Dear Reader,
You can tell that Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
The trees along my block are dressed in red and yellow to set the holiday mood.
Table of Contents | Volume 11, Issue 33
- Thanksgiving – Content Marketing Celebration
- Marketing Reads – The Island At The Center Of The World
All of the food stores around my neighborhood have dressed up their holiday foods so that your mouth waters as soon as you enter the shop. Each year, the specialty shops compete to outdo what they did last year and the news media features articles on the best way to cook a Turkey.
Truth is, I’m more of a fan of the first Thanksgiving foods like seafood and lobster.
Thanksgiving has evolved over the years.
Initially, Thanksgiving was a harvest celebration by the Pilgrims to mark that they had survived their first year in the New World. With the local Native Americans, the Pilgrims hosted their Thanksgiving dinner in October at the end of the fall harvest and hunting seasons on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Until the Civil War, various Presidents used the holiday to celebrate different accomplishments. During the early 1800s, Sarah Josepha Hale became editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the largest women’s magazine in the US.
She included a variety of different recipes to help her readers recreate this celebration. She used the ingredients that were available at the time, many of which weren’t available to the Pilgrims. Additionally, she made some strategic changes such as focusing the meal around the turkey, the bird that Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the national bird.
President Abraham Lincoln was looking for an event to unify the Union troops and families. He chose Hale’s Thanksgiving. In the process, he gave the holiday a sense of service and solemnity. Thanksgiving helped Lincoln to improve the spirits of the Union troops and enable his generals to push forward toward the final battles of the Civil War.
Recommended Reading
Since then, Thanksgiving has been a key element of American holidays. Over time, it has edged closer to Christmas to help inspire people to buy their holiday gifts. The last change was made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He officially made Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November to help drive holiday sales.
Little did FDR realize that he created the largest sales period of the year. Since customers have started buying online, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has expanded to Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. In Europe where they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, they make the entire week into a sale called “Color Week!”.
Recommended Reading
- 12 Turkeys You’ll Find On Social Media This Thanksgiving
While this is an older post, its lessons still remain true today.
Marketing Reads
The Island at the Center of the World – by Russell Shorto
BTW, if you’d like to see a sampling of our photographs, please click on this link.
While many of the original thirteen colonies were started for religious or military reasons, New York City was different. The Dutch founded what they called, New Amsterdam, around where the Financial District is today.
Unlike other places in the United States, the Dutch created an extension of their commercial empire. Put yourself back in the position of the early Dutch settlers and you’ll feel some of the same excitement people feel about AI today.
This historical book is based on papers written in old Dutch and hidden in a building up in Albany. Even better, the author makes the characters come to life. It’s well worth your reading time.
I wish you the best for the Thanksgiving holidays. I hope that we can use this time to remember what’s important in life and to pray that the conflicts around the world can be resolved quickly with the least harm to people regardless of their background.
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Happy Marketing,
Heidi
P.S.: Want Heidi Cohen to contribute a quote or other commentary to your next article, presentation, video, research, or book? Then hit reply to this email and ask.
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