Thanksgiving

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Gerry Bowler

A national holiday in the United States since 1863, Thanksgiving has come to play a number of important roles in popular culture. It was customary in Europe to hold days of thanksgiving both for successful harvests and for events such as military victories, deliverance from plagues, and royal births. The date and site of the first Thanksgiving in what is now the United States are still debated, but the most famous in pre-independence times was that held in October, 1621 in the Plymouth Colony. There, European immigrants, "the Pilgrims," and indigenous Wampanoag Indians celebrated the harvest season with feasting that included the dish that would become a traditional part of the day: turkey. Throughout the colonial era, days of thanksgiving were common, especially in New England, but not universal or regular. Although national days of thanksgiving were proclaimed by the Continental Congress in 1777 and by President Washington in 1789, there was no great clamor for an annual festival until the nineteenth century.

Credit for the establishment of Thanksgiving Day as a nation-wide holiday must go to Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, the editor of an influential women's magazine (and author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb") who lobbied legislatures and presidents from 1827 on. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a day of "thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens," and since then it has been an annual celebration, though the date has varied. From 1939-1941 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in response to the complaints of businessmen that there was insufficient shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, proclaimed Thanksgiving to be the third Thursday in November. This, however, created conflicts with the dating of the holiday in many states which had their own Thanksgiving legislation, so Congress in 1941 passed a joint resolution decreeing that the observance should fall on the fourth Thursday of November.

Thanksgiving, as a non-denominational harvest festival, is part of the American civic religion, able to be celebrated by people of any faith or none at all. It is marked by Pilgrim pageants, the decoration of schools, churches, and shopping malls with harvest themes, proclamations by politicians voicing gratitude for the country's prosperity, and the televising of college and professional football games. Above all, it is the day the extended family gathers for a dinner with a menu that has become stereotypical, almost invariably including turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Americans abroad observe the day (in a way they would not trouble themselves for Memorial Day or Presidents' Day, for example) and attempt to duplicate this traditional meal as best they can in a foreign setting. The illustrator Norman Rockwell's depictions of this family feast have become American icons.

Thanksgiving, in the shorthand of popular culture, stands for family togetherness for good or ill. Motion pictures such as Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) and Dutch (1991) have been built around the utter necessity of returning home, whatever the obstacles, for this holiday. The final scene of Raising Arizona (1987) is a dream sequence in which a dysfunctional and childless couple are blessed in the future by the arrival of children and grandchildren for a Rockwell-style Thanksgiving. On the other hand, films like The Ice Storm (1997) and Home for the Holidays (1995) use the Thanksgiving setting in a claustrophobic way to emphasize the troubles of a family gone wrong.

Thanksgiving also marks the semi-official launch of another holiday: Christmas. As early as 1889 a New York newspaper claimed that "as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten the great question of buying Christmas presents begins to take the terrifying shape it has come to assume." Thanksgiving Parades, especially Macy's in New York and that on Los Angeles' Santa Claus Lane, usher in the shopping season.