How Pumpkin Pie Sparked a 19th-Century Culture War

 

Thanksgiving in Union camp sketched on 28 November 1861, believed to be the camp of General Louis Blenker. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-PPMSCA-21210

Although meant to unify people, the 19th-century campaign to make Thanksgiving a permanent holiday was seen by prominent Southerners as a culture war. They considered it a Northern holiday intended to force New England values on the rest of the country. To them, pumpkin pie, a Yankee food, was a deviously sweet symbol of anti-slavery sentiment.

So notes Ariel Knoebel in her engaging post at Atlas Obscura. You can read her entire post here.