Thanksgiving vs. Franksgiving

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Here in the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is observed on the fourth Thursday in November every year. That was not always the case, though. Today we're going to talk about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's decision to move Thanksgiving earlier with the hope of helping businesses that we're trying to recover from the Great Depression. We are also going to talk about the intense controversy that move caused. In keeping with the theme of the episode, we're also putting this episode out the week before Thanksgiving. It is earlier, just like Roosevelt's Thanksgiving was earlier. There was some partisan bickering about this decision, and you can make some pretty obvious comparisons to various partisan bickering over holidays and how they have been observed in more recent years. I really did not feel the need to belabor that point in this episode, so just feel free to use your own imagination if you want to spend more time on that. So instead, we're going to start by talking about how Thanksgiving became a US holiday and how long it took for it to be standardized as the fourth Thursday in November. Of course, cultures and peoples all around the world have some kind of observance to express gratitude or thanks or some kind of harvest festival involving a traditional meal. American Thanksgiving, with the traditional menu of foods like turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes or yams, has elements of both of those things. There are a few countries besides the US that observe a similar Thanksgiving holiday, including Canada, and there are also some countries that have an official Thanksgiving holiday that is not as focused on this kind of traditional meal, including Liberia. Of course, indigenous peoples all over North America have also observed harvest festivals for thousands of years. Those festivals are reflections of where people have lived and which foods they have relied on. One example is Cranberry Day, observed by the Wampanog tribe of gay Head, Aquinna. Today, Cranberry Day takes place on the second Tuesday of October, but historically this could take place over the course of several days, maybe even a week as people came together for the cranberry harvest. There's some debate about which European celebration of Thanksgiving in North America should be recognized as the first one. It was common for ship captains to give thanks at the end of a voyage, but these were often just simple prayers and not bil elaborate feasts. The first Europeans in North America to combine giving thanks with a feast may have been Francisco Vesquez de Coronado's force, when they held a feast of prayer and thanksgiving in Palo Duro Canyon in what's now Texas in fifteen forty one. The first feast of thanks among English speakers in North America may have been in Popham Colony in what's now Maine in sixteen oh seven. There were lots of other feasts and observances for giving thanks in North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the one that most people think of as the first Thanksgiving took place in sixteen twenty one in Plymouth, Massachusetts. There were at least fifty two English people there, known as the Pilgrims, who had arrived aboard the mayflower and at least ninety wampanog. This celebration lasted for three days at the end of the colonists first harvest. They did not refer to it as Thanksgiving, and their menu was very, very different from the so called traditional Thanksgiving meal today in the United States. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a highly romanticized version of this celebration became part of the Thanksgiving holiday lore, including becoming part of children's school lessons to reinforce ideas like community and freedom and good citizenship. This attempt at a feel good Thanksgiving story glosses over centuries of warfare, enslavement, and genocide in North America, and it also wasn't really necessary to manufacture a connection between the Thanksgiving holiday and ideals like freedom and good citizenship. Those connections go all the way back to the first National Thanksgiving Proclamation, which came from the Continental Congress on November one, seventeen seventy seven. It began quote, for as much as it is the indispense duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God, to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of. And it having pleased Him in his abundant mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable bounties of His common providence, but also to smile upon us in the prosecution of a just and necessary war for the defense and establishment of our unalienable rights and liberties, particularly in that he hath been pleased in so great a measure to prosper the means used for the support of our troops and to crown our arms with most signal success. It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth day of December next for solemn Thanksgiving and praise. So this obviously was during the Revolutionary War, and that proclamation issued not long after the British defeat at the Battles of Saratoga, so it was meant to celebrate the American victory and thank God for God's basically endorsement of the colonial effort. The Continental Congress issued thanksgiving proclamations for the next few years after that, setting dates in December, and they continued to reference the war when they issued these proclamations. The seventeen eighty proclamation also thanked God for quote rescuing the person of our Commander in Chief and the army from imminent dangers at the moment when treason was ripened for execution, that treason being Benedict Arnold conspiring to give West Point to the British. In seventeen eighty one, after the Articles of Confederation were ratified as the nation's first constitution, the Continental Congress became known as the Congress of the Confederation. On October twenty sixth, just a few days after Theish were defeated at the Battle of Yorktown, the Congress of the Confederation proclaimed December thirteenth as a day of Thanksgiving in prayer. In seventeen eighty two, this national day of Thanksgiving was observed on November twenty eighth. In seventeen eighty three it was the second Thursday in December, and in seventeen eighty four it was Tuesday, October nineteenth. That year's proclamation acknowledged the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which had formally ended the Revolutionary War the year before, and the exchange of ratified versions of the treaty that had taken place in France on May twelfth, seventeen eighty four. With the revolutionary war over and the peace treaty signed and ratified, there were no national thanksgiving proclamations between seventeen eighty five and seventeen eighty eight, but by seventeen eighty nine the federal government had found a new reason to be thankful. This is the briefest of brief overviews, and we are not going to get into all of the various problems and debates and plans and other specifics. But the Articles of Confederation had not worked out as a basis for the US government long term. At first, there were proposals to amend them, but after intense debate, a new constitution was drafted instead, and this process involved even more intense debate. Very broadly speaking, federalists wanted the constitution to outline a strong central government, and anti federalists wanted much more limited federal authority with more autonomy and localized power for the states. These two things were the opposite, and so it was impossible to create one document that would equally satisfy both sides. One part of the effort to get the Constitution ratified involved the drafting of twelve amendments to preserve freedoms that it didn't specifically protect. Of these twelve amendments became known as the Bill of Rights. One of the others, which was never ratified, was about the number of representatives. The other stated that quote, no law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have intervened, and it eventually became part of the Constitution as the twenty seventh Amendment. After still more intense debate, Congress agreed on these twelve amendments. At the end of its first session. On September twenty fifth, seventeen eighty nine, Then Representative Elias Budeneau of New Jersey introduced a resolution quote that Adjoint Committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts the many ignal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity to peaceably establish a constitution of government for their safety and happiness. There was debate over this as well. Among other things, Thomas Tudor Tucker argued that this was none of their business. Quote why should the president direct the people to do what perhaps they have no mind to do. They may not be inclined to return thanks for a constitution until they have experienced that it promotes their safety and happiness. We do not yet know. But they may have reason to be dissatisfied with the effects it has already produced. But whether this be so or not, it is a business with which Congress have nothing to do. It is a religious matter, and as such is prescribed to us. If a day of Thanksgiving must take place, let it be done by the authority of the several states. Eventually, though both the House and the Senate agreed on this resolution, a joint committee which included Budenou, presented it to President George Washington on September twenty eighth. On October third, Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November twenty sixth, seventeen eighty nine as a quote Day of Public Thanksgiving. This was the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation. It began quote whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection in favor. And whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States, to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. Oh, we'll have more after a sponsor break. After issuing his Thanksgiving proclamation in seventeen eighty nine, President George Washington included it in a circular to the governors of the States, along with a message quote, I do myself the honor to enclose to your Excellency, a Proclamation for a General Thanksgiving, which I must request the favor of you to have published and made known in your state, in the way and manner most agreeable to yourself. While Thomas Tudor Tucker had expressed concerns that the President might be directing people to do something they were not inclined to do, generally, the whole idea of a national day of Thanksgiving was pretty well well received. In addition to giving thanks churches and charities used it as an opportunity to collect money and goods for the needy. But Thanksgiving didn't become an annual holiday nationally for quite a while. Washington's next Thanksgiving proclamation wasn't until seventeen ninety five, after the Whiskey Rebellion. We have an episode on the Whiskey Rebellion from back in twenty fifteen. In this proclamation, Washington described the United States as having enjoyed a great deal of internal tranquility. Quote the recent confirmation of that tranquility by the suppression of an insurrection which so wantonly threatened it. Yeah, it really comes across, as we know how life is here is so tranquil because this rebellion was an outlier we have now suppressed. Later Thanksgiving proclamations continued to be connected to some kind of war or other unrest. John Adams issued similar proclamations, although they were for days of fasting and humiliation rather than Thanksgiving. Those are to take place on May twenty ninth, seventeen ninety eight and April twenty fifth, seventeen ninety nine. That was during the French Revolutionary Wars. The United States remained neutral during most of these wars, but also saw them as a serious threat. In these proclamations, Adams described the United States as being placed in a quote hazardous and afflictive situation by the unfriendly disposition, conduct, and demands of a foreign power, and quote held in jeopardy by the hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation. During the War of eighteen twelve, Congress submitted a joint resolution to President James Madison to request a day of Thanksgiving. He made his proclamation in November of eighteen fourteen, with Thanksgiving to occur the following January twelfth, after the war ended. He proclaimed March fourth, eighteen fifteen, as a day quote which the people of every religious denomination may, in their solemn assembles, unite their hearts and their voices in a free will offering to their heavenly benefactor of their homage of Thanksgiving and of their songs of praise. Generally, these proclamations all referenced some kind of God or supreme being, although without naming a specific religion or denomination. There was kind of a general assumption that everyone had a religion and everyone believed in God, and that having the nation give thanks to that God was an okay thing to do. But that connection to religion and the holiday's Puritan roots were enough to lead Thomas Jefferson not to issue any Thanksgiving proclamations when he was president. That was in between John Adams and James Madison. He had declared a day of Thanksgiving while serving as the governor of Virginia. Though during and after all this, various states had their own Thanksgiving holidays and observances. One person who advocated for Thanksgiving to become an annual federal holiday was Sarah Josepha Hale. Our episode on her Ran as a Classic on November eighteenth, twenty twenty three, and talks more about that. Hale started advocating for a national holiday to be held on the last Thursday in November in eighteen thirty seven. She saw this as something that might hold the nation together as states became increasingly divided over the issue of slavery. That, of course, did not work, and in eighteen sixty two, during the Civil War, US President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis each issued Thanksgiving proclamations. Lincoln issued his in April, recommending that people give thanks quote at their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public worship. Davis issued his action after the Confederate army won the Second Battle of bull Run also called the Battle of Second Manassas on September fourth, with the observance of that day of Thanksgiving on September eighteen. Lincoln made two Thanksgiving proclamations in eighteen sixty three, one on July fifteenth, setting the day as August sixth, and the other on October third, the anniversary of George Washington's first Thanksgiving proclamation, setting the date as the last Thursday in November. He designated Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November in eighteen sixty four as well. Lincoln was of course assassinated in eighteen sixty five, and that year his successor, Andrew Johnson, set the date as the first Thursday of December. For the next few years after that, Thanksgiving took place on the last Thursday in November, although in eighteen sixty nine President Ulysses S. Grant set the date as November eighteenth, which was the third Thursday. So at this point there was only a national day of Thanksgiving if the President issued a proclamation about it, and that happened on whatever day the President chose. It wasn't something that was covered under any federal law. That changed when Grant signed the nation's first law regarding federal holidays in eighteen seventy. This law applied to Washington, d c. And to federal workers, but it was written to align with what was already in place in a lot of the states. This law designated New Year's Day, Christmas Day, and Independence Day as holidays, along with quote any day appointed or recommended by the President of the United States as a day of public fasting or Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving became a federal holiday, but the exact day that Thanksgiving would be on was still up to the president. Pretty soon, though, the last Thursday in November became the traditional day. After the end of World War One, there was some back and forth about whether Armistice Day, observed on November eleventh, should be combined with Thanksgiving, but there were concerns that messing with Thanksgiving might upset people who liked that tradition. Today in the US, November eleventh is, of course, Veterans Day. Those concerns turned out to be well founded, which finally brings us to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his decision to move the date of Thanksgiving in nineteen thirty nine. The Great Depression had started ten years earlier. This massive economic downturn affected people around the world, but its effects varied from place to place, depending on each nation's economy. In general, though industrialized nations saw huge declines in industrial production and correspondingly huge increases in unemployment. Herbert Hoover was the US president when the Great Depressions started, and in a lot of ways he became the scapegoat for it. President does not have sole control over the economy. In nineteen thirty two, Roosevelt ran against him and won the presidential election by a landslide. Roosevelt's first Thanksgiving in office was in nineteen thirty three, and that year the last Thursday in November was November thirtieth, which was also the last day of November. At the time, there was more of a taboo around the idea of starting Christmas retail before Thanksgiving was over than there is today today. A lot of people complain about it, but a lot of businesses also do it. So some people were worried that this later than usual Thanksgiving would also mean a later than usual start to Christmas shopping, and that this would hurt businesses that were already struggling. But not everyone agreed. People sent Roosevelt letters for and against the idea of observing Thanksgiving early for the sake of businesses. For example, the Downtown Association of Los Angeles sent a letter on October third, nineteen thirty three, asking for Thanksgiving to be observed on the fourth Thursday in November rather than the last, to help businesses and increase employment and purchasing power. But clothing manufacturer Richmond Brothers sent a telegram on October thirteenth that argued the opposite, saying that moving Thanksgiving would quote shorten the season and curtain the fall business of clothes and all seasonable goods for the benefit of novelty and small gift items. Roosevelt ultimately decided that trying to move the date of Thanksgiving away from the last Thursday in November would probably cause confusion, so he didn't do it. But then in nineteen thirty nine, Thanksgiving again fell on the last Thursday in November November thirtieth, and FDR was still in office. This time, he made the opposite decision to what he had done in nineteen thirty three. On August fourteenth, nineteen thirty nine, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited his boyhood summer cottage on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada. At one thirty five That afternoon, he gave a press conference. He said that over the previous six years he'd heard a lot of complaints about the long stretch of time between the Labor Day holiday and Thanksgiving and the short window between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He noted that Thanksgiving had fallen on different days at earlier points at history, and he said there was nothing sacred about the last Thursday in November, so he would be designating November twenty third not the thirtieth as a day for general Thanksgiving that year. The response was immediate, and with the exception of some retailers who were excited about the extra week of Christmas shopping, most of that response was negative. People's calendars had November thirtieth MARKENUS Thanksgiving, and calendar manufacturers pointed out the nineteen forty calendars were already printed, so if the President did the same thing again, all of those calendars would already be wrong. A lot of big football games were scheduled for Thanksgiving Day or the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and now all of those games were on the wrong day. One exception was the big game between the University of California and Stanford, which was supposed to be November twenty fifth, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, but this change meant that it was now the Saturday after. Schedules for these games were often set years in advance. Various entities that had some kind of connection to Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving preparations all had opinions. James Fraser was chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Plymouth, Massachusetts, home of the so called First Thanksgiving, and he said he was going to be taking the matter before the board. Quote, because we in Plymouth consider the day sacred. Plymouth celebrated Thanksgiving on November thirtieth that year, to quote, save the day from exploitation and desecration. The president of the National Poultry, Butter and Egg Association wrote to the President to say, quote, your contemplated change will be injurious to many producers and disrupt marketing plans of processors and distributors. The former president of the Rhode Island Turkey Growers Association said the date change quote might throw Thanksgiving into warm weather and adversely affect the final fattening and preparation of birds for market. Other turkey producers disagreed with this, though, saying that their fattening process started in September, so since they knew about the change in August, it would be a non issue. Thousands of people wrote to the president, and some of their letters really demonstrate that wild political comparisons are really not a new phenomenon. Robert Benson and Clara bel Void of Groton, South Dakota, wrote on letterhead from an insurance and real estate company and described themselves as quote representatives of the Northwest. In their August seventeenth letter to the President. They said, in part quote, this country is not entirely money minded. We need a certain amount of idealism and sentiment to keep up the morale of our people, and you would even take that from us. After all, we want to make this country better for our posterity, and you must remember we are not running a Russia or a communistic government. Between your ideas of running for a third term and your changing dates of century old holidays, we believe you have practically lost your popularity and the goodwill of the people of the Northwest. I tried to find more information about exactly who Robert Benson and clarable Clara bell Point were, whether they were just the self proclaimed representatives of the Northwest, or whether they had some kind of public role. I've failed to find anything else about them besides this letter. Meanwhile, to continue the wild political comparisons, an Associated Press report quoted Alf Landon, who had lost to Roosevelt in the nineteen thirty six presidential election. Quoted Landon is saying, quote, the president's sudden attempt to change Thanksgiving Day is another illustration of the confusion which his impulsiveness has caused so frequently during his administration, it is upsetting to many businesses and college programs. If the change has any merit at all, more time should have been taken working it out so as to assure wholehearted cooperation, instead of springing it on an unprepared country with the omnipotence of Hitler. On top of all those letters to the president, there was so much public discussion around this. As just a couple of examples. On August nineteenth, nineteen thirty nine, the entirety of page four of the Belleville News Democrat of Belleville, Illinois was about what day Thanksgiving would be on. The Knoxville News Sentinel ran half a page of reader letters on August twenty seventh and said its readers were against this change two to one. Newspapers continued to carry heated Thanksgiving coverage for weeks, although it started to fall off after Germany invaded Poland on September first. Within a day of FDR's press conference, an unnamed State Department official, apparently trying to reassure people, had told the Associated Press that the presidential proclamation affected only the District of Columbia and US territories. It did not affect the States Traditionally, state governors had issued their own Thanksgiving proclamations, and some states had their own own laws around the holiday. The president's proclamation had not invalidated any of that in any previous years, and it also would not in nineteen thirty nine. So in nineteen thirty nine, some states observed Thanksgiving on November twenty third, following the lead of the federal government, and some observed it on November thirtieth, the way they'd been doing it before. Some people called November thirtieth traditional Thanksgiving, in November twenty third early Thanksgiving, but some of the biggest critics called it Fanksgiving. A lot of sources framed the state by state breakdown of who did Thanksgiving when as partisan, and there were definitely some trends along these lines, but things were not anywhere near unanimous. According to a Gallop poll that was released on August twenty fifth, only twenty percent of respondents had no opinion on the date change. Roosevelt was a Democrat, and according to the poll, Democrats supported the move by a very slim margin of fifty two to forty eight, while Republicans opposed it seventy nine to twenty one. When it came to which day governors announced for their own states observations, things also did not fall strictly along party lines. In nineteen thirty nine, twelve states that had Republican governors helped observed the old Thanksgiving date, and six of them observed the new date. One state did both. Meanwhile, eleven states with Democratic governors observed the old date and sixteen the new date, with two of them doing both. The three states that decided to have two Thanksgivings were Colorado, Mississippi, and Texas. I can get behind the two Thanksgiving plan. Having two different Thanksgivings depending on the state caused a lot of additional problems, like what if you in Iowa, where Thanksgiving was on November thirtieth, but the grandparents you were going to visit lived in Illinois, where it was on November twenty third. This was a particular issue in areas that were close to state lines, where children might live in one state and go to school in the other, or people might work in a different state from where they lived. On October thirty first, nineteen thirty nine, after months of criticism, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation with that earlier date as planned. It did not say anything about why he had chosen to celebrate Thanksgiving on an earlier day, but it did reference what the nation had been going through in the years leading up to that quote. Our nation has gone steadily forward in the application of democratic processes to economic and social problems. We have faced the specters of business depression, of unemployment, and of widespread agricultural distress, and our positive efforts to alleviate these conditions have met with heartening results. We have also been permitted to see the fruition of measures which we have undertaken in the realms of health, social welfare, and the conservation of resources. As a nation, we are deeply grateful that, in a world of turmoil, we are at peace with all countries, and we especially rejoice in the strengthened bonds of our friendship with the other peoples of the Western hemisphere. In nineteen forty, Roosevelt again proclaimed an earlier date for Thanksgiving, this time November twenty first. That year, thirty two states observed Thanksgiving on the twenty first, while sixteen observed it on the twenty eighth. A Warner Bros. Mary Melody's cartoon came out that year that showed a calendar with Thanksgiving marked as November twenty first for Democrats and November twenty eighth for Republicans. In nineteen forty one, Roosevelt once again set Thanksgiving as the third Thursday in November. That made it on the twentieth, which seems very early to me, but by that point Congress was also working on taking this decision out of the President's hands. After some debate, on October sixth, nineteen forty one, the House passed a joint resolution which read quote resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that the last Thursday in November in each year after the year nineteen forty one be known as Thanksgiving Day, and as hereby made a legal public holiday to all intents and purposes, and in the same manner as the first day of January, the twenty second day of February, the thirtieth day of May, the fourth day of July, the first Monday of September, the eleventh day of November, and Christmas Day are now made by law public holidays. The Senate passed this resolution with an amendment specifying that the fourth Thursday in November would be Thanksgiving Day rather than the last one. Roosevelt signed this into law on December twenty sixth, nineteen forty one. By that point, it didn't look like the earlier Thanksgiving celebration had really done much to spur retail sales. This controversy did not immediately fade from public consciousness, though. For example, the nineteen forty two movie Holiday Inn starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, included an animated sequence in which a turkey runs back and forth on a calendar, trying to keep up with which date is marked as Thanksgiving Day, either the twentieth or the twenty seventh. The turkey finally gives up. Holiday Inn is also the movie that premiered the Irving Berlin song White Christmas. Roosevelt's nineteen forty two Thanksgiving Proclamation referenced the newly passed federal law. It started quote, it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. It included the entirety of the twenty third Psalm, and it ended quote, Now, Therefore, I Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby invite the attention of the people to the Joint Resolution of Congress approved December twenty sixth, nineteen forty one, which designates the fourth Thursday in November of each year as Thanksgiving Day, and I request that both Thanksgiving Day November twenty sixth, nineteen forty two and New Year's Day January first, nineteen forty three be observed in prayer, publicly and privately. This new federal law still did not resolve all the conflicts about when to have Thanksgiving, though, especially in years when there were five Thursdays in November rather than four. The next time that happened was in nineteen forty four, and that year eight states observed Thanksgiving on the fifth Thursday rather than on the fourth. The number of states doing this dwindled over the five Thursday Novembers that followed, and today all the states are allot with the federal law. Presidents and governors do still issue Thanksgiving Day proclamations, though, and you can read all the presidential ones at the website of the Pilgrim Hall Museum. Who knew Thanksgiving was so fraught? Who knew that changing the date of Thanksgiving would lead to one being compared to Hitler. We should know because that's how it works. That became a rule on the Internet many, many decades later. Yes, do you have listener mail that's about turkey and cranberry sauce, and most importantly stuffing or dressing, whichever you like to call it. It is about none of those things. It is about a mystery that has now been solved. During hour behind the scenes many in which we were discussing the bank robbery, the Bank of Pennsylvania robbery of seventeen ninety eight, and we were talking about where the key came from, and I mentioned reading a book as a child in which someone made a key by making an impression on a bar of soap and then whittling it out of wood. Tanya has left a comment on our Facebook that has said the book mentioned by Tracy is The Great Brain at the Academy by John Fitzgerald. His brother Tom makes a key by pressing it into a bar of soap and whittling a copy. Thank you, Tanya, because I remembered that this had something in the title about a brain, and that had led me to The Magnificent Brain, which is a different book entirely. It had specifically led me to the sentence the magnificent brain can cox a recipe, which is like one chapter title of one book. Clifford B. Hicks was a children's book author who wrote a series about Alvin Fernauld, mostly in the nineteen sixties and seventies, but also a little later, and one of them was called Alvin Fernald Foreign Trader, And that is where there's a chapter titled the Magnificent Brain can cox a recipe. Having come up with the slightly wrong magnificent brain versus great brain meant that I just was finding only results that were related to something else. So thank you so much, Tanya for solving that mystery for me. That is definitely for sure the book that I was thinking of. If you would like to send us a note solve any mysteries that we've mentioned on the show recently or in the long past, I don't know. We're at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuffs in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.