Origins

The origins of Thanksgiving have been said to be based on the colonial Pilgrims’ 1621

harvest meal (The Plymouth Feast). According to a letter from Plymouth colonist Edward

Winslow dated December 11th, 1621, the colonists wanted to celebrate their 1st good crop

of corn grown with abundant assistance from the native Wampanoag Indians. English

colonists are said to have sent out 4 men to kill “as much fowl” as they could that day. They

then invited the king, Massasoit, and 90 of his men. The king brought the amount of 5 deer

to this party that would last 3 days. New Englanders would later promote it as the origin of

modern Thanksgiving. 

In the same year of the Revolutionary War, a group of Boston patriots published an

anti-British proclamation for a “Day of public Thanksgiving” throughout the Massachusetts

colony to be held November 23rd, 1775. 

George Washington calls for Thursday, December 18,1777, to be set aside for “Solemn

Thanksgiving and praise” after the victory of American continental forces over the British in

the Battle of Saratoga.

George Washington now serving as the first president of the United States calls for a

national day of Thanksgiving and prayer in gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War

on the date of November 26, 1789.

Sarah Josepha Hale began her 17-year-letter-writing campaign in November 1846 to

convince the presidents that it was time to make Thanksgiving official. 

President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving day

on October 3, 1863. 

The very first Thanksgiving football game was played between Princeton and Yale on

the date of November 30, 1876.

Macy’s Department store in New York city launched its first ever parade on

Thanksgiving day on November 27, 1924. The parade included live animals from the zoo,

but was later replaced by balloons on November 19, 1963.