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Thanksgiving: American Thanksgiving
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After the American Revolution the first national Thanksgiving Day, proclaimed by President George Washington, was Nov. 26, 1789, and the Episcopal Church began celebrating an annual day of thanksgiving on the first Thursday in November. Some states established an annual Thanksgiving Day, but there was no annual national holiday until President Abraham Lincoln, urged by Sarah J. Hale, proclaimed one in 1863, appointing as the date the last Thursday of November. Although the only known contemporary account of the 1621 Plymouth harvest celebration had been rediscovered in 1841, the national Thanksgiving Day initially was not officially linked to it.
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The centerpiece of the contemporary American Thanksgiving is a large dinner (a.k.a. supper), starring a large roasted turkey. Because turkey is the most common main dish of a Thanksgiving dinner, thanksgiving is sometimes called 'Turkey Day'. The USDA estimated that 269 million turkeys were raised in the country in 2003, about one-sixth of which were headed for a Thanksgiving dinner plate.
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Changing the date of Thanksgiving seemed harmless enough, but in actuality proved quite controversial. It was so upsetting that thousands of letters poured into the White House once President Roosevelt announced the date change. Some retailers were pleased because they hoped the extra week of Christmas shopping would increase profits, but smaller businesses complained they would lose business to larger stores. Other companies that depended on Thanksgiving as the last Thursday of November lost money; calendar makers were the worst hit because they printed calendars years in advance and FDR made their calendars out of date for the next two years. Schools were ... disrupted by Roosevelt's decision; most schools had already scheduled vacations and annual Thanksgiving Day football games by the time they learned of Thanksgiving's new date and had to decide whether or not to reschedule everything. Moreover, many Americans were angry that Roosevelt tried to alter such a long-standing tradition and American values just to help businesses make more money.*
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From Lincoln's time, fixing the date for Thanksgiving was always by Presidential proclamation. In the first year of the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency, 1933, during the Great Depression, the last Thursday of November fell very close to the end of the month. At that time, there were calls from many business owners for the President to move Thanksgiving one week earlier, in order to allow for a greater number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which they argued, might possibly offset the difficult economic times. Roosevelt did not change the date at the time. However, when the last Thursday in November again fell very late in the month in 1939, he did institute a change, by proclaiming Thanksgiving to be the 4th Thursday in November. The decision sparked wide-spread public discussion, with some Americans following the old "last Thursday in November" scheduling pattern.
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Thanksgiving is closely related to harvest festivals that had long been a traditional holiday in much of Europe. The first time one of these festivals was celebrated in North American was by the Frobisher Expedition in 1578. Another event claiming to be the first Thanksgiving occurred on December 4, 1619 when 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to God.
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The first Thanksgiving feast was held in the autumn of 1621, during three days of prayer and feasting by the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony and their Native American guests, members of the Wampanoag tribe. However, the first national Thanksgiving Day was not celebrated until November 26, 1789, as proclaimed by:
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American Thanksgiving