Document of the Month - November - FDR Presidential Library & Museum (2024)

FAQs

Who changed Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November? ›

The House agreed to the amendment, and President Roosevelt signed the resolution on December 26, 1941, thus establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Thanksgiving holiday one week earlier than normal, believing that doing so would help bolster retail sales during one of the final years of the Great Depression. This led to much upheaval and protest, causing some to deride the holiday as Franksgiving.

Thomas Jefferson was famously the only Founding Father and early president who refused to declare days of thanksgiving and fasting in the United States.

Chaos ensued. In 1939, half of America celebrated Thanksgiving, and the other half celebrated “Franksgiving.” To boost the economy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to create an extra seven days of Christmas shopping.

There was another thing that Jefferson believed in, perhaps more strongly than anything else: He believed in the separation of church and state. While Thanksgiving technically isn't a religious holiday, the “giving thanks” part of it struck Jefferson as being far too religious for his tastes.

In 1789 Pres. George Washington decreed Thursday, November 26, as a day of public thanksgiving, but, in the years that followed, the holiday bounced informally from month to month and date to date. The last Thursday in November became the norm in 1863 with a declaration by Pres. Abraham Lincoln.

Others pinpoint 1637 as the true origin of Thanksgiving, since the Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor, John Winthrop, declared a day to celebrate colonial soldiers who had just slaughtered hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children in what is now Mystic, Connecticut.

President George Washington was the first to issue a proclamation for the holiday in 1789, designating Thursday, November 26 “for the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving.” This marked the first national celebration of the holiday under the new Constitution.

Franksgiving (1939–1941)

But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition. November had five Thursdays that year (instead of the more-common four), Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1939, Franklin Roosevelt carved the turkey at the annual Thanksgiving Dinner at Warm Springs, Georgia, and wished all Americans across the country a Happy Thanksgiving.

Which governor refused to celebrate Thanksgiving? ›

Virginia was the hotbed of anti-Thanksgiving sentiment. In 1853, Governor Joseph Johnson declined to declare a day of Thanksgiving for his state, citing Thomas Jefferson's firm doctrine of separating church and state.

But decades later, when Jefferson was president, he had turned against thanksgiving proclamations — privately complaining about them before publicly condemning them toward the end of his term.

There are only two surviving documents that reference the original Thanksgiving harvest meal. They describe a feast of freshly killed deer, assorted wildfowl, a bounty of cod and bass, and flint, a native variety of corn harvested by the Native Americans, which was eaten as corn bread and porridge.

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists from England and the Native American Wampanoag people shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states.

According to the National Turkey Federation, an estimated 88 percent of Americans consume Thanksgiving turkey each year. Per the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), this translates to more than 46 million turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving.

Roosevelt, that the fourth Thursday in November would be henceforth known as Thanksgiving Day. This decision was made following pressure from National Retail Dry Goods Association, as they wanted the holiday shopping season to be a little bit longer so customers would have more time to make purchases.

By moving the date back one week in 1939, from the thirtieth to the twenty-third, FDR hoped to aid retail business by producing a longer Christmas shopping season. But whatever he accomplished there, the commotion caused elsewhere hardly made it seem worthwhile.

In 1865, Thanksgiving was celebrated the first Thursday of November, because of a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson, and, in 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant chose the third Thursday for Thanksgiving Day.