A Whole Lotta Turkey

By David Hunt, New Services

Would you eat less turkey and turn aside the cranberry sauce if I told you that practically nothing you learned about the Thanksgiving holiday is true? That's right, check out any of the growing number of Thanksgiving myth-buster Web sites and you'll find that most of our cherished Thanksgiving Day traditions are rooted in the 19th – not the 17th – century. 

That so-called "first Thanksgiving" celebrated by the Pilgrims and their American Indian neighbors probably wasn't the first Thanksgiving celebration in the New World, as settlers and explorers in Florida, Texas and Virginia all held Thanksgiving feasts long before the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. In fact, historians tell us it wasn't really a day of thanksgiving, as the term was then used. And it didn't involve many – if any – of the dishes we now serve to family and friends.

To find out what really happened at Plymouth Rock, I spoke with Dr. William Harris, professor emeritus in the Department of History at NC State. He was understandably cautious. 

"Nobody wants to disturb the Pilgrims' position in American tradition," he said.

Still, this is Raleigh – not Boston. We can handle the truth.

"New Englanders wrote the history of North America, so the story of the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving feast became embedded in our nation's history," Harris said. "But it was actually a common practice that went back to our European past. Even the Romans had some sort of Thanksgiving. It was a thing they did in the fall when the crops were in."

So if the Pilgrims didn't start the tradition – and didn't call it Thanksgiving Day – who did? The answer, not surprisingly, involves politics and the media.

A magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, began lobbying for an annual Thanksgiving Day observance in 1849. She wrote and published letters to presidents Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan but failed to convince any of them to set aside a day in November as a national holiday. But in 1863, with the tide turning in favor of the Union in the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln believed the nation had good reason to give thanks.

On Oct. 3, just a week after he dedicated a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa., Lincoln issued a proclamation inviting Americans to enjoy what would become an annual day of thanksgiving. Even then, it didn't become a national holiday – as opposed to a voluntary day of observance – until 1941, thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt.

Over the years, Madison Avenue has gotten in on the act, turning a simple expression of thanks into the holiday we recognize today – the day before Black Friday. But if you want to have a truly traditional Thanksgiving this year, pile your plate high with venison, grab a handful of dried corn, and say thanks to the people who helped you through the year.