Thanksgiving Through the Years

On this week of Thanksgiving, we present depictions of the holiday throughout the last century in Georgia: the food, celebrations, commercialism, and football. You can find all of these images and more in the Digital Library of Georgia.

Thanksgiving themed ad for the Georgia Dental Parlors from the November 19, 1910 issue of the Atlanta Georgia and News as part of the Atlanta Historic Newspaper Archive.

Handbill for the Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia in 1928 advertising a Thanksgiving double feature of “The Devil’s Skipper” and “The Vanishing Pioneer.” From the Blues, Black Vaudeville, and the Silver Screen, 1912-1930s Collection.

Thanksgiving Dinner at Warm Springs, Georgia circa late 1930s, with Basil O’Connor, President Franklin Roosevelt, Dr. Charles E. Irwin, and Fred Botts. President Roosevelt owned a residence in the town and visited often to utilize the springs, which eased his polio symptoms. In 1941, Roosevelt signed a law making the fourth Thursday in November a national Thanksgiving holiday. From the Vanishing Georgia Collection.

Article from the November 19, 1959 issue of the Red and Black about the Thanksgiving day football game between the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech freshman teams. From the Red and Black Archive.

Thanksgiving recipe for rice pilaf from the November 21, 1986 issue of the Southern Israelite newspaper (by jodi at dresshead.com). The issue also included recipes for roast turkey and apple crisp. From the Southern Israelite Archive.

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Lamar Dodd (1909-1996)

Courtesy of LaGrange College

Today would be the 101st birthday of Georgia artist Lamar Dodd. He was born September 22, 1906 in Fairburn and raised in LaGrange, Georgia. The New Georgia Encyclopedia provides an overview of his life and artistic career. You can also find his birthday marked on “This Day in Georgia History” at the GeorgiaInfo site.

Carnival at Night (1939), Courtesy of Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange College

Dodd left Georgia as a youth to study in New York, but would return and take a position with the University of Georgia (UGA). He would eventually lead the art department at UGA from 1938 until 1973. In 1996, the art school was renamed the “Lamar Dodd School of Art” in his honor (a more in depth account of his work with the art school can be found here). The Lamar Dodd Art Center, part of LaGrange College, is also named in his honor.

A photograph  of his childhood home in LaGrange can be found in the Troup County Digital Archives Project Photograph Database and in the Hubert Bond Owens and John Linley Image Collections at the Owens Library. And finally, you can read about Lamar Dodd in Thomas Reed’s The History of the University of Georgia (Chapter 16). A manuscript page of the chapter titled “Department of Art, Lamar Dodd” is viewable through an online collection from the Hargrett Library at UGA.

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