|
Thanksgiving History
Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in North America, generally observed as an expression of gratitude. The most common view of its origin is that it was to give thanks to God for the bounty of the autumn harvest. In the United States, the holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, where the harvest generally ends earlier in the year, the holiday is celebrated on the second Monday in October, which is observed as Columbus Day in the United States.
Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated with a feast shared amongst family and friends. In the United States, it is an important family holiday, and people often travel across the country to be with family members for the holiday. Many of the images commonly associated with Thanksgiving are derived from much older traditions of celebrating the autumn harvest. For example, the cornucopia (a horn-shaped basket overflowing with fruits and vegetables) is a typical emblem of Thanksgiving abundance that dates to ancient harvest festivals. In keeping with the idea of celebrating a plentiful harvest, preparing and eating a large meal is a central part of most Thanksgiving celebrations. Thanksgiving menus usually include turkey, bread-crumb stuffing, cranberry sauce, squash, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. These simple foods recall the rustic virtues of the Pilgrims. Additionally, most of these foods are native to North America, emphasizing the natural bounty that greeted early settlers in their adopted homeland.
According to tradition, the first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 by the English Pilgrims who had founded the Plymouth Colony, now in the state of Massachusetts. The Pilgrims marked the occasion by feasting with their Native American guests—members of the Wampanoag tribe—who brought gifts of food as a gesture of goodwill. Although this event was an important part of American colonial history, there is no evidence that any of the participants thought of the feast as a thanksgiving celebration. Two years later, during a period of drought, a day of fasting and prayer was changed to one of thanksgiving because rains came during the prayers. Gradually the custom prevailed among New Englanders to annually celebrate Thanksgiving after the harvest.
Colonial governments and, later, state
governments took up the Puritan custom of designating thanksgiving
In 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be the penultimate Thursday of November rather than the last. This was to give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas; at the time it was considered inappropriate to advertise goods for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. However, Roosevelt's declaration was not mandatory; some states went along with this recommendation and others did not. The United States Congress in 1941 split the difference and established that the holiday would occur annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes the next to last. On November 26 that year President Roosevelt signed this bill into US law that makes fourth Thursday of November as the official Thanksgiving Day.
| Back to Holiday Land | | Back to Our Home |
Page created: Oct 4, 2004 Last updated: Oct 4, 2004 Graphics are from Graphics by Irene, Graphics by Grace (not online anymore). |
The
origin of Thanksgiving probably traces to harvest festivals that have
become traditions in many parts of the world, such as Europe.
days to
commemorate various public events. Gradually the tradition of holding
annual thanksgiving holidays spread throughout New England and into other
states. During the American Revolution (1775-1783) the Continental
Congress proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving following the American
victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. U.S. President George
Washington proclaimed another day of thanksgiving in 1789 in honor of the
ratification of the Constitution of the United States. 