Thanksgiving. For most of us, it’s a day of gathering with loved ones, sharing a meal, and counting our blessings. This cherished American tradition has deep roots, reaching back to a moment of national healing after the Civil War. In 1863, just months after the devastating battle of Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln took a powerful step. He issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation, creating the blueprint for the annual national holiday we celebrate every year.
For decades, presidents honored this tradition, issuing annual proclamations for a national Thanksgiving Day, usually set for the last Thursday of November. But what happens when a leader, facing tough times, decides to shake things up? During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a bold move, shifting Thanksgiving Day to an earlier date in hopes of boosting the economy. This decision sparked a nationwide outcry, pitting tradition against presidential action and earning the controversial holiday a new name: ‘Franksgiving.’ Get ready to discover a surprising chapter in American history.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. On October 3rd, 1863, mere months after the deadliest man-made disaster in American history took place in Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln followed in the footsteps of our nation’s first president and issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation. That proclamation would go into effect on the last Thursday of November. Thanksgiving as we know it was born. And that’s all she wrote, right? Well, wrong. Here’s Melanie Kirkpatrick with the story.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: So what happened after the war ended? The tradition of the president calling a National Thanksgiving Day was well established incident subsequent Cold One, but there still was no official approval of the date. As the years went by, every president from Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving proclamation naming a Day of Thanksgiving. The states would accept the date that the president had named, and everybody would celebrate on that date until FDR. Franklin Roosevelt decided that he was going to change the date. He announced this in a press conference on August 14th, without any warning. He said: “I, Franklin D.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hear by designate Thursday, the 23rd of November, 1939, as a day of General…”
00:02:04
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving. Instead of having Thanksgiving take place on the traditional date, which was the last Thursday of November, he was going to see that the holiday was celebrated one week earlier. The country was, of course, in the middle of the Great Depression. The president’s reason for changing the date was economic. Some of his economic advisors had said that if Roosevelt made Thanksgiving a week earlier, there’d be more time for Christmas shopping, and that would boost the economy. The problem with that was that the economic theory was dubious. Americans, I think, would have been happy to spend more money on Christmas shopping, but they didn’t have any money. The whole idea was economically flawed, and as it turned out, it was a bust. The country erupted. He made the mistake of saying that there was nothing sacred about the day. The governors of the states of New England, where the original Thanksgiving had taken place, went crazy. “Nothing sacred?” In Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the so-called First Thanksgiving took place, the Church of the Pilgrimage, the pastor called it a calloused attack on a religious tradition.
00:03:32
Speaker 4: We here in Plymouth consider the day sacred. Plymouth and Thanksgiving are synonymous. There is no good reason for changing it.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: And there were many businesses that also objected. The calendar makers were very upset because their calendars would have been erroneous.
00:03:56
Speaker 5: Better than 70 percent of 1940 calendars have already been sold, and about 50 percent of 50 million dollars’ worth already in production throughout the country. But why should the president stop with this slight change in the traditions of a nation? We would suggest the following: advance the observance of Thanksgiving to January 1st of each year; give the public 51 solid weeks of Christmas shopping.
00:04:24
Speaker 2: Huh. College football coaches were particularly upset in that era. Many colleges scheduled the final game of the season for a Thanksgiving weekend, and that, of course, made it very difficult to figure out under the new regime when you had to choose which date you were going to use.
00:04:47
Speaker 3: We will vote for the Republican ticket if he interferes with our football.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Alf Landon was the Republican presidential nominee. He was quick to condemn the date change and wasn’t afraid to use strong language. Landon said, “Four times should have been taken instead of springing it upon an unprepared country,
00:05:15
Speaker 3: with the omnipotence of a Hitler.”
00:05:18
Speaker 2: There could have been no stronger appeten. And of course, the decision to change the date became known as Franksgiving. Politicians and football coaches aside, the public sentiment ran heavily against Roosevelt’s plan. The Gallup Organization published the results of a national poll taken ten days after Roosevelt’s announcement of the date change. Only 38 percent of Americans favored the change, while 62 percent disapproved. Survey shows that if a party of Americans, and particularly Republicans, are in favor of letting the nation’s turkeys live a week longer. By 1941, it was clear that this was a mistake. The public didn’t like it. The economics statistics indicated that this wasn’t working. People were not spending more money. The Wall Street Journal reported the results of a survey conducted by the New York City Department of Commerce. A headline in The Wall Street Journal said:
00:06:32
Speaker 1: “Early Thanksgiving not worth extra turkey or.”
00:06:36
Speaker 2: No. Roosevelt was very charming. He made the decision that this had been a bad idea and announced that 1941 would be the last year that the United States would celebrate Thanksgiving on the 3rd Thursday, and that the experiment had failed. Starting in 1942, Thanksgiving would revert to the last Thursday of the month. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt went to Warm Springs, Georgia, where Roosevelt had set up a program for children who had polio. They went there every year. The President was carving the turkeys for the patients. The polio patients were preparing an entertainment. After the program, Roosevelt delivered impromptu remarks. He made a lighthearted reference to his failed campaign about changing the date of Thanksgiving.
00:07:37
Speaker 3: Three years ago, I discovered I was particularly fond of turkey, so we started to have two Thanksgivings.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: But then his tones turned somber, and he reminded the audience that here in America we could be thankful for peace that had lasted since the end of World War I in nineteen eight team. Most of the world was at war.
00:08:03
Speaker 3: We need to be thoroughly thankful that these years of peace were given to us. It may be that the next Thanksgiving, these boys at the Military Academy and the Naval Academy, the ones who have been playing football that afternoon, will be actually fighting for the defense of American institutions.
00:08:28
Speaker 2: Uptil done. Roosevelt had, in his public statements, given the oppression that America was not going to go to war, but here was a reference to the possibility that that could happen. And indeed, eight days later, the following Sunday, Pearl Harbor took place, and, of course, America went to war. As for the date of Thanksgiving, what happened next was the Congress pastor resolution making official that was mandated that Thanksgiving be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. It became law in 1942. The first Thanksgiving, Roosevelt’s proclamation was beautiful. Roosevelt didn’t usually dwell on his faith, but on Thanksgiving Day, 1942, he did. He read his Thanksgiving proclamation on the radio, and at the end he read the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is My Shepherd,” a scripture reading that is often used to give comfort to those who were grieving. It was a poignant choice and a very effective one for a nation whose men were over in Europe, fighting and dying.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in Greek pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. They comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over.
00:10:40
Speaker 1: The story of FDR’s failed attempt to change an American tradition. Here on Our American Stories.
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