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How the Civil War Forged the Modern American Thanksgiving
November 4, 2023 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT
Play trivia and win prizes while learning about the connection between the Civil War and Thanksgiving
Join us on Saturday, November 4 at 2:00 PM at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine as volunteer Brad Stone discusses the connections between Thanksgiving and the American Civil War. The talk will reveal many of the fun and fascinating aspects of the Thanksgiving holiday and will provide audience members the chance to win holiday-themed prizes by correctly answering trivia questions.
This fun and educational talk covers how the Civil War helped transform an informal harvest festival celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621, into one of our nation’s most revered holidays. It will focus on how the symbolism of the story of Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving increasingly became a rallying point for pro-Union and Abolition forces leading up to the Civil War. It will also highlight the people and forces during the Civil War that influenced President Abraham Lincoln to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation that would forever enshrine the holiday in Americans’ hearts.
Brad Stone served with the federal government as a senior public relations executive dealing with a wide variety of public health issues. He led the public relations operations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). He currently combines his interest in the Civil War and medical history by volunteering as a docent on a regular basis at both the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD and aboard the USS Constellation in Baltimore Harbor. He has given presentations on a variety of Civil War topics at a number of institutions including the Gettysburg Heritage Center and the U.S. Navy Museum at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC. He also recently appeared on C-SPAN3 American History TV talking about the Civil War’s impact on shaping the modern American Christmas holiday.
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