A Day In The Life Of A Cat

Thanksgiving History

The first record of a Thanksgiving feast was in 1621....and lasted for 3 days. They knew how to have a party!

The following year the harvest was so miserable that they skipped the big feast.....and they actually skipped it for the next 156 years.

Then, in 1777, the Thanksgiving spirit was reignited. It, however, continuted to be hit and miss in the coming years. A few presidents, Washington, Monroe, & Adams, tried to get Thanksgiving back on track, but failed. It was Philadelphia magazine editor Sarah Hale that got the Thanksgiving "butterball" rolling again. She felt that the American spirit was dying.

"We needed a day to celebrate home, heart and wholesome family values," she said.

Sarah started writing letters to everyone who would listen. She wrote these letters for 40 years! Writing to Congressmen, senators, city counsel members ~ they all heard from her...repeatedly. President Lincoln got so much "Hale Mail" that he finally declaried the last Thursday in November "Thanksgiving". Ms. Hale's vision came to be.

Then in the late 1930's, President Roosevelt got the bright idea to extend Thanksgiving to promote Christmas shopping....this wasn't part of Sarah's "family value" idea. Public backlash put Thanksgiving right back where it belonged and Christmas shopping was left out of it....well at least until the day after.

Now, keep in mind that Thanksgiving wasn't a holiday yet. It was a day to celebrate Sarah Hale's vision, but so far it wasn't the Thanksgiving we all know today. Most people worked on Thanksgiving and turkey wasn't even the traditional meal...I'll get to that in a minute. It wasn't until 1941 when congress scanctioned the 4th Thursday in November as a national holiday. This was just a week or two before Peral Harbor :(

Okay, so how did turkey come to be the traditional meal? After the war, the West Point tradition of serving turkey to the Army troops on Thanksgiving sparked the tradition. The Saturday Evening Post featured a Norman Rockwell