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The Legal History of Thanksgiving

The traditional imagery of Thanksgiving—turkeys, pilgrims with buckles on their hats, the whole ball of wax--gives the impression that it has been around as an American national holiday since the Mayflower. It is old—but only as a regional holiday. Its legal status as the national holiday we know today isn’t much older than many of the candidates for president in 2020.

Searching HeinOnline’s State Session Laws for “thanksgiving” and using the limiters for states and by date, you find that before 1860 Thanksgiving's regular observance was confined to New England and a smattering of other Eastern States.

The exception is 1814, when the war against the British formally concluded with the Treaty of Ghent. Considering the War of 1812 had involved the capital in D.C. being burned, a sigh of relief and a little cheer was in order.

Kentucky’s First Thanksgivings

Thus, the first occurrence of the word “thanksgiving” on the Kentucky statute books occurs when the General Assembly resolved to hold a “day of Humiliation and Thanksgiving to Him that rules the Universe” to celebrate the end of that war and to thank the Kentucky militiamen under Gen. Andrew Jackson “for their gallant defense of the city of New Orleans and their splendid victory” over the British. (1814 Ky. Acts p.237)

Kentucky is a good example of how Thanksgivings were handled. Each state proclaimed these days independently, either through the executive or legislative branch, and they often were not annual holidays but celebrated something in particular.

The state’s first fall Thanksgiving was proclaimed in 1844 by Governor Robert P. Letcher who set the date as the 26th of September. His day of “Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving” was to thank “Merciful Providence” for “abundant blessings,” including freedom from want, peace, and absence of plague.  Kentucky in 1844 had pulled its economy out of the economic depression sparked by the Panic of 1837 and Letcher wanted to mark that accomplishment.
However, the Louisville Courier for that day, while urging that Letcher’s example be followed by future governors, caught a little of the New England tradition by declaring “Pumpkin pies, forever!” (See ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Louisville Courier Journal (1830-2000) from the Ekstrom A-Z list.)

National Holiday Evolves

Thanksgiving as a regularly occurring national holiday can trace its roots to 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November. Presidents would continue to proclaim that day thereafter, although without legal effect except as it encouraged states to set the day as a holiday.

However, in 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt would break tradition when he proclaimed that the fourth Thursday of November would be Thanksgiving. FDR hoped the extra week of Christmas shopping would help retailers recover from the Great Depression.

Since the proclamation wasn’t legally binding, states went their own way with some choosing “Franksgiving” and others celebrating the later “Republican Thanksgiving” on November 30. (Melanie Kirkpatrick, “Happy Franksgiving,” Wall Street Journal (Nov. 24, 2009)) For those of you seeking a non-political Thanksgiving dinner in the “good old days,” I am sorry to disappoint, but if you want to see WSJ articles without a paywall, check out the Wall Street Journal Research Guide.

Thanksgiving is ‘Legalized’ 

It was in the dark days after Pearl Harbor that Congress finally placed Thanksgiving Day as celebrated on the Fourth Thursday of November in the roll of National Holidays. Thanksgiving was now the law.

(55 Statutes at Large 862 (Dec. 26, 1941), HeinOnline U.S. Statutes at Large Library)