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Ave Maria in the Afternoon – November 28, 2024 – Hour 2

We discuss the history and meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday with Melanie Kirkpatrick and Richard Samuelson.

 

President Washington and America’s National Holiday

Thanksgiving is a peculiar holiday. It’s religious by nature but is celebrated in a nation that is, at least as far as the law is concerned, secular. It reminds us of the peculiar character of the American nation and the President’s role in it. We talk more with Richard Samuelson.

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A National Thanksgiving: President Washington and America’s National Holiday

Richard Samuelson is associate professor of government in Hillsdale College’s Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship.

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Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience

We all know the story of Thanksgiving. Or do we? This uniquely American holiday has a rich and little-known history beyond the famous Pilgrim feast of 1621. Melanie Kirkpatrick joins us.

Melanie Kirkpatrick is the author of Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. She's also a former deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and has also written Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia's Underground Railroad, which World Magazine named its 2013 Book of the Year. She has lived in Tokyo, Toronto, Hong Kong, Honolulu and Manhattan, and currently resides in rural Connecticut with her husband, Jack David.

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