We were pleased to have Dr. Neil L. York, Professor of History at Brigham Young University, as our guest speaker. Professor York was born in San Luis Obispo, California. He earned his bachelors and masters degrees at BYU and his PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He joined the BYU faculty in 1977, where he has been ever since. He currently serves as the chair of the History Department. Dr. York is the author of five books. His latest is titled Maxims for a Patriot: Josiah Quincy Junior and His Commonplace Book. He is married to Carole Makita of KSL Television, and they are the parents of two daughters.
Professor York, who first visited Plymouth in 1961, showed us an old Plymouth banner that resembled a baseball banner. He remarked that historians argue about Plymouth symbols, such as Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower ship and even Massasoit. He stated that much of what we know about the Pilgrim fathers is surrounded in myth. “It doesn’t mean that the mythical is untrue; it just means that we believe in it even if there is no empirical evidence for it. The Plimoth Plantation layout and site details are based on supposition,” he said. “Anything beyond documentation accounts are built up over time through constructions.”
Dr. York said that no one really knows exactly what went on during the First Thanksgiving. Historical documents give no details of precisely when Thanksgiving was, what the people ate, or what festivities occurred. “There is a tendency to make the unknown known so we can locate ourselves. We need to have stories about ourselves, because if we don’t have the stories we won’t have the identity,” he said. “We need to understand that we observe these traditions in order to preserve our sense of family in a nation with a higher destination and a higher purpose. The past lives in the present through present-day progenitors of Mayflower passengers.”
Thank you, Professor York, for a very insightful presentation.