1. The English had a tradition of celebrating the end of the harvest season with a festival. The Indians also had a tradition of offering a feast of gratitude to their own harvest.

2. In the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims had just witnessed for the first time the colorful New England foliage. Preparation for winter had begun with the seasonal harvest for both Indians and Pilgrims.

3. The First Thanksgiving in 1621 was more likely in late September or early October.

4. The first Thanksgiving found 52 English and Chief Massasoit along with 90 of his men joining together to celebrate the harvest season together. Thursday was chosen as the first day because Pilgrims went to church of Sunday and Thursday.

5. Much of the menu consisted of duck, goose, striped bass, clams, lobsters, deer and turkey. They feasted and celebrated for three days. There were no large tables and the food was consumed by using knives and their fingers. The food was prepared and served by the five remaining women in Plymouth Colony.

6. Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale began the campaign for a Thanksgiving Day when she described the “good and true Yankee Thanksgiving” in her novel “Northwood” in 1827. In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the First National Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt moved the date up a week to stimulate the economy of the Depression. He hoped to encourage earlier holiday shopping. In 1941, the Congress enacted legislation to have the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day.

7. In 1920, Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia was the first to have a Thanksgiving Day Parade, followed by Macy's first Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924.


Rich Whalen