## Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History

by Diana Karter Appelbaum

Facts on File Publications 1984

CHAPTERS 13-16: EARLY-20^TH^ CENTURY THANKSGIVINGS

# Thanksgiving and the Americanization of Immigrants

Page 222

Many efforts to Americanize immigrants were of the gentlest kind. The
commissioners of immigration in New York City, for example, annually
provided turkey dinners for immigrants at Castle Garden and, later,
Ellis Island on Thanksgiving Day. But the primary instrument of
Americanization was the public school system. Pupils learned the story
of the first Thanksgiving, participated in school Thanksgiving pageants
and urged their parents to celebrate the holiday the way "teacher" told
them that Americans celebrated.

# World War I

Pages 229-230

On the home front, Thanksgiving was "Hooverized." Herbert Hoover made
the Food Administration one of the great success stories of the war.
Under his guidance, Americans reduced consumption of such key foodstuffs
as wheat, meat, fats and sugars needed to feed the troops and the hungry
civilian population of Europe. Wartime food exports reached three times
the ordinary volume. Patriotic Thanksgiving tables in 1917 and 1918 were
set with rye and corn bread instead of wheat and with vegetables grown
in backyard victory gardens. Housewives avoided tomatoes, oysters,
oranges and other food stuffs that would occupy space in railroad cars
that were needed to move war supplies to Europe.

## *Parades and Sports Intrude on Thanksgiving*

Pages 230-231

In 1921, Gimbel's Department Store in Philadelphia sponsored the first
Thanksgiving parade designed to kick off and promote the holiday buying
season. The idea caught on, and by the end of the decade, Thanksgiving
Day-Christmas parades were sponsored by department stores in cities
across the country.

Football, played by college and high school teams before local fans,
gripped the nation more firmly than ever. The dinner hour, once set to
coincide with the return of the faithful from morning church services,
was now scheduled to avoid conflict with the football game.

# The Fourth Thursday in November

Pages 233-234

Beginning in 1869, and following Abraham Lincoln's example, an unbroken
chain of presidential Thanksgiving proclamations had been issued for the
last Thursday in November. There was no legal requirement that
presidents choose this date, not even any legal mandate that
Thanksgiving be declared at all . . . . And so it was for three-quarters
of a century, until, in 1939, Franklin Roosevelt reshuffled the November
calendar, dealing out a new date for Thanksgiving seven days earlier.

# Roosevelt's Controversial Proclamation

Pages 234-241

\[W\]ith the last Thursday in November scheduled to fall on the 30^th^,
there would be only 24 days, and only 20 shopping days between
Thanksgiving and Christmas---not enough time for a strong holiday
selling season. So the National Retail Dry Goods Association did the
logical thing: it asked President Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving.

\[Their\] appeal was actually its second request of the kind; in 1933,
when the last Thursday also fell on November 30, the association had
asked President Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up a week. He had
refused, citing the confusion that such as move would bring.

A vacationing president made the announcement at an informal press
conference at the family summer home on Campobello Island. President
Roosevelt explained that retailers wanted a longer Christmas shopping
season, and said he hoped that the extra week gained by moving
Thanksgiving would boost sales.

The announcement made front-page headlines around the nation, as a swarm
of protest swirled, led by Republicans and traditionalists

The National Retail Dry Goods Association estimated that the extra
shopping week would increase sales by as much as 10 percent, but other
Americans were not convinced that this was worth the price of displacing
a national institution.

Because President Roosevelt's proclamation officially set the date for
Thanksgiving only for the District of Columbia, state governors faced
the task of deciding whether to proclaim Thanksgiving Day on the
traditional or New Deal date.

When the dust settled, 23 states celebrated on November 23, 23 waited
until November 30 and, in Texas and Colorado, Thanksgiving Day came
twice.

# The War Intrudes

Pages 243-244

November 1940 saw half a nation celebrate Thanksgiving on November 21
and the other half on November 28.

Government and business groups, surveying the effect of earlier
Thanksgiving days on Christmas shopping in 1939 and 1940, agreed that
there had been no increase in business; some even found that the ensuing
confusion had hurt sales in their areas. At a news conference on May 20,
1941, the president announced that . . . he intended to restore the
traditional date in 1942. Thanksgiving Day 1941, with calendars already
printed and football schedules already made up, would be celebrated on
the third Thursday.

\[Congress introduced bills to prevent future political abuse\]. Thus on
November 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the
fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. The choice of the
fourth Thursday, which is the last Thursday in the month five years out
of seven, was a compromise between supporters of the traditional and New
Deal dates.

# Tradition in an Irreverent Age

Page 256

On Thanksgiving Day, since 1934, the Detroit Lions have played a
Thanksgiving Day football game, always broadcast on national radio and,
since 1956, on television.

# About the Author

Born a Connecticut Yankee, Diana Karter Appelbaum is an honors graduate
of Barnard College. An avid researcher, she is the author of a 12-part
series on the history of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in addition to other
popular and scholarly articles on historical topics.

Ms. Appelbaum lives with her husband and three children in Sharon,
Massachusetts.