Thanksgiving Day
What is Thanksgiving?
How did Thanksgiving start?
When is Thanksgiving?
How is Thanksgiving celebrated?
How did Thanksgiving become a national holiday?
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Thanksgiving Day, annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. It is observed on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States and on the second Monday in October in Canada. Thanksgiving is a day when families and friends gather to express gratitude for the year’s blessings over a shared feast. The holiday has evolved from a harvest celebration to a national tradition of togetherness and thankfulness through centuries of tradition building, mythmaking, and cultural change.
The American holiday is rich in legend and symbolism, and the traditional fare of the Thanksgiving meal typically includes turkey, bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie.
The First Thanksgiving: Myths and Facts
Thanksgiving is believed to have originated as a regional celebration in colonial New England (now in the northeastern United States). The American Thanksgiving may have been modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth (now in Massachusetts) and the Wampanoag people. The celebration in Plymouth is commonly called the first Thanksgiving. Plymouth’s Thanksgiving began with a few colonists going out “fowling,” possibly for turkeys but more probably for the easier prey of geese and ducks, since they “in one day killed as much as…served the company almost a week.” Next, 90 or so Wampanoag made a surprise appearance at the settlement’s gate, doubtlessly unnerving the 50 or so colonists. Nevertheless, over the next few days the two groups socialized without incident. The Wampanoag contributed venison to the feast, which included the fowl and probably fish, eels, shellfish, stews, vegetables, and beer. Since Plymouth had few buildings and manufactured goods, most people ate outside while sitting on the ground or on barrels with plates on their laps. The men fired guns, ran races, and drank liquor, struggling to communicate in broken English and Wampanoag. This was a rather disorderly affair, but it sealed a treaty between the two groups that lasted until King Philip’s War (1675–76), in which hundreds of colonists and thousands of Native Americans lost their lives.
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United States: Federal holiday, traditions, and celebrations
The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “Thanksgivings,” days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought. The U.S. Continental Congress proclaimed a national Thanksgiving upon the enactment of the Constitution, for example. Yet, after 1798, the new U.S. Congress left Thanksgiving declarations to the states; some objected to the national government’s involvement in a religious observance, Southerners were slow to adopt a New England custom, and others took offense at the day’s being used to hold partisan speeches and parades. A national Thanksgiving Day seemed more like a lightning rod for controversy than a unifying force.
Thanksgiving Day did not become an official national holiday until Northerners dominated the federal government. While sectional tensions prevailed in the mid-19th century, the editor of the popular magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, Sarah Josepha Hale, campaigned for a national Thanksgiving Day to promote unity. She finally won the support of Pres. Abraham Lincoln. On October 3, 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.
The holiday was annually proclaimed by every president thereafter, and the date chosen, with few exceptions, was the last Thursday in November. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, attempted to extend the Christmas shopping season, which generally begins with the Thanksgiving holiday, and to boost the economy by moving the date back a week, to the third week in November. But not all states complied, and, after a joint resolution of Congress in 1941, Roosevelt issued a proclamation in 1942 designating the fourth Thursday in November (which is not always the last Thursday) as Thanksgiving Day.
As the country became more urban and family members began to live farther apart, Thanksgiving became a time to gather together. The holiday moved away from its religious roots to allow immigrants of every background to participate in a common tradition. Thanksgiving Day football games, beginning with Yale versus Princeton in 1876, enabled fans to add some rowdiness to the holiday. In the late 1800s parades of costumed revelers became common. In 1920 Gimbel’s department store in Philadelphia staged a parade of about 50 people with Santa Claus at the rear of the procession. Since 1924 the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City has continued the tradition, with huge balloons since 1927. The holiday associated with Pilgrims and Native Americans has come to symbolize intercultural peace, America’s opportunity for newcomers, and the sanctity of home and family.
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Beyond feasting and entertainment, Thanksgiving has inspired other customs. Many Americans engage in charitable activities on this day, such as volunteering for or organizing food drives. One notable tradition is the “turkey pardon,” in which the U.S. president ceremonially “pardons” a live turkey, sparing it from the dinner table. While some accounts trace the first unofficial turkey pardon to Lincoln, who is said to have spared a turkey in 1863 because his son had grown fond of it, the modern turkey pardon ritual was formalized as an annual White House event by Pres. George H.W. Bush in 1989, and it has been carried on by every president since. Yet another Thanksgiving tradition is the snapping of the wishbone (a forked bone in birds comprising two fused clavicles). In this tradition, after the turkey has been carved, two people tug on either end of the dried wishbone while making a silent wish. Whoever ends up with the longer piece when the bone breaks is said to have their wish granted.
Canada: History and national holiday
Days of thanksgiving in Canada also originated in the colonial period, arising from the same European traditions, in gratitude for safe journeys, peace, and bountiful harvests. The earliest celebration took place in 1578, when an expedition led by Martin Frobisher held a ceremony in present-day Nunavut to give thanks for the safety of its fleet. In 1879 Parliament established a national Thanksgiving Day on November 6; the date has varied over the years. Since 1957 Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated in Canada on the second Monday in October.
Thanksgiving food
Thanksgiving dinner is fairly standardized, though it varies somewhat by region. A roast turkey is the most common main dish. It is usually accompanied by sides such as mashed potatoes; sweet potatoes or yams, often baked in casseroles; stuffing, a seasoned bread mixture cooked inside the turkey or separately; and gravy. Some accompanying vegetables are green bean casserole—a mid-20th-century creation mixing green beans with cream of mushroom soup and fried onions—roasted brussels sprouts, glazed carrots, corn pudding, or creamed spinach. Cranberry sauce, a sweet-tart relish, is one of the few dishes that can be directly traced back to precolonial New England, since cranberries are native to the region. A rich variety of pies such as pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, and sweet potato pie are also served.