The famous pilgrim celebration at Plymouth Colony Massachusetts in 1621
is traditionally regarded as the first American Thanksgiving. However, there
are actually 12 claims to where the “first” Thanksgiving took
place: two in Texas, two in Florida, one in Maine, two in Virginia, and five
in Massachusetts.
President Jefferson called a federal Thanksgiving proclamation “the
most ridiculous idea ever conceived".
The famous “Pilgrim and Indian” story featured in modern Thanksgiving
narratives was not initially part of early Thanksgiving stories, largely
due to tensions between Indians and colonists.
Held every year on the island of Alcatraz since 1975, “Unthanksgiving
Day” commemorates the survival of Native Americans following the arrival and settlement of Europeans in the Americas.
The first Thanksgiving in America actually occurred in 1541, when Francisco
Vasquez de Coronado and his expedition held a thanksgiving celebration in
Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle.
The turkeys typically depicted in Thanksgiving pictures are not the same
as the domestic turkeys most people eat at Thanksgiving. Domestic turkeys usually
weigh twice as much and are too large to fly.
The average long-distance Thanksgiving trip is 214 miles, compared with
275 miles over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday.
Americans eat roughly 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving.
One of the most popular first Thanksgiving stories recalls the three-day
celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. Over 200 years later, President
Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving,
and in 1941 Congress established the fourth Thursday in November as a national
holiday.
Every Thanksgiving, a group of Native Americans and their supporters gather
on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning.
The flyer for the event in 2006 reads, in part, “Participants in National
Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples
to survive today".
Thanksgiving is an amalgam of different traditions, including ancient harvest
festivals, the religious New England Puritan Thanksgiving, the traditional
harvest celebrations of England and New England, and changing political and
ideological assumptions of Native Americans.
Since Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving holiday in 1863,
Thanksgiving has been observed annually. However, various earlier presidents--including
George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison--all urged Americans to
observe various periods of thanksgiving.
The Pilgrim’s thanksgiving feast in 1621 occurred sometime between
September 21 and November 1. It lasted three days and included 50 surviving
pilgrims and approximately 90 Wampanoag Indians, including Chief Massasoit. Their
menu differed from modern Thanksgiving dinners and included berries, shellfish,
boiled pumpkin, and deer.
Even though President Madison declared that Thanksgiving should be held
twice in 1815, none of the celebrations occurred in the autumn.
Now a Thanksgiving dinner staple, cranberries were actually used by Native
Americans to treat arrow wounds and to dye clothes.
The tradition of pardoning Thanksgiving turkeys began in 1947, though Abraham
Lincoln is said to have informally started the practice when he pardoned
his son’s pet turkey.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the next-to-last
Thursday in November to prolong the holiday shopping season, many Republicans
rebelled. The holiday was temporarily celebrated on different dates: November
30 became the “Republican Thanksgiving” and November 23 was “Franksgiving” or “Democrat
Thanksgiving".
Not all states were eager to adopt Thanksgiving because some thought the
national government was exercising too much power in declaring a national
holiday. Additionally, southern states were hesitant to observe what was
largely a New England practice.
Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), who tirelessly worked to establish Thanksgiving
as a national holiday, also was the first person to advocate women as teachers
in public schools, the first to advocate day nurseries to assist working
mothers, and the first to propose public playgrounds. She was also the author
of two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including “Mary Had a Little
Lamb.”
Considered the "Mother of Thanksgiving," Sara Hale was
an influential editor and writer who urged President Lincoln to proclaim a
national day of thanksgiving. She selected the last Thursday in November because,
as she said, harvests were done, elections were over, and summer travelers
were home. She also believed a national thanksgiving holiday would unite Americans
in the midst of dramatic social and industrial change and “awaken in
Americans’ hearts the love of home and country, of thankfulness to God,
and peace between brethren
Thanksgiving football games began with Yale versus Princeton in 1876.
In 1920, Gimbels department store in Philadelphia held a parade with about
50 people and Santa Claus bringing up the rear. The parade is now known as
the 6abc IKEA Thanksgiving Day Parade and is the nation’s oldest Thanksgiving
Day parade.
Established in 1924, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ties for second
as the oldest Thanksgiving parade. The Snoopy balloon has appeared in the
parade more often than any other character. More than 44 million people watch
the parade on TV each year and 3 million attend in person.
Baby turkeys are called poults. Only male turkeys gobble and, therefore,
are called gobblers.
In 2001, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Thanksgiving stamp to honor the
tradition “of being thankful for the abundance of goods we enjoy in
America.
Long before the Pilgrims, native Hawaiians celebrated the longest thanksgiving
in the world—
Makahiki, which lasted four months, approximately
from November through February. During this time, both work and war were
forbidden.
In 2009, roughly 38.4 million Americans traveled more than 50 miles to be
with family for Thanksgiving. More than four million flew home.
The people of the Virgin Islands, a United States territory in the Caribbean
Sea, celebrate two thanksgivings, the national holiday and Hurricane Thanksgiving
Day. Every Oct 19, if there have been no hurricanes, Hurricane Day is held
and the islanders give thanks that they have been spared.
Thanksgiving can occur as early as November 22 and as late as November 28.
The Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday largely because stores
hope the busy shopping day will take them out of the red and into positive
profits. Black Friday has been a tradition since the 1930s.
uSBQFZ4QKlSw~~60_57.JPG)
