We think of Thanksgiving as one of the most wholesome secular holidays—if not the most wholesome—but if you were to ask turkeys how they feel, they might not be so kind in their assessment. And if you asked the turkeys depicted in these holiday greeting cards from the early 20th century, I’m sure they’d be happy to talk your ear off about our national preoccupation with torturing fowl.
Vintage Thanksgiving illustrations first came on my radar today with this Yahoo slideshow, which features a young girl riding a pumpkin, drawn by a captive turkey, and brandishing super-sized cutlery. “They don’t make them like that any more!”, the article read, and indeed, the more I looked, the more I agreed. These Thanksgiving greeting cards—most dated 1908 or 1909—reveal that the autumnal holiday serves as a locus for Americans’ fascinating and fucked-up relationship to turkeys. Just look at these kids, trying to snatch up this poor, unsuspecting bird with their slight of hand and trickery!
These doe-eyed, cherubic kids cannot be trusted. They may look cute, but as the cards demonstrate, they have other plans for their flighty friends, and those plans involve killing and eating them. Run away!