Thanksgiving or Franksgiving?

Everyone knows Thanksgiving is always on the 4th Thursday of November. However, that was not always the case. Before the year 1939 Thanksgiving was on the last Thursday of November. Sometimes this meant it landed on the 29th or 30th of November, which was actually the 5th Thursday.

In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States and he decided rather flippantly to change the date we celebrate Thanksgiving. Under some pressure from the head of the, Retail Dry Goods Association, a Mr. Lew Hahn, FDR moved Thanksgiving up one week to November 23rd.

The reasoning behind this move was to give shoppers more shopping days before Christmas. Of course this would mean more revenue for the nations retailers. Mr. Hahn complained that the years Thanksgiving landed on the 29th or 30th of November, there were only 3 weeks of shopping. He felt this wasn't adequate and would lead to poor economic sales during the all important holiday season.

So in 1939 FDR proclaimed Thanksgiving holiday to officially be on November 23rd instead of the 30th of that year.

This proclamation came with some mixed emotions. Roosevelt might have had more success with this new date if he hadn't waited until August to pronounce it, a mere 3 months before the holiday. Travel plans had been made and citizens weren't happy about having to change them for such dubious reasons. People started calling the new Thanksgiving date Franksgiving, a tongue and cheek jab at President Roosevelts' first name.

The new Thanksgiving date was observed by 22 states the first year. 23 states chose to keep the traditional date and the rest chose to celebrate both days. Since state Governors had the final say about when the holiday should be celebrated, the split was mostly along party lines.

The following year, 1940 saw the earlier date gaining more success with 32 states adhering to the new date.

By 1941 a commerce department study showed that the new Franksgiving holiday date had little to no effect on retail sales for the previous 2 years. Since this study came close to the 1941 Thanksgiving holiday, FDR decided to keep the new date for that year, but to go back to the original date in 1942.

Roosevelt also decided to change the holiday from being the final Thursday of November to being the 4th Thursday. This did away with the odd 5th Thursday. This new date pleased everyone involved and is the tradition that the United States has adhered to ever since.