Menu for the 1944 Thanksgiving dinner at the Army and Navy General Hospital in Hot Springs.
What’s on your menu this Thanksgiving? In 1944 at the Army and Navy General Hospital of Hot Springs, World War II service men and women, doctors, and nurses enjoyed a fine traditional meal along with some more unexpected treats.
Although the US was still under wartime rationing during Thanksgiving 1944, the meal at the Hospital in Hot Springs was robust as ever. We can see how this holiday meal compared to past years in the collection of menus for the Hospital’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners spanning more than 20 years included in the archives of Mary D. Hudgins in Special Collections. Reading Room Assistant Kasey Kelm found this interesting example from height of World War II and surveyed all of the menus to give us a better understanding of what holidays were like at the Hospital.
Featured in the picture on the 1944 menu are (l to r): Larry E. Cox, Bob M. Hughes, Leo Chamberlain, Sam Lichteman, Russell F. Culbertson, and Jules A. Kaufman.
For 1944 holiday staples such as cranberry jelly and candied sweet potatoes were served alongside a roast young turkey and gravy. However, some foods served that day did not make it into the yearly rotation in the mess hall such as the grapefruit and avocado salad…. Drizzled with French dressing, the salad appeared to have left an impression on the palates of the soldiers; it was never again seen at a Thanksgiving meal.
The 1944 Thanksgiving menu included traditional items like cranberry jelly, roast turkey, and giblet gravy alongside some more unusual items like grapefruit and avocado salad.
More modest fare such as saltines appeared during the war as appetizers alongside cheese sticks, consommé, and ripe olives and celery hearts (a popular offering during the 1930s and 1940s). In 1951 the mess hall upgraded to Ritz brand crackers, although after that crackers didn’t find a place on the menu . Various seafood was always available, from the sardine canapes served in 1933, the shrimp cocktail served during the 1950s, or the oyster dressing served alongside the turkey from the 1930s through the war years.
After dinner, Thanksgiving desserts such as pumpkin and mincemeat pie were served along with coffee and mints and, present on many early menus, cigarettes. Cigarettes disappeared from the menu after 1946, however, it is unknown whether they were no longer served or simply not advertised as such.
Prolific Arkansas historian, librarian, collector, and UA alumna Mary Dengler Hudgins served as librarian for the Army and Navy General Hospital from 1943 to 1959. Established by Act of Congress in 1882 and specializing in hydrotherapy, arthritis treatment, and rehabilitation, the Army and Navy Hospital treated more than 100,000 patients, many of them veterans, until it became a state facility in 1960.
To find out more about her extensive archives and research files on Hot Springs, Arkansas music, and Arkansas history now housed in the University Libraries’ Special Collections, please see the finding aid for her collection.
There are good articles in the The Encyclopedia of Arkansas to help you find out more about the remarkable career of Mary D. Hudgins and the Army and Navy General Hospital.
For more information about the thousands of resources preserving the history of Arkansas available through the University of Arkansas Libraries, contact Special Collections, specoll@uark.edu, or visit the department in Mullins Library.