Vintage Wisconsin: Children Make Pie For Thanksgiving

Above, kindergarteners in Mrs. Virginia Price’s class at Madison’s Dudgeon School make a pumpkin pie together for Thanksgiving in 1954.

Ready to add the egg is Nancy Olmstead; manning the beater is Julie Duckwitz; measuring the pumpkin is Marcia Kampen; spooning the pumpkin from the can is Larry Elliott; and measuring the milk — looking a tad stricken — is Mike Ivens.

Wisconsin’s first official Thanksgiving was declared in 1830 by Gov. Lewis Cass, then-governor of the territory of Michigan, which included Wisconsin at the time. He issued a proclamation asking residents to set aside the last Thursday of November for a celebration of Thanksgiving:

“And I recommend to the inhabitants of the Territory that, refraining from all labor, inconsistent with the duties and solemnity of the day, they repair to their respective houses of public worship, and unite in suitable acknowledgements to the ‘Giver of every good gift,’ for the favor and privileges he has granted to us, as a people.”

More than a century before these children took spoons to bowls, Madison residents celebrated their first Thanksgiving in 1838. They had no pumpkins, though, a fact that disturbed legislators Lucius I. Barber and Daniel Wells Jr., so much that they passed a resolution of Thanksgiving in Wisconsin’s Territorial Legislature in hopes of bringing pumpkins to the state.

Barber argued that “if there were a legal provision for the observance of the day, the pumpkins would be forthcoming” — a case that led to what’s likely Wisconsin’s first pie-induced bill.

Thanksgiving didn’t become a national holiday until the mid-19th century at the urging of Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. She got her wish when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday on Oct. 3, 1863.