In 1876, just three years before Hale’s death, the first Thanksgiving Day football game was played between Yale and Princeton, for the American Intercollegiate Football Association championship—though the game still evidenced its rugby roots. In the years to come, those two teams soon became Thanksgiving Day regulars, and it was not long before numerous high school and college football teams began to hold games on the holiday. It may not have been what Hale envisioned, but traditions evolve, often in unexpected ways and for unpredictable reasons.
In Sarah Josepha Hale’s own lifetime, the celebration and tradition of thanksgiving had morphed between and conflated cultural, ancient, religious, and secular customs. Establishing a national day—not a date—associated with giving thanks allowed for increased coalescing around what was becoming a newly fixed, yet increasingly malleable tradition. In addition to her campaigning for the holiday itself, Hale’s endless hostessing tips and descriptions for how one might best celebrate—whether discussing the overladen table in her novel Northwood, or sharing her white wine vinegar dressing for fish or “soodjee” with the readers of the Lady’s Book—further codified the event.
Some concepts surrounding a thanksgiving commemoration eventually became somewhat less frequent however, including the issuance of presidential proclamations for days of thanksgiving other than the one that now fell at the end of November. The custom of proclaiming days of fasting and prayer, or thanksgivings for various military achievements, slowly ebbed and fell away without much notice, like the last few scraps off a turkey’s carcass. President Benjamin Harrison, in April 1889, issued a proclamation of thanksgiving to honor the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration. The thanksgiving proclamations that remained, year after year, were those pertaining to the holiday Hale had envisioned.
In the 1890s, the media took note of the cultural landscape of the day, some noting that in years past the holiday might have been given scant notice, whereas it was now a main fixture on the calendar. The celebration of the holiday also became a reflection of the nation’s changing population. The turn of the century saw a drastic increase in immigrant communities throughout the country, especially in major metropolitan areas.
In honor of Thanksgiving Day in 1897, the Chicago Tribune highlighted varying celebrations among the different ethnic groups within their city. “Alien Residents of Chicago Feel Spirit of Thanks” was the title of just one article on a two-page spread in the newspaper. “Foreign born citizens of America will see to it that the observance of Thanksgiving . . . does not pass away. . . . Investigation shows that if the old-time ‘rejoicing after the harvest’ is losing any of the essence of praise and gratitude, it is losing it among the very people who express the fear that it may be lost. As the American loosens his grip upon this feast of his fathers, the foreigner tightens his grasp and last hold on that which he considered good.” The newspaper shared stories from a local fisherman—“Peg” Ecks—who caught his dinner in Lake Michigan and “dined in solitude on the Lake Shore within the shadow of millionaires’ homes.” Editors also visited the Polish, Italian, Swedish, German, French, and “Bohemian” communities, describing how each chose to celebrate in their adopted home. “There are three kinds of Bohemians in Chicago . . . ,” the editors wrote, “the Hussites, the Catholics, and the Free Thinkers, but one and all will celebrate this semi-religious and purely American festival of Thanksgiving.”
The publication further captured the evolution of the day, writing, “I have noticed the growth of the Thanksgiving spirit, in a holiday sense, among the Bohemians and among other people of foreign birth. It may seem passing strange one day if the life of the festival depends upon those to whom its spirit was at one time thought foreign.”
Not to be left out, the non–meat eaters of the city celebrated as well, and the menu at the Vegetarian club of the University of Chicago included mock turtle soup with quenelles, chartreuse of cranberries, and potatoes en pyramid with mushrooms.
Of course, one of the key tenets of Hale’s holiday, as well as thanksgivings and harvest festivals since time immemorial, remained intact: the concept of gratitude. And by the turn of the twentieth century, charity, too, became even more closely associated with the thanksgiving holiday and was encouraged as a means of celebrating the day.
“While we all give thanks, truly and from grateful hearts, ‘let us scatter beams of sunshine,’” wrote the editors of the New Education in their November 1898 edition. The stated aim of the monthly publication out of New York City was “inspiration,” its motto “Not what we promise—but what we do.” Subscriptions were one dollar a year and advertising rates three dollars per column inch. The publication featured book reviews and language lessons, readings in geography and advice on writing, poetry, and history. With regard to Thanksgiving Day, the opening editorial reminded readers to remember those who had gone to the “land of perpetual thanksgiving” since the previous year. “Can we not put aside our pleasures for an hour or two, and ‘weep with those who weep’ at this, their first lonely Thanksgiving Day? . . . And let us all try to see the bright side more, the dull one less, and to emphasize the blessings instead of always mentioning the afflictions which must drop into every life, and which we must not, therefore, expect to escape. But even these have a bright side, if only we will learn to look for it. . . . Let us be thankful . . . to develop the ‘bettermost’ side of ourselves, and at the same time not forget those who need our help. . . . And finally, let us be doubly grateful for the troubles that we have escaped!”
Hale and her role in the custom were not mentioned in that lengthy editorial, nor in the extensive spread in the Tribune. But as the twentieth century dawned, distance increased from Lincoln’s proclamation, the tradition seemed firmly fixed on the November calendar, and the media began to look back at what they thought were the origins of the holiday. Lincoln was most often credited, but Sarah Josepha Hale’s name was eventually included in these backward glances.
A two-page spread in a November 1916 issue of the Journal and Tribune out of Knoxville, Tennessee, announced: “Thanksgiving Proclamations of Our Presidents: The Evolution of Thanksgiving Documents from George Washington’s Quill Pen Proclamation to President Wilson’s Call to Thanksgiving Written by Himself on a Typewriter.” The newspaper offered a survey of sorts of the holiday over the years, stating, “Our Thanksgiving Day belongs to all the people of our land, of whatever creed or race.” The article asserted that the holiday’s roots reached back to Holland in 1575, where the “English pilgrims” lived before traveling to what would become Massachusetts. The piece also devoted a significant section to Hale and asserted there was much to be thankful for in 1916, as the United States had avoided the “ravages of war.” In five months, that would all change.
President Woodrow Wilson’s 1916 Thanksgiving Day proclamation referenced the conflict already tearing Europe apart. “In the midst of our peace and happiness,” Wilson wrote, “our thoughts dwell with painful disquiet upon the struggles and sufferings of the nations at war and of the peoples upon whom war has brought disaster without choice or possibility of escape on their part. We cannot think of our own happiness without thinking also of their pitiful distress.”
By the following April, the United States declared war on Germany.
No one had seen anything like the Great War in their lifetime, and all corners of the nation felt its effects. Thanksgiving itself, during wartime, was tweaked by many to reflect the current struggle. The United States Food Administration—headed by Herbert Hoover—had already established a number of food-saving efforts, including “meatless Monday” and “wheatless Wednesday” (both of which maintain popularity in America today). USFA posters and propaganda insisted “Food will win the war,” and implored families to sign petitions stating they would adhere to the restrictions. As the holiday approached, the agency and the media urged citizens to “Hooverize” their thanksgivings, in order to better reserve supplies and food stores for troops and allies overseas. Businesses and hotels complied as well. One newspaper in Santa Barbara, California, offered menus that could be tailored to these patriotic suggestions. The menus were “guaranteed,” the paper promised, “to do justice to the occasion and at the same time conserve the food most needed for the successful prosecution of the war.”
Similar advice was found in publications across the country, and the suggestions were variations on common culinary themes: No granulated sugar in the cranberry sauce or in pies—use brown sugar or molasses instead. No meat “in the making of your soup.”
So when the holiday in that war-torn year came around, the press suggested stuffing the turkey with oysters or chestnuts to save bread. Making plum pudding egg-free. Ice cream was suggested for dessert, and though it fell on what one newspaper described as “ice-creamless Thursday,” it was assumed that an exception would be made for the holiday.
In his proclamation of 1917, President Wilson wrote that stopping to give thanks was a “custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.”
One year hence, in November 1918, the war was over. Germany and the allies signed their armistice agreement on November 11.
One reader wrote to the New York Times on Armistice Day, likening the day’s rejoicing to a thanksgiving, calling it the “most spontaneous, and, on the whole, the most generous in spirit of any within the memory of the present generation.” The letter continued, “Should not the spirit of this day be perpetuated? Would not humanity be the better for a universal holiday consecrated to international ideals, to brotherly love among peoples? . . . Is there not a place at this season of the year for a holiday devoted to the feeling of thanksgiving and of human brotherhood, and can these feelings be associated with any event better than with that to to-day, when peace, we hope permanent, has been given to the world?”
Wilson’s proclamation for Thanksgiving Day 1918 was issued on November 16, just five days after the signing of the armistice.
“It has long been our custom to turn in the autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving,” the president began. “This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice. God has in His good pleasure given us peace.”
It was a lot to be thankful for, in America and far beyond her shores, but despite the coming cessation of hostilities, the world did not enjoy freedom from concern that year. There was yet another foe to be bested, one that had been ravaging citizens across the globe since January.
Eventually killing more than fifty million people throughout the world—quite possibly more—the influenza pandemic took the lives of 675,000 individuals in the United States alone. The so-called Spanish flu was an H1N1 virus that devastated the planet, snuffing out people from all walks of life, even the young and healthy. Its grasp reached all corners of the earth, even the Arctic, and the number of infections was estimated to be one-third of the world’s population—nearly five hundred million. The war had played a role in its spread as well, as did a reluctance to act early on in the epidemic. When censors decided to downplay the severity of the deadly illness in order to keep morale up during the war, the resulting failure to act more decisively and critically would prove deadly for millions.
Then the flu mutated, shifting in order to survive, and created an even more deadly second wave, which hit the United States and other countries still months before the war’s end. The deadliest month of the Spanish flu was October 1918. November’s thanksgiving would necessarily be very different—especially since the most effective way of preventing infections was isolation, quarantine, and a limit on public gatherings.
The joy and relief of the end of the Great War was overshadowed by this invisible, deadly enemy. There was a desire for unity, coming together with loved ones who had been in harm’s way, or uniting around the memory of those who would be at the table no more. But that quite human desire had to be quelled.
In a typical missive of the day, the November 28 issue of the Deseret Evening News in Salt Lake City, Utah, noted that the day was “impressively observed,” that “gratitude” for the war’s end was a staple sentiment of the occasion, and those less fortunate were remembered. However, there were “no public functions.” “The day is being observed also as a day for helping the needy and spreading good cheer,” the paper said, noting: “Quarantine interferes. Owing to the influenza quarantine, the day’s festivities . . . had to be postponed till Christmas day. But Thanksgiving services of some sort are being held in nearly every home. . . . Many others, including state and city officials, have expressed the opinion that this should be the most important thanksgiving day in the history of the country.” There would be food at the hospitals, infirmaries and jails, but “Because the influenza quarantine prevents public gatherings, the day in Utah is being observed quietly and without any spectacular features.”
Some state entities, such as the state board of health in Nebraska, warned citizens to be specifically aware of the potential for a flu flare-up during the holiday weekend. The desire to join together overrode common sense for some. In Ohio, for example, festivities proved calamitous. The Ohio State Journal reported that twenty-seven new cases of influenza could be traced to a single family meal on Thanksgiving Day:
“27 Ill as a Result of Holiday Party”—Family Dinner on Thanksgiving Spread the Flu, Dr. Kahn Says
The horror of the epidemic swept into the Christmas season as well. A week after thanksgiving, the St. Paul Daily News in Minnesota announced, “Santa Claus is Down with the Flu—Appearances in Minneapolis Stores Banned—10 More St. Paul Deaths.”
There were those who looked to the spirit of thanksgiving despite the circumstances. In Davenport, Iowa, the newspaper proclaimed “an excellent cause for thankfulness,” as the town reported only 83 cases of flu on Thanksgiving Day—down from 147 the day before.
Many soldiers were still abroad in late November. “A Solemn Day Overseas,” the Kansas City Star reported. “Yanks Observe the Nation’s Most Heartfelt Thanksgiving.” The article described troops camped along the Moselle and Sauer rivers, awaiting their time to march into Prussia and having their own celebration, with a feast of extra rations and an afternoon of games in camp. Though turkey was not necessarily on the menu, the “Salvation Army lassies and Red Cross girls” baked pies and made doughnuts for the soldiers. The local villages quartering American troops decorated their homes with evergreens. The newspaper noted that two and a half million Americans were in Europe observing the “most solemn and heartfelt Thanksgiving since the birth of the Nation.”
But some in the states were ready for a particular thanksgiving tradition to end—one neither Hale nor anyone before her had anticipated.
“On Thanksgiving Day, in a walk of six blocks, I was accosted by thirty boys and girls in grotesque costume,” a reader wrote to the editor of the New York Times, “each of whom demanded money for Thanksgiving. . . . Is there no way in which the thing can be put a stop to?” The letter was signed, “An American.”
The strange tradition of “thanksgiving masking” had been going on for decades, and by the end of the century it was customary for children and adults in costume to hit the streets dressed as political and historic figures. Shops did a brisk business in the sale of masks as well as candies, which they began to display alongside one another during the season. There were horned adults and confetti-strewn streets, with popular costumes including the “ragamuffin.” Kids dressed in tattered clothing wandered the streets asking strangers for money or treats. This particular outfit and practice became so popular in New York that the city had a nickname for the holiday: “Ragamuffin Day.” On occasion, the streets of the metropolis even hosted ragamuffin parades.
As the twentieth century progressed, this strange tradition died away, eventually replaced by another treat-seeking, masking tradition: Halloween. And the tradition of parades would be elevated to new prominence, as thanksgiving’s personality morphed yet again.
In August 1920, the Wilson administration and the nation saw the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Though Hale had not lobbied actively for that right during her lifetime, it seems a development that she may have applauded and likely would have written about in the pages of the Lady’s Book. Prohibition had gone into effect in January, perhaps limiting the tenor of celebration of that or any other subsequent event.
The American Professional Football Association (later the NFL) was also born that year. On Thanksgiving Day, the Akron Pros defeated the Canton Bulldogs 7–0, and it helped earn them the championship title—which at the time was based on win record rather than on a specific game. As champions, the Akron players earned a football-shaped gold fob. In the coming years, the sport would continue to be associated with the holiday in grand form. It was a needed bright spot in a somewhat dismal year for sports. Just a month earlier, in October 1920, other sporting news was darker, with the Chicago White Sox being dubbed the “Black Sox” in the papers for throwing the 1919 World Series.
Election Day, November 2, 1920, heralded a landslide victory for Warren G. Harding and his veep, Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge. The country appeared to be moving in a more peaceful direction. Coming off the flu and the war, Americans craved joy and diversion—and maybe a drink. The former was easily obtained. The latter, well, not for some time yet.
With a bit of distance from the war and the spirit of the Roaring Twenties starting to rear its illicit, gin-soaked head, the holiday season was set to be a promising one—especially for shopkeepers and businesses. Over the years, thanksgiving activities had become more closely associated with Christmas shopping. Advertising for that December fete had become increasingly common in November. Gimbel Brothers Department Store in Philadelphia was no different; their advertising kicked into high gear come November.
“Gimbel Toy Store leads the town!” one such ad proclaimed. “Let no child miss it.—Gimbels, Philadelphia, Fourth floor.” Gimbel Brothers advertised “pre-war prices or lower” for their lace lingerie. Crepe de chine bloomers were $1.85 and $2.95. “And the cutest ‘Creepers’” (a blousier version of a romper for babies and toddlers) at “$2.95 and $3.95.” On the same ad-packed page came a suggestion to “give pleasure to a lot of children who can’t do a thing for you in return. Bring them—in the mornings—to the Gimbel Toy Store. Have them ride on real ponies.”
But ten days later, Gimbel Brothers Department Store changed the holiday game forever when fifty of their employees, many dressed as elves, marched from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to Eighth and Market Streets. Ellis Gimbel, in a clever marketing move, had the affair culminate inside the store’s “Toyland.” Upon reaching Gimbels, the parade’s featured reveler, Santa—looking perhaps more like a thief in the night than a jolly old soul—scaled five stories of the department store’s exterior with the help of the fire department and entered not through a chimney, but through a window, and into the store. There he waited to welcome shoppers. It was not, however, the nation’s first holiday parade. That distinction went to the Santa Claus Parade of Peoria, Illinois, first held in 1887 and continuing to this day. But thanksgiving parades were about to become an even greater spectacle.
In 1924, four years after Gimbel Brothers held their 1920 procession through the streets of Philadelphia, the R. H. Macy & Company store in New York City upped the ante. In what must have seemed an audacious move, the department store unveiled what was then called the Macy’s Christmas Parade. There were bands and horse-drawn floats, shrewdly designed to match Macy’s Christmas window displays. That year, the windows were adorned with scenes from the Mother Goose rhymes, including “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.” Employees in costume marched in the parade as well. Animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo appeared, too—among them elephants, camels, and bears. The passenger on the very last float was Santa Claus. Not to be outdone, Gimbels stepped up its game in 1925, adding many more floats and lengthening its route, which it posted in full in at least one Philadelphia newspaper.
These marvelous new spectacles were not without incident. In 1930, the Gimbels Santa float got stuck in trolley tracks that lined the streets of Philadelphia—and Santa got tossed from his “sleigh” and ended up at Hahnemann Hospital. Old Nick pulled through and made it back in time to climb through the window and help Gimbels sell toys.
Despite new parades and pomp surrounding this growing holiday tradition, thanksgiving still existed at the behest of the commander in chief, as well as state governors, who annually decided whether they would follow suit with the day the president had chosen. In fact, few Americans ever paid attention to the annual proclamations, as that late November Thursday had become an entrenched custom.
That is, until 1939.
The 1939 thanksgiving proclamation would turn out to be unique for several reasons. At the time there were far more immediate concerns for the country, and the future of the holiday was hardly foremost in people’s minds, if only because its occurrence had long been taken for granted. Yet the tradition passionately campaigned for by Hale and maintained annually by presidents from Lincoln on was, in fact, nearly upended on Roosevelt’s watch—and it was also during his tenure that thanksgiving achieved a major milestone, one Hale had long desired but never lived to see.