Thanksgiving : Child 4d

THANKSGIVING : AFTER THE FEAST!
DANCING

"And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters, already excited to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best room, under the supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves with a game of "blind-man’s-bluff," while the elderly women washed up the dishes … In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best of tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial care for this illumination. It was understood that we were to have a dance."

From : Oldtown Folks, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Boston : Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869.

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"The Thanksgiving Dance" from Harper’s Magazine 1858

" ‘Blind-man’s buff,’ ‘Hunt the slipper,’ ‘Come, Philander," and other lively games soon set every one bubbling over with jollity, and when Eph struck up ‘Money Musk’ on his fiddle, old and young fell into their places for a dance. All down the long kitchen they stood, Mr. And Mrs. Bassett at the top, the twins at the bottom, and then away they went, heeling and toeing, cutting pigeon wings , and taking their steps in a way that would convulse modern children with their new-fangled romps called dancing."

From : "Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving" by Louisa May Alcott
St. Nicholas Magazine, November 1881.

Not all dances were in the home - many, beginning as early as the 1840s, were held in halls and ballrooms. Click HERE for examples of Thanksgiving Ball invitations and dance cards for the young (and young at heart)!