Thanksgiving is almost upon America. While few women in their twenties can find the kitchen - let alone cook, a significant number of wives, mothers, grandmothers (or women in all three roles) will still wake up at an ungodly hour (about 4:00AM) to throw the turkey in the oven, clean the house and begin preparing the side dishes. Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans and lest we not forget dessert - apple and pumpkin pie. Along with these women, a larger and larger cadre of men are now taking part in what was once strictly women's terrain. The person saying 'Get out of my kitchen' these days may very well be the husband rather than the wife. As a larger percentage of men have been refused gainful employment by their society (shall we say economically emasculated?), these underemployed Y chromosome types can take some solace in being able to do what used to be a woman's job. Back in 1939, men were almost completely helpless in the kitchen. Cooking was synonymous with the female head of household. Of course, the man was officially considered the head of household by society at large, but everyone knew - even in the early twentieth century - where the real power lied..
Now that we're warmed up intellectually on the subject of Thanksgiving. It is time to serve the main course of this article. As you may remember, either by living or historically, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the US president for most of the 1930s. At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, a funny thing happened. At some point during the year, a few people noticed that Thanksgiving, which had been celebrated on the last Thursday of November since Lincoln's proclamation of the holiday in 1863, was to fall on the 30th - the last day of the month. Realizing that the period for Christmas shopping would be much shorter than usual, some business leaders asked FDR to fix Thanksgiving one week earlier on the 23rd in order for businesses to turn a greater profit and perhaps hire more people at a time of economic crisis. Roosevelt, who had far too much on his plate (pardon the pun) in trying to pass needed legislation through Congress to save the country from economic ruin, dismissed the request.
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Six years later, the exact same thing happened yet again. This time, however, Roosevelt opted to change the holiday to the 23rd to allow for a longer Christmas present-buying season to stimulate the economy. Now, keep in mind that Nazi Germany had attacked Poland on 1 September without provocation and was threatening to continue its conquests, but is that what America was talking about? Well, yes to some degree. Everyone, however, seemed to have something to say about Roosevelt's announcement on the re-scheduling of Thanksgiving. One of the first businesses to express their dismay was The Richman Brothers. Here is their thesis from an actual telegram that they sent to the White House via Western Union on 13 October 1933.
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'As America's largest clothing manufacturer, we desire to express our emphatic protest against the selfish attempt of a small group of stores to change the date of the Thanksgiving day.'
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If big businesses were worried about losing money to small businesses due to the change of Thanksgiving, small businesses had the exact same concerns. Consider this letter to Roosevelt on 15 August from Arnold's Hat Shop in Brooklyn, New York.
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'The small store keeper would prefer leaving Thanksgiving Day where it belongs. If the large department stores are overcrowded during the shorter shopping period, before Christmas, the overflow will come, naturally, to the neighborhood store.'
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Hence, large and small businesses - at least in some cases - perceived Roosevelt's Thanksgiving decision would adversely effect their sales in favor of the other. Both contentions, of course, cannot be true at the same time.
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What about the calendar makers? Was Roosevelt planning to make a similar decision in 1940? The Budget Press of Salem, Ohio was certainly chagrined in their letter to the president written on 15 August.
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'I am afraid your Thanksgiving is going to cause the calendar manufacturers untold grief. If very many customers demand 1940 calendars to correspond with your proclamation, hundreds of thousands of dollars will be lost by the calendar companies, and in many instances it will result in bankruptcy.'
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Apparently, the author of the Budget Press letter did not think Americans would be satisfied in simply crossing out 'Thanksgiving' on the 30th and writing the holiday in on the 23rd.
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Roosevelt's proclamation was ignored by several states. State houses across America entertained long debates and issued highly critical responses to the President's decision. Connecticut was one of the dissenting states and planned to celebrate Thanksgiving on the 30th as originally scripted. If you happened to be at college in New York, where Thanksgiving was being held on the 23rd, and a resident of Connecticut, where the holiday was still to be celebrated on the 30th, you would have a definite scheduling conflict on your hands. This was the case of one Eleanor Lucy Blydenburgh. Probably no more than 22 or 23 years old, her letter to FDR, written on 18 October 1939 from Brooklyn, is quite touching.
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'Your recent decision to change the date of our Thanksgiving Day has just taken effect here at the Pratt Institute. Our directors announced that our school vacation would begin on the 23rd of November and last until the 26th because New York, being your home state, is abiding by your decision. However, where I come from, Connecticut, they'll be observing it on the 30th of November as usual. Really, this situation makes my heart ache because I love the Thanksgiving Holidays as much if not a bit more than our Christmas holidays.
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Oh, I've missed another Thanksgiving at home with my parents because I was away at college and too far away to get home to celebrate with them and I didn't like being away at the time either but I see this is going to happen again.'
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On that poignant note of love and family, Kleostoday wishes you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving - wherever you are in the world.
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(Photo: A dapper Franklin Roosevelt cuts into a Thanksgiving turkey as wife Eleanor looks on)
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J Roquen