Every year, Thanksgiving gets just a bit more controversial than the year previous. That whole Pilgrim and Natives dinner.. that whole first “thanksgiving” feast when we all broke bread as one before the battle for land ensued and history became what it was..
Yes, Thanksgiving has become more acostic in recent years as more and more people annually argue that Thanksgiving has a bloody history and serves as a remembrance of the injustices that Native Americans have faced for centuries..
Some even believe a bloody history that included Pagan ritual murders took place on thanksgiving..
While that debate continues in earnest in 2022, let’s cut through the gravy and try our best to find the real history and political meaning of Thanksgiving.
Why do we even still celebrate it today?
You should not thank Pilgrims or Natives, Mayflower Compacts or Plymouth.. you can thank Abraham Lincoln trying to unite a nation after the Civil War. And Franklin Roosevelt trying to get a nation to buy things and celebrate things again after a Great Depression..
CIVIL WAR MISGIVINGS
Prior to Lincoln’s actions, ‘thanksgiving’ was more of a seasonal holiday in New England states. It became a national holiday in 1863 when President Lincoln declared the third Thursday of November a “day of thanksgiving.”
This was on the heels of a victory in Gettysburg months prior–with a heavy Union loss of life–and Lincoln’s own 11-year-old son’s death. At the point when Lincoln declared thanksgiving, he was also cracking down on rioters who were going on bloody rampages over conscription and emancipation.
It did not appear to much of a time for thanksgiving at all..
But it happened anyway.
On October 3, 1863, Lincoln’s White House released a proclamation that read this: “In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity … peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict.”
By 1864, Lincoln was back reminding people about his declaration of a holiday, issuing a second proclamation:
“I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust.” Around the same time, the heads of Union League clubs – Theodore Roosevelt’s father among them – led an effort to provide a proper Thanksgiving meal, including turkey and mince pies, for Union troops. As the Civil War raged on, four steamers sailed out of New York laden with 400,000 pounds of ham, canned peaches, apples and cakes – and turkeys with all the trimmings. They arrived at Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters in City Point, Va., then one of the busiest ports in the world, to deliver dinner to the Union’s “gallant soldiers and sailors.”
Prior to Lincoln, other presidents issued thanksgiving proclamations over the abundance of harvests .. George Washington and James Madison used their proclamations to call for “somber days of prayer.”
This is how the Lewistown GAZETTE reported events on Wednesday November 23, 1864 *If only they knew that eventually this would become Drinksgiving 😉 * :
By 1900, newspapers like the PRESS HERALD in Pine Grove were lamenting the “olden times” of Thanksgiving…
This snippet was from Friday November 23, 1900:
THE HALE WITH THANKSGIVING
Lincoln could have wanted to utilize his thanksgiving message as a Civil War unification message, along with trying to make his own mark on history. At the time, Sarah Hale also was writing her own opinions arguing for a national celebration on annual basis.
So just as easily as we could give Lincoln credit for the Thanksgiving we have today, we could also credit Hale. As reported by Kenneth Davis in a New York TIMES op-ed several years ago:
Or he may have been responding to the passionate entreaties of Sara Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book – the Good Housekeeping of its day. Hale, who contributed to American folkways as the author of “Mary had a Little Lamb,” had been advocating in the magazine for a national day of Thanksgiving since 1837. Even as many states had begun to observe Thanksgiving, she wrote in 1860, “It will no longer be a partial and vacillating commemoration of our gratitude to our Heavenly Father, observed in one section or State, while other portions of our common country do not sympathize in the gratitude and gladness.”
Kenneth Davis goes on to explain just how the old Plymouth ‘first thanksgiving’ tied into Lincoln’s new holiday. Davis explained that artists at the time used imagery of the first thanksgiving to connect Pilgrims with the Union at the time of the Civil War.
THANKSGIVING CURES DEPRESSIONS
But it was the Great Depression and President Franklin Roosevelt that created the Thanksgiving we have right now (I say right not because it appears to be evolving yet again in the eyes of the general public.) Davis summarized it this way:
But one crucial piece remained: The elevation of Thanksgiving to a true national holiday, a feat accomplished by Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1939, with the nation still struggling out of the Great Depression, the traditional Thanksgiving Day fell on the last day of the month – a fifth Thursday. Worried retailers, for whom the holiday had already become the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season, feared this late date. Roosevelt agreed to move his holiday proclamation up one week to the fourth Thursday, thereby extending the critical shopping season.
Some states stuck to the traditional last Thursday date, and other Thanksgiving traditions, such as high school and college football championships, had already been scheduled. This led to Roosevelt critics deriding the earlier date as “Franksgiving.” With 32 states joining Roosevelt’s “Democratic Thanksgiving, ” 16 others stuck with the traditional date, or “Republican Thanksgiving.” After some congressional wrangling, in December 1941, Roosevelt signed the legislation making Thanksgiving a legal holiday on the fourth Thursday in November. And there it has remained.
And boom!
We have the birth of what still celebrate today.
Thanksgiving is ever evolving, it is ever changing. But some traditions remain. Such as presidents pardoning turkeys. This year, President Joe Biden pardoned Chocolate and Chip…
And the beat goes on..
History repeats.. until it stops. History only stops when we forget it..
So on that note.. we remind you of our own yearly tradition.. the annual showcasing of an image with the headline: By Train, by Plane, by Automobile! America comes home for Thanksgiving 2022.
