Speaking of Communism, How Was Your Thanksgiving?

The Rooted Pasque of Sioux Falls draws our attention to a fragment of social history with a South Dakota connection on Letters of Note, a fascinating blog that highlights old letters. On August 17, 1939, Robert S. Benson and Clarabelle Voight wrote to the White House to protest President Roosevelt's decision to move Thanksgiving back a week to expand the holiday shopping season. Writing on letterhead from a Groton, S.D., insurance agency, the writers recommend FDR stop acting as if he were "running a Russia or communistic government." They also suggest he be committed to Yankton.

A note on cultural perspective: the writers refer to themselves as representatives of the "people of the Northwest." Interesting: if this letter did indeed come from South Dakota, it suggests a different geographical perspective from the current local perception of South Dakota as part of the Midwest.