4 Common Thanksgiving Myths And The Real Facts Behind Them
VERIFY: 4 Common Thanksgiving Myths And The Real Facts Behind Them
Author: VERIFY, Terry Spry Jr.
Published: 4:08 PM EST November 23, 2020
The VERIFY team separated fact from fiction on 4 popular Thanksgiving myths including who started the turkey pardoning tradition and how Black Friday got its name.
Thanksgiving is almost here and with the annual festivities also comes years upon years of myths that have developed around one of the biggest holidays of the year for Americans. The myths, misconceptions and legends around Thanksgiving predate the internet, yet have persisted in the digital world all the same. Here are four common Thanksgiving myths, all of which are false, and the truth behind the holiday weekend’s various stories.
MYTH: Thanksgiving has been celebrated every year since the nation’s founding
According to the National Archives, George Washington issued a proclamation that named Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a "Day of Publick Thanksgivin".
At that point, however, Thanksgiving wasn’t codified into law as an annual holiday. It was up to the sitting president to declare a day of “Thanksgiving and Prayer” and set the day and month for the holiday. And there were some years where no such day was declared.
For example, Thomas Jefferson opted against it while president. Monticello says Jefferson was against it because of his beliefs in separating religion from the government. Back then, Thanksgiving days were more religious-focused holidays. Thanksgiving was established as one of the first four federal holidays in 1870, when Congress passed the Holiday Act. That law established Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and Independence Day as holidays, but Thanksgiving was the only one where the president had the discretion to set the date each year.
By that time, Thanksgiving already had an informal date. Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation set Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November and subsequent presidents had followed that precedent.
However, Thanksgiving would have fallen on the last day of the month in 1939, so Franklin Roosevelt moved it to the month’s second-to-last Thursday because he worried a shortened Christmas season would dampen the nation’s recovery from the Great Depression. Some states defied the president’s move and made it state law that Thanksgiving was the last Thursday and so Congress sought to set a fixed date for the holiday to combat the confusion. A law was passed in 1941 that set Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November.
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