I spent some time on Sunday afternoon searching for
something to watch on TV related to Thanksgiving. There were a plethora of cooking shows, with
hints on roasting the perfect turkey.
But I was looking for something historical that mentioned the Plymouth
settlers. The only thing I found was the
very inaccurate 1952 movie “Plymouth Adventure” starring Spencer Tracy. And it was on the TCM channel by subscription
only. (So I couldn’t watch) – Sigh –
Earlier I had gone to several stores looking for a
Thanksgiving greeting card. I really
wanted one with a depiction of a Plymouth pilgrim, since it was for one of my
Mayflower cousins from the NH Society.
After looking at over 100 cards, I gave up. There were pumpkins, cornucopias, and autumn
leaves but not a single pilgrim. There was not
even a historically inaccurate one with buckles on his hat. – pout –
Earlier I had gone looking for some Thanksgiving
decorations. I have a set of beautifully
made pilgrim figures with historically accurate costumes, bought at Plimoth
Plantation several years ago. But we
have recently moved and I can‘t find where they were packed away. After much searching, I gave up on decorating
for Thanksgiving 2014. There was nothing
out there, just a lot of Christmas stuff, and a few Halloween decorations
offered on sale at 75% off. Where are all the
Thanksgiving decorations? - groan –
To top this all off, a friend recently showed me her fourth
grader’s history book. This is the year
that most students learn about local history and American history. There was no mention of the Plymouth
settlement. In fact, the book started at
about the time of the American Revolution!
No mention of the Native Americans, no colonial settlement, no
immigration to the New World? In what
context can you study the American Revolution without understanding the events
that led up to the conflict? - tearing
hair out –
Comments?
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The URL for this post is
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/11/where-are-pilgrims.html
Copyright © 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
Weird... when I was a kid (and I'm only 40), we cu out turkeys at school and learned about the Pilgrims and everything. Yesterday I streamed "Desperate Crossings" from YouTube (I have Apple TV) and watched while I decorated my house for Christmas... yeah, I got that done early because I won't have much time to do so next weekend. If you haven't seen "Desperate Crossings", do-- might be aired on History Channel, on the rare occasions that they actually post something about history anymore, but I digress. Happy Thanksgiving, Heather!
ReplyDeleteHeather, you need to go into business. You can make Pilgrim cards and decorations. I don't know what can be done with the textbook, I am afraid Common Core standards won't make this any better.
ReplyDelete