History of Thanksgiving

Jessica Mazzone
Every family has their own set traditions that they follow for each holiday, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. As for my family we always have Thanksgiving dinner out at my Grandma and Papa’s huge house and we will continue to do this for as long as we can (if we can keep getting the family together that is). Sometime traditions get hard to keep up when we grow up and start families of our own with our own new traditions based of our family’s old traditions. Have you ever wondered where we got these traditions from or how they got started?

Well most of us know the basic story of thanksgiving that we were taught back in elementary school, but no one ever told us the real stories behind some of the things we do or ways we celebrate.
Thanksgiving began back in 1621 when the Wampanoag Indians and the Plymouth colonists united and partook in what they called an “autumn harvest feast”. This event is the one that we were told of when we were younger that was known at the first “Thanksgiving”. As we all know the Pilgrims came over on a ship called the Mayflower in September of 1620. That first winter was brutal to the colonists and only half of them survived. After the winter a couple Indians who spoke English approached them and eventually taught them how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. The following year in November 1621 the pilgrims first corn harvest proved to be successful and the Governor put together a celebratory feast and invited a group of the colony’s Native American friends. Of course the meal then differed from what we think is the traditional Thanksgiving meal. It is said that the Wampanoag tribe came with five dear and many of the dishes were made using the Native American spices and cooking methods. With the pilgrims sugar supply having decreased so much over that year there were not pies, cakes or desserts, which have become a large part of our meals. The pilgrims continued to hold celebratory feasts for many different occasions.
The Continental Congress set aside one or more days of thanksgiving a year during the American
Revolution. Up until 1863, when President Lincoln announced during the Civil War that a national Thanksgiving Day was to be held every year in the month of November, many of the colonies celebrated Thanksgiving but never on the same day as any other colony. Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving Day shall be held on the final Thursday in November. Because of this the holiday was held that day until 1929 when F.D.R. moved it up one week so that it would help improve retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan didn’t go over so well and in 1941 he signed a bill moving Thanksgiving back to the fourth Thursday of November.
Many people say that Thanksgiving has lost much of its religious significance. Today Thanksgiving is used as a reason for families to gather and eat A LOT of food, but back in the day it was used as a celebratory feast and to give thanks that they, the Pilgrims, made it through the summer with a successful crop and hope they would make it through the brutal winters that are ahead.
Carry on with your families traditions so that maybe someday maybe your great-grandchildren will carry them on. Always remember where we get these traditions from and enjoy every memory that you make with your family over these gatherings.