Vintage Thanksgiving Blessings Card | Edwardian Girl & Poultry

An enormous white turkey with a gloriously grotesque red wattle dominates the scene, looking upward at the rosy-cheeked girl in her prim blue frock and white apron as she cheerfully hand-feeds corn to him and a smaller brown hen who hasn't yet received the memo about impending doom and is happily face-down in the grain. The embossed silver cornucopia and pumpkins in the corner add a festive 'harvest of death' motif, while the verse below—'You feed me well but I can tell that you're no friend of mine. Because, my dear, I greatly fear, it's near Thanksgiving time'—makes this the Victorian equivalent of a serial killer bringing chocolates. The white turkey's upward gaze at the girl's outstretched hand is the most emotionally complex thing in nineteenth-century poultry art: equal parts gratitude, suspicion, and the quiet dignity of a creature who has absolutely done the math.