http://www.abajournal.com/gallery/turkey_pardons/1301
Why we pardon Thanksgiving turkeys
Origins of our modern Thanksgiving
Often we think our national traditions are older than they really are. For example, Thanksgiving. While it is true that the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag had a harvest feast at the Plymouth colony in 1621, Thanksgiving was not an annual occurence until much, much later. (And rivals for the “first” Thanksgiving held in America include celebrations by a 1541 Spanish expedition led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in the Texas panhandle; by French Huguenots near modern-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1564; and by the Jamestown colony in 1610, according to the Library of Congress.)
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/thanksgiving/timeline/1541.html
Spanish explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, led 1,500 men in a thanksgiving celebration at the Palo Duro Canyon. Coronado's expedition traveled north from Mexico City in 1540 in search of gold. The group camped alongside the canyon, in the modern-day Texas Panhandle, for two weeks in the spring of 1541. The Texas Society Daughters of the American Colonists commemorated the event as the "first Thanksgiving" in 1959.
Why we pardon Thanksgiving turkeys
In the early years of the nation
Artist Jean Louis Gerome Ferris’ idea of what the first Thanksgiving would have looked like, painted sometime between 1900 and 1920.
Declaring a national day of thanksgiving used to be done to celebrate a specific joyful or somber event. In 1777, the Continental Congress proclaimed a national Thanksgiving after the U.S. victory over the British in the Battle of Saratoga in October.
In 1789, the year the U.S. Constitution went into effect, President George Washington declared that Nov. 26 would be a national day of thanksgiving, at the urging of the Congress. No turkeys were reported pardoned, but “President Washington later provided money, food, and beer to debtors spending the holiday in a New York City jail,” according to the Library of Congress.
Although President John Adams later followed suit by declaring other national thanksgivings, Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams declined to do so. President James Madison declared three days of national thanksgiving to mark the end of the War of 1812, but they were not held in November as we have become accustomed to; rather, they were Aug. 20, 1812, Sept. 9, 1813, and Jan. 12, 1815.
The 1815 celebration would be the last national thanksgiving for 48 years.
Why we pardon Thanksgiving turkeys
Mother of Thanksgiving
The woman we owe our modern Thanksgiving to is Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the popular 19th century magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book (and author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”) In 1846, she decided that Thanksgiving should be revived and made into an annual national holiday. She spent the next 17 years writing to state and national government officials to plead her case. (Pictured on the right is one of her letters to President Abraham Lincoln, advocating for Thanksgiving.)
Finally, in 1863, President Lincoln acquiesced. From that year forward, the United States would often celebrate Thanksgiving on a Thursday in November, though the week of the holiday shifted and it was not a fixed national holiday.
Tad Lincoln, Turkey Savior
President Lincoln was not only the founder of the modern Thanksgiving; he was also the first to pardon a turkey, as this (inset) clip printed in the Hartford Courantin 1865 attests:
“Mr Gay, of the Old Market, sent two enormous Narragansett turkeys to the President last winter. When notified of the gift, Mr. Lincoln said he hoped they were not sent alive, or he never would get a dinner from either one of them; for at Thanksgiving someone sent him a live turkey for the occasion, and Tad entered such a vehement protest against wringing his neck, that the idea of eating him was abandoned. The little fellow declared that the turkey had as good a right to live as any body, and the pampered gobbler remained in the President’s grounds.”
The Smithsonian also credits Tad Lincoln (seen at left, with his father) as the savior of the Jack, the Thanksgiving turkey.
Fit for a president
Though Tad’s turkey Jack may have escaped his rightful place on the president’s sideboard, presidents after Lincoln felt no such compunction. Turkey farmers competed on who could present the president with the best-bred and most beautifully presented turkeys. This 1921 photo shows a turkey bound for President Warren G. Harding’s table.
Making Thanksgiving a permanent holiday
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first to establish Thanksgiving Day as a permanent federal holiday, signing a congressional bill into law on Dec. 6, 1941 which said that henceforth, the fourth Thursday in November would be a legal holiday. The legislation was drafted after FDR’s decision in 1939 to declare the third Thursday in November as Thanksgiving to lengthen the Christmas shopping season. The public uproar was so great that it was decided the date of Thanksgiving needed to be set in perpetuity.
A somber Thanksgiving
President John F. Kennedy announced that he would not eat the turkey presented to him in 1963 by the California Turkey Advisory Board, and newspapers reported that the bird had been “pardoned,” according to the Smithsonian. Tragically, the president himself never made it to Thanksgiving that year; he was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, six days before the holiday.
According to the White House blog, starting with President Richard Nixon, the turkey annually presented by the National Turkey Federation would end its days in a petting zoo rather than on a platter.
The tradition is born
It was President George H.W. Bush who performed the first turkey pardoning ceremony in 1989. “He’s been granted a presidential pardon as of right now, allowing him to live out his days on a farm not far from here,” Bush told reporters at the event, the Smithsonian says. Bush continued to pardon a turkey every year he held office, and it became a national tradition carried out by each president following him.
The turkeys today
President Barack Obama will pardon his last turkey as President of the United States on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016. This video is from the 2015 ceremony, also attended by the First Daughters, Malia and Sasha. Turkeys “Honest” and “Abe” received reprieves from the dining table.
