The Turkey: AN AMERICAN STORY

9. The Social Turkey; or, How the Turkey Became a Cultural Icon

9 THE SOCIAL TURKEY; OR, HOW THE TURKEY BECAME A CULTURAL ICON The turkey was just a big bird to raise, hunt, and consume until the American War for Independence, when it began to acquire symbolic value. The new nation needed to differentiate itself from its English roots, and “American” foods began to take on nationalistic values. A main instigator for this change in the turkey’s symbolic shift was Benjamin Franklin, who had numerous turkey connections . First, he liked to eat the bird; indeed, one of the few surviving recipes directly associated with him is one for an oyster sauce for a boiled turkey.1 Second, the turkey figured in Franklin’s scientific experiments. In 19 Franklin proposed that a turkey “be killed for dinner by the electrical shock, and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle.”2 That proposed technique did not turn the culinary world on its head. It is neither for his turkey experiment nor his culinary enjoyment of the bird that Franklin is remembered today. His third and most important contribution to America’s turkey lore were his comments regarding the official seal of the United States. In a private letter to his daughter Sarah Bache, dated January 2, 18, Franklin wrote, “For my part, I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country; he is a Bird of bad moral Character. . . . For in truth, the Turk’y is in comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America. . . . . It is, [though a little vain and silly, it is true, but not the worse emblem for that,] a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards, who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”3 At the time, people believed that the color red upset turkeys and that turkeys would attack anything with red on it. Some have taken Franklin’s statement to mean that he had argued that the turkey should be part of the Great Seal of the United States. In 1 the Continental Congress appointed a committee to recommend a national seal and Franklin did propose a design jointly with Thomas Jefferson, but it was of a biblical scene—Moses crossing the Red Sea chased by the pharaoh, nary a turkey in sight. Numerous other designs were also proposed, and the committee ended its tenure without recommending one. A second committee followed and was again dissolved without making a recommendation. The third committee finally selected the bald eagle as the national emblem on the seal, and Congress passed that recommendation into law on June 20, 182. It was that legislation Franklin lamented to his daughter. His letter was made public and has been often quoted, and just as often misinterpreted, ever since.4 Yet in many ways the turkey became an unofficial national symbol. Turkey hens hatched their young in the spring, and birds were ready for the cooking pot by fall. Autumn in agrarian America was a time of feasting to celebrate a successful harvest and also thin flocks and herds, leaving fewer animals to house and feed over the winter. Turkeys were mainstays of autumn and early winter meals, and because holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s were often celebrated with extended family, the birds were also associated with such gatherings. As the turkey became standard fare at Thanksgiving , the bird was imbued with myths surrounding that holiday, specifically within the national origins myth and the myth of a New England where Pilgrims led stoic, quietly heroic lives. Eating turkey on Thanksgiving became a patriotic act that reinforced national pride with every bite. After the Civil War, turkey iconography frequently built on national and patriotic themes. A Thomas Nast cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, for example, shows Uncle Sam carving turkey at a large and capacious dinner table surrounded by men, women, and children of different races, religions, and ethnicities .5 Thanksgiving menus frequently were decorated with American flags or caricatures of Uncle Sam, particularly during the period of nationalistic fervor between the Spanish-American War and World War I.6 It was customary for those unable to make it home for Thanksgiving to write to relatives, apologizing and wishing them a wonderful dinner. Beginning around 1880, publishers began printing Thanksgiving postcards that could be sent in place of a formal letter. Thousands of different...