Edwardian Thanksgiving Greeting Card Children Feast 1906

Pure hostage-negotiation energy radiates from three suspiciously well-dressed children — two boys in suits with bow ties flanking a curly-haired girl in a pink puff-sleeved dress — sitting at a pristine white tablecloth staring at each other while an enormous roasted turkey dominates the center of the table like a golden, glistening monument to avian sacrifice. The turkey is genuinely obscene in size, dwarfing the children's individual place settings and the side dishes of what appear to be apples and oranges arranged on platters like tribute offerings to a meat god. Nobody is eating. Nobody is carving. The children are simply witnessing the turkey, cutlery in hand, as if waiting for it to make the first move. Copyright 1909, B. Hofmann — who clearly had some unresolved feelings about poultry.