a gentleman by the name of Marc Carr. Other large cities soon adopted Christmas tree markets of their own.

The publishing world also served to widen the reach of the Christmas tree. Advertisements for Christmas trees started to cropped up in newspapers and magazines began to include holiday stories about Christmas trees. But there was one publication that played a greater role than all others in popularizing the Christmas tree in the United States. Any guesses about which one?

Black Christmas in the Antebellum South

"For the first time in their lives the negroes were able to get all the whisky they might want. In slave days, it was something they never tasted except at Christmas, when each one received a 'drap' along with his gift."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XXXVII

Starting with 1820, criticism of slavery and of the Southern lifestyle based on it became more and more pronounced, as the problem of the former expanding to the new Western territories arose. Faced with this pressure, the Southerners countered by creating a "cavalier" myth of the South that would help define and defend its peculiar institutions, and Christmas was to play a central part to this end. As P.L. Renstadt notes in Christmas in America. A History, "Christmas became a key element in expounding the southern ideal, one in which the perceived virtues of the plantation system could be symbolized and ritualized. In the boldest ways, the southern Christmas provided a picture of harmony amid increasing tension."

The relationship between master and slaves and the way slaves themselves celebrated Christmas became essential in defending the perceived rightness of the state of affairs in the South. Memoirs and letters use Christmas as an example that the reality of slavery was much less harsh than the Abolitionists imagined. Christmas in the antebellum South was ultimately a charade of benevolent paternalism, glorified to the limits of caricature in stories like William Gilmore Simms' Maize in Milk. A Christmas Story of the South, where noble planters with names like Colonel Openheart ignore their own financial difficulties to buy the old and infirm slaves of neighboring plantations to save them from being sold down river. 

And since noblesse oblige, this expensive act of charity couldn't shadow in the least the lavish celebrations of Christmas on the Carolinian plantation Maize in Milk. It was more important than ever to keep the old traditions alive in times of hardship, Colonel Openheart proclaimed to his somewhat more prudent wife. On Christmas day, he gathered all of his slaves -both old and new - to give them the gifts he had bought from them in the city. These included shawls, caps, razors, hatchets, knives, scissors and cases of pin and needles, but no money, for it would have been "spent perniciously at some neighboring groggery."

White Christmas in the Antebellum South

"I'm mighty glad Georgia waited till after Christmas before it seceded or it would have ruined the Christmas parties, too." 

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter I

“'Do you remember,' he said and under the spell of his voice the bare walls of the little office faded and the years rolled aside and they were riding country bridle paths together in a long-gone spring…  There was the far-off yelping of possum dogs in the dark swamp under cool autumn moons and the smell of eggnog bowls, wreathed with holly at Christmas time and smiles on black and white faces.” 

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter LIII

In the years following the Civil War, Southerners, both black and white, would look back at the old plantation Christmases with overwhelming nostalgia. For the former, like for Scarlett and Ashley, it was the charm and security of the wealthy antebellum days that they were crying after, the self-assured grace of their old lifestyle which had vanished in the throes of war and Reconstruction. For the latter, for the slaves upon whose labor and confinement that illusion had been built, the old Christmases stood out as bright spots from their life before Emancipation, as occasions when they'd receive small gifts from their masters, the permission to drink and, more importantly, when they didn't have to work.

In writing today's post I tried to bring you one side of the story first and see how Christmas was celebrated among the white Southern nobility. Tomorrow we will look at the way slaves themselves celebrated Christmas and try to see how and why Christmas became a central element in establishing the myth of the Old South as an untroubled world of chivalrous masters and happy slaves. To bring you a taste of 19th century Christmas celebrations, I've relied on a handful of period sources, as well as on Penne L. Restad's excellent Christmas in America. A History. You will find all of them listed at the end.

And now, let's roll!

'Tis the Season for Southern Cookin': Merry Christmas Cake

We're back with another holiday installment of Southern Cookin' and this week's recipe is about as seasonally-inspired as you can get: Merry Christmas cake! 

The recipe for this charming cake comes from an 1878 Southern cookbook with a rather long name: Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Containing Contributions from Two Hundred and Fifty Ladies in Virginia and her Sister States, Distinguished for Their Skill in the Culinary Art, and Other Branches of Domestic Economy.

You can check out the recipe below. We hope it helps you to eat, drink and be merry this Christmas season!

Merry Christmas Cake

 
2 cups sugar.
1 cup corn starch.
2 cups flour.
1 cup butter.
1/2 cup sweet milk.
Whites of 8 eggs.
2 teaspoonfuls baking powder.

Bake in jelly-cake pans. Between each layer when done, on sides and top, spread icing, with grated cocoanut. A very pretty dish.--Mrs. Mc G.

Cold Icing

Whites of 3 eggs.
1 pound sugar.

Beat very light and season with vanilla or lemon. After beating very lightly, add the white of another egg and it will give a pretty gloss upon the icing.--Miss E. P. 

'Tis the Season for Southern Cookin': Holiday Eggnog

“ 'Do you remember,' he said and under the spell of his voice the bare walls of the little office faded and the years rolled aside and they were riding country bridle paths together in a long-gone spring…  There was the far-off yelping of possum dogs in the dark swamp under cool autumn moons and the smell of eggnog bowls, wreathed with holly at Christmas time and smiles on black and white faces.” 

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter LIII

We have Bugsie and her eagle eyes to thank for this edition of Southern Cookin'. Because as she discovered, there's a small gem about antebellum Christmastime in the County tugged away in this nostalgic paragraph from the mill scene. Eggnog was a holiday tradition for Scarlett's friends and family! So with this knowledge in hand, we're naturally pleased to bring you not one but two recipes for eggnog, should you like to partake in this canon-approved holiday beverage.

Why the two recipes? Well, the first comes courtesy of The Dixie cook-book, published in Atlanta in 1883, to give you a local recipe that could have inspired Scarlett's own eggnog at Tara.

And if you want a little more pizazz, the second recipe offers up a Creole twist on this classic drink via The Picayune's Creole Cook Book, published in New Orleans (1901). 

We hope you enjoy these recipes and celebrate Christmas as Scarlett did--by raising a glass of holiday eggnog!


Eggnog

Stir half a cup of sugar (white), yolks of six eggs well beaten, into one quart of rich cream; add half a pint of brandy, flavor with nutmeg, and lastly add whites of the eggs well whipped.

--from The Dixie cook-book, published in Atlanta (1883) 

Egg-Nog

10 Fine, Fresh Creole Eggs

A Quart of Milk

2 Cupfuls of White Granulated Sugar

A Gill (1/2 cup) of Fine French Cognac

A Grated Nutmeg 

Beat the yolks to a cream, add the sugar, and beat to a cream. Blend all thoroughly, beating till very, very light. Now pour over the boiling milk, stirring well. When thoroughly blended add the whites of the Eggs, beaten to a stiff froth, and the Liquor, and serve hot. This Egg-Nog is also served cold by the Creoles at New Year's receptions. At the famous Christmas and New Year Reveillons it is served hot. The Liquor may or may not be added, according to taste.

--from The Picayune's Creole Cook Book, published in New Orleans (1901)

A Christmas Doll for Ella

“He [Rhett] always asked Mammy's permission to take Wade riding and consulted with her before he bought Ella dolls.” 

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XLIX

Call me a softie, but the snippet above always make me smile fondly. I love both Rhett's thoughtfulness to his stepchildren and his courteous deference to Mammy. Plus, the idea of Rhett Butler gravely consulting Mammy about which dolls to buy for Ella is just plain charming (and frankly hilarious). So to that end, if Mammy approves, we think we have an ideal Christmas gift for Rhett to buy for little Ella.   

This lovely doll comes from the December 1871 edition of Godey's Lady's Book, so it's at the very height of fashion and sure to catch the fancy of any young girl. Moreover, it's trimmed especially for Christmas with cheerful ribbon flourishes. We think Ella would adore it. 

So, take note, Rhett, and buy it for her--after conferring with Mammy, of course!

"Fancy Dress for a Doll." Godey's Lady's Book, December 1871.

Description from Godey's Lady's Book: "This plate is intended as a guide for dressing a Christmas doll. Any color of ribbon can be used to suit the taste of the owner... We give it printed in blue and pink. Our young friends can dress their dolls in whatever colors will suit them best; we merely give the idea." 

'Tis the Season for Southern Cookin': Snow Cake and Snow Custard

Today ushers in the very merry month of December and the official start of the Christmas season here at the blog! To celebrate this festive time of year, we'll be bringing you plenty of holiday blog posts all month long, including several special editions of Southern Cookin'.  Each week leading up to Christmas, we'll feature seasonal Southern recipes from the Gone with the Wind era to get you in the holiday spirit. 
  

And today we are pleased to not only inaugurate this holiday series, but to also introduce a new cookbook to our collection. Our recipes, selected for their wintry feel, come courtesy of The Dixie cook-book, published in 1883 in Scarlett's home base of Atlanta, Georgia. We hope you enjoy them, and be sure to stay tuned for more goodies next week!

Favorite Snow-Cake

Beat one cup butter to a cream, add one and a half cups flour and stir very thoroughly together; then add one cup corn starch, and one cup sweet milk in which three tea-spoons baking-powder have been dissolved; last, add whites of eight eggs and two cups sugar well beaten together; flavor to taste, bake in sheets, and put together with icing.

Snow Custard

Half a package of Coxe's gelatine, three eggs, two cups of sugar, juice of one lemon; soak the gelatine one hour in a tea-cup of cold water, add one pint boiling water, stir until thoroughly dissolved. Add two-thirds of the sugar and the lemon juice; beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the gelatine is quite cold, whip it into the whites, a spoonful at a time, from half an hour to an hour.

Whip steadily and evenly, and when all is stiff, pour in a mold, or in a dozen egg-glasses previously wet with cold water, and set in a cold place. In four or five hours turn into a glass dish. Make a custard of one and one-half pints milk, yolks of eggs, and remainder of the sugar, flavor with vanilla, and when the meringue or snow-balls are turned out of the mold, pour this around the base.

Thanksgiving à la Creole: A Holiday Edition of Southern Cookin'

While many of our American readers, including my co-blogger, are busy celebrating Thanksgiving, Bugsie reports to duty to explore a Thanksgiving dinner in the style of 19th century New Orleans. 

Prepare to start craving because it's time to kick off a new edition of the Southern Cookin' series with the help of a trusted friend, The Picayune's Creole Cook Book! For those of you who are new to the series,  this is a book first published in 1901 and written to preserve the wonders of 19th century Creole cuisine. (You can read more about the edition we're using here, in our "Honeymoon in New Orleans" edition of the series.)

Now, a real party à la Creole would have included breakfast, dinner and supper, with up to ten courses for each lavish meal. We chose to feature what the book terms a more economical dinner menu, and include, by way of introduction, some instructions for decorating the Thanksgiving table. In order to keep this a light read and because unlike iso I am a lazy blogger, we broke with our custom of writing the whole recipe for each dish and instead provided you with links, should the desire to actually try them strike you.

So, without further ado, let's see how our Victorian friends celebrated Thanksgiving!

A Thanksgiving Decoration 

"For the Thanksgiving table, nothing is more appropriate in the way of decorations than autumn leaves and berries. The woods at this season are full of beautiful trailing vines, of bronze and red: brilliant boughs, leaves, cones and berries, all of which are most appropriate on this day, suggesting, by their wild luxuriance and freedom of growth, the spirit of American liberty which gave birth to the day. If it is cold, in lieu of the usual coal fire light a blazing fire of pine knots, and you will have a glorious American illumination. 

"The favors may consist of tiny American flags, resting amid a cluster of autumn leaves and maiden-hair fern, if a formal dinner is given, and the symbol of our country may also be suggested in festoons of narrow red, white and blue streamers of ribbon, gracefully dropping from the chandeliers. "

A Thanksgiving Dinner

                                

Oysters on Half Shell 

Shrimp Gumbo 

Radishes     Celery       Olives      Pickles 

Soles à la Orly            Julienne Potatoes 

Chicken Croquettes with Mushrooms

Banana Fritters 

Roast Turkey, Oyster Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce

Young Squash, Macaroni au Gratin 

Small Onions, Boiled, Sauce à la Maitre d'Hotel

Cauliflower au Vinaigrette 

Plum Pudding, Mince or Pumpkin Pie

Pineapple Sherbet
Assorted Cakes     Nuts    Raisins     Fruit

Cheese 

Cafe noir

Happy Thanksgiving to our readers! We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner of your own!

Honest Abe, Godey's Lady's Book and the Birth of Modern-day Thanksgiving

Sarah Josepha Hale

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we thought it would be fitting to explore the birth of the modern Thanksgiving Day holiday, as it involves two rather prominent Americans from the Gone with the Wind era--Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of Godey's Lady's Book and President Abraham Lincoln, who of course needs no introduction. Those of you who are familiar with American Thanksgiving lore will perhaps already know this story, but since it's a lovely story, we hope you'll indulge us in sharing it for the benefit of all our readers. 

Anyways, let's get started. While Thanksgiving celebrations had been part of the American fabric since long before the War of Independence (thanks to that famous story about the Pilgrims and Indians), the holiday wasn't celebrated with any kind of uniformity. Some states and territories held independent Thanksgiving celebrations at different points throughout the autumn months, while others didn't recognize the holiday at all. For many years, Thanksgiving was celebrated only in New England. It was virtually unknown in other parts of the country, including the South. 

But Sarah Josepha Hale set out to change all that. Her mission was to make Thanksgiving Day a nationally recognized holiday, one that would be celebrated in every corner of the United States. A staunch believer in American unity, the cause of a national Thanksgiving resonated deeply with the patriotic Hale. And she had the perfect platform by which to begin her campaign: the venerable Godey's Lady's Book.

Hale had served as the editor of Godey's Lady's Book long before it was even known by the name that would make it famous. In 1828, she came on board as the editor of Ladies' Magazine, following literary success as a poet and novelist. In 1837, Louis Antoine Godey purchased Ladies' American Magazine (as it had been renamed) and merged it with his existing publication, Godey's Lady's Book. Under Hale's skillful leadership, Godey's Lady's Book flourished. By mid century, it had become not only a coveted resource for fashion, but a veritable force in American culture, literature, politics and etiquette.

Nowhere can this be seen more than in Hale's campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. January 1847 saw her first editorial in support of a unified Thanksgiving holiday:

"Our holidays. — We have but two that we can call entirely national. The New Year is a holiday to all the world, and Christmas to all Christians— but the 'Fourth of July' and 'Thanksgiving Day' can only be enjoyed by Americans. The annual observance of Thanksgiving Day was, to be sure, mostly confined to the New England States, till within a few years. We are glad to see that this good old puritan custom is becoming popular throughout the Union. The past year saw it celebrated in twenty-one or two of the States. It was holden on the same day, November 26th, in seventeen, we believe. Would that the next Thanksgiving might be observed in all the states on the same day. Then, though the members of time same family might be too far separated to meet around one festive board, they would have the gratification of knowing, that all were enjoying the blessings of the day."

--Godey's Lady's Book, January 1847

From there, she did not let up. Year after year, editorials penned by Hale in support of a unified and nationally celebrated Thanksgiving became common place in the pages of Godey's. She favored holding the holiday on the fourth Thursday in November, harkening back to George Washington's original proclamation that declared November 26, 1789 to be a national "day of publick thanksgiving and prayer."

Each fall season, Godey's would even list running tallies of which states held Thanksgiving celebrations and on which dates these celebrations were observed. The September 1856 issue, for instance, records with delight that 14 states, including Scarlett O'Hara's home state of Georgia, had celebrated the holiday on Thursday November 29th, 1855, while six other states had held celebrations earlier that month and several more earlier that fall.  As a result of Hale's dogged advocacy, the tally lists in Godey's continued to grow as more and states began to adopt Thanksgiving celebrations.

But this wasn't quite enough for Hale. She still wanted a recognized national holiday. So she flooded government officials with letters in support of a national Thanksgiving celebration, personally reaching out to state and territories governors, missionaries, military personnel, diplomats and numerous others. She also directly appealed to the highest official in the land, writing to no less than four Presidents--Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan--before she was finally successful in persuading the fifth: Abraham Lincoln.

On September 23, 1863, Hale wrote to President Lincoln to state the case for a national Thanksgiving holiday, which is excerpted below. (You can also check out the Library of Congress to see the complete letter text and an scanned copy of the original letter.)

"Sir.--

"Permit me, as Editress of the 'Lady's Book', to request a few minutes of your precious time, while laying before you a subject of deep interest to myself and -- as I trust -- even to the President of our Republic, of some importance. This subject is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.

"You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution...

"But I find there are obstacles not possible to be overcome without legislative aid -- that each State should, by statute, make it obligatory on the Governor to appoint the last Thursday of November, annually, as Thanksgiving Day; -- or, as this way would require years to be realized, it has ocurred to me that a proclamation from the President of the United States would be the best, surest and most fitting method of National appointment."

--Letter of Sarah Josepha Hale to President Abraham Lincoln, Sept. 23, 1863

Lincoln readily agreed, recognizing that a national holiday of Thanksgiving would serve as a way to rejuvenate and rally the spirits of a nation torn asunder by the protracted Civil War. And so on Oct. 3, 1863, Sarah Josepha Hale's long-held dream was at last realized as President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the fourth Thursday in November to henceforth become a day of thanksgiving, giving rise to the modern Thanksgiving holiday that's been observed for close to 150 years now.   

And if you're looking for more Thanksgiving insights, be sure to check out this tremendous video from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities about Sarah Josepha Hale's role in shaping Thanksgiving traditions, including a special mention about Thanksgiving in the South. 

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to our readers! We recognize that many of our non-American readers might not celebrate the holiday, but whether you celebrate it or not, we hope you all enjoy our look at some GWTW-era Halloween traditions, along with a special slideshow of fancy dress fashion plates.   

Let's get things started. Back in the day, Halloween was celebrated more in the British Isles than on the U.S. side of the Atlantic. The handy Godey's Lady's Book explains more in this October 1872 essay about Halloween customs on both sides of the pond:

About the day itself there is nothing in any wise peculiar or worthy of notice, but since time almost immemorial All Hallow Eve, or Halloween, has formed the subject theme of fireside chat and published story. There is, perhaps, no night in the year which the popular imagination of the Old World has stamped with a more peculiar character than the evening of the 31st of October…

There is a remarkable uniformity in the fireside customs of this night throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Nuts and apples are everywhere in requisition, and are consumed in immense numbers. From this fact the name of “Nutcrack Night” has often been applied, especially by the people of the north of England… But the grand sport of Halloween is the “ducking.” A number of apples are placed in a tub of water, and the juveniles— the use of their hands restricted— take turns in diving therefor, catching them with their teeth.

In this country Halloween was for a time strictly observed, but of late years it has been forgotten by almost all, except the juveniles. Amongst the old-style English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh residents, the games mentioned above are practiced to some extent, and the occasion is also made noticeable for the baking of the old-fashioned potato pudding. Amongst the American people but little other sport is indulged in than the drinking, by the country folk, of hard cider, and the masticating of indigestible “crullers,” or “doughnuts.” The gamins make use of the festival to batter down panels, dislocate bell-wires, unhinge gates, destroy cabbage-patches, and raise a row generally. 

--Godey's Lady's Book, October 1872

Of course, these days, most people associate Halloween with dressing up in costumes and while that wasn't the practice in Scarlett's era, we couldn't let the day go by without mention of Victorian fancy dress...or fashion plates. You see, although it wasn't a Halloween tradition,  fancy dress parties in general were part of high-society social calendars. Costumes of literary or historical figures were popular choices, as were peasant costumes or "native" dress from foreign lands. Other common sartorial choices included representations of nature or the four seasons. 

So in honor of Halloween and Victorian costume parties, we've got a colorful selection of GWTW-era fancy dress styles below for you to enjoy. Happy Halloween!