Thanksgiving Day—Ways and Means

Winslow Homer's wood engraving captures the practical chaos of preparing the holiday feast. The composition orchestrates multiple scenes across a single plane: turkeys and other fowl occupy the foreground, hunters and farmhands bustle about a central cart laden with provisions, while servants work near a large tent in the background. Homer uses dense cross-hatching and careful detail to establish depth and texture, creating a narrative that unfolds across the image rather than in sequential panels. Published in *Harper's Weekly*, such illustrations were among the earliest forms of visual storytelling in American newspapers, establishing conventions—multiple viewpoints, interconnected activity, narrative clarity—that would shape the emerging language of sequential art and the comic strip.