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History Happenings: Gazette Children’s Page
Boys and girls wrote Thanksgiving stories, letters for 1910 edition
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On Wednesday, Nov. 23, 1910 — the day before Thanksgiving — the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette published a Thanksgiving-themed edition of “The Children’s Page.”
As the page’s masthead explained, the page was a project of the “Juvenile Literary Club” and featured “Letters & Stories by Boys & Girls.”
The date for Thanksgiving in 1910 had been set by President William Howard Taft “as a day of National Thanksgiving and Prayer, enjoining the people upon that day to meet in their churches for the praise of Almighty God and to return heartfelt thanks to Him for His goodness and loving-kindness.” (Thanksgiving would be permanently attached to the fourth Thursday in November by law in 1941.)
“The Children’s Page” was chockablock with holiday content sent in by many young writers, including a classroom full of fifth-graders.
“Everyone will join the editor in saying, ”What a splendid page we have this week,’” read an editorial note at the top of the page in the center column.
“The children have done so well and entered into the plan of having a special Thanksgiving page that they deserve the highest praise. The editor heartily thanks every contributor to this page and feels sure that all the members will be please to know that the children of B-fifth, Jefferson school of Cedar Rapids felt so much interest that they all worked together to write a Thanksgiving story. It is a very good story, and it is received as a compliment to the editor and the Juvenile Literary club.”
The story submitted by the Jefferson fifth-graders was titled, “Thanksgiving at Uncle Jim’s,” and included, among much else, a battle with a turkey, a badly sprained ankle, a collision resulting in the accidental creation of “cranberry gravy,” a crushed hat, and the singing of “Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet.”
Pleased that the Thanksgiving edition had come together so well, the editor sent out a call for Christmas content.
Thanksgiving history
In addition to other stories — Grandma figures prominently in most — the page contained jokes and poetry and even a couple of histories of Thanksgiving. The histories were, for these two current day readers, surprisingly lacking much mention of Native Americans.
Here, for example, is Alice Wiley’s version of the origin story:
“Thanksgiving is a religious festival. The Plymouth colony celebrated the first Thanksgiving day after the harvest in 1621. They sent four men out hunting to get provisions for the feast. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day to give thanks for the harvest of the year. … The Pilgrims had had a big harvest and to celebrate it, … [t]hey had wild turnkey and the things they raised.”
Life in 1910
The Children’s Page also provides a glimpse into other aspects of life in the area in 1910. For example, Hazel Signall of Cedar Rapids, who signed off “I remain as ever,” sent in this note:
“Dear Editor and Juveniles: We are now having our ‘corn husking vacation’ at Edgewood school No. 2. I have not husked corn but have been helping mamma clean house. These long evenings give us plenty of time for reading and playing games. We were disappointed at not seeing the eclipse of the moon tonight (Wednesday). My sisters are building houses and other things out of dominoes tonight. Are any of the juveniles making Christmas presents? Why not write to the children’s corner directions for making easy ones so that the younger members could make some.”
Another contributor wrote in to apologize for not writing in the previous week due to a bout of the measles. And still another — Lucile Richards of Cedar Rapids — wrote to express her approval of the whole endeavor: “Dear Editor: We have taken the Gazette for some time, and I have enjoyed reading the children’s page. I like to go to school and I am 11 years old. I will send some riddles.”
Pink & Blue buttons?
At the end of her missive, Miss Richards requested a pink button from the editor.
Indeed, The Children’s Page is full of references to the Pink and the Blue — including identifying Irene Hall of Albert Lea as the captain of the Pink and George Sherbon of Walker as captain of the Blue.
At first, your scribes thought this must indicate that Pink contributors were girls and Blue contributors were boys, but the page lists Margaret Crofter of Mount Vernon, Ida Goldstein of Cedar Rapids and Helen Baird of Lisbon as new members of the Blue. So that’s a mystery to be solved in a future column.
Meanwhile, we want to thank each of you for reading these columns. We are grateful — and we wish you and yours a wonderful holiday.
Jessica Cline is a Leadership & Character Scholar at Wake Forest University. Her dad, Rob Cline, is not a scholar of any kind. They write this monthly column for The History Center. Comments: HistoricalClines@gmail.com
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