Why Thanksgiving?

From: Barry Vogel
Series: Radio Curious
Length: 28:40

Why is it that Thanksgiving is celebrated almost exclusively in the United States and Canada. How has it been celebrated and how is it celebrated now? Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Why Thanksgiving?
From: Barry Vogel

Radio-curious-logosmall_small

Professor Hugo Freund teaches Social and Behavioural Sciences at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky and visits with us about the roots of Thanksgiving beginning in the 1600's, in what is now the north-eastern United States, through to it's role as a gathering of friends and family without sectarian religious direction. The program was recorded in 2002 at the Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans, Louisiana in the lobby of a rather noisy hotel. It was first broadcast in 2009 after most of the hotel's background rumble could be electronically hushed. We began our conversation by discussing how the comtemporary concept of Thanksgiving is acknowledged.

The book Hugo Freund recommends is "The Popes Against The Jews: The Vatican's Role In The Rise Of Modern Anti-Semitism," by David I. Kertzer.

Also in the Radio Curious series

You Too May Be a Naturalist (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with Debra Edelman, Adina Merenlender, co-authors, with Greg de Nevers of "The California Naturalist Handbook."

Alloy Orchestra: New Music for Silent Films (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with Terry Donahue, a member of the Alloy Orchestra, a group of multitalented musicians who provide live, in house, orchestral backup to silent films of ...

20,000 Crows in Tokyo (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with filmmaker Kristine Samuelson, co-creator of the documentary, “Tokyo Waka: A City Poem” about the 20,000 crows that inhabit the city of Tokyo, Japan ...

We Still Live Here: Revival of the Wampanoag Language (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with Anne Makepeace, the writer and director of the documentary film, “We Still Live Here,” which chronicles the movement to reclaim the lost Native ...

Fresh Air (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with Terry Gross, host of the public radio show, Fresh Air.

22,000 Songs = Under Currents with Gregg McVicar (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with Gregg McVicar host and producer of Under Currents.

An Early American Conservationist (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious revisits a conversation with Chautauqua scholar Lee Stetson, who portrays environmental conservationist John Muir. Muir founded the Sierra Club and is credited ...

The Music Man is Coming to River City (29:02)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious visits with Reid Edelman, producer and director of The Music Man, a local theater production involving more than 100 people from the Ukiah, California area.

Do We Really Know the People Around Us? (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious revisits a conversation with Mary Catherine Bateson, author of "“Full Circles: Overlapping Lives, Culture and Generation in Transition."

The History of Feminism (29:01)
From: Barry Vogel

Radio Curious revisits a conversation about the history and future of feminism with History Professor, Estelle B. Freedman, author of ""No Turning Back The History of ...

Piece Description

Professor Hugo Freund teaches Social and Behavioural Sciences at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky and visits with us about the roots of Thanksgiving beginning in the 1600's, in what is now the north-eastern United States, through to it's role as a gathering of friends and family without sectarian religious direction. The program was recorded in 2002 at the Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans, Louisiana in the lobby of a rather noisy hotel. It was first broadcast in 2009 after most of the hotel's background rumble could be electronically hushed. We began our conversation by discussing how the comtemporary concept of Thanksgiving is acknowledged.

The book Hugo Freund recommends is "The Popes Against The Jews: The Vatican's Role In The Rise Of Modern Anti-Semitism," by David I. Kertzer.