Thanksgiving’s Sports Theme Consistent Over Time

The modern tradition of watching football on Thanksgiving day is not so far from what historians say took place many years ago.

"There were contests and races and other kinds of things, so in addition to a tradition of food, there was also athletics, if you want to draw it together with the tradition of football."

Ann Effland is an historian with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Most of us know that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and shortly there after celebrated their first harvest along with the local Indians. Effland says, fortunately, by the time they arrived, some of those local Indians were familiar with the English language and could help them out.

"They were taught to plant corn and squash and pumpkins, so that first celebration, when they had been able to grow enough, they knew they would have enough for the winter, they invited the nearby Indians who had been so important to their planting to join in a celebration of the harvest."

Effland admits that there is no evidence that any one ate turkey for dinner that first Thanksgiving though one pilgrim's journal indicates they did go out and shoot some kind of wild fowl. Following that first celebration, it was some 200 years before any traditional holiday observation was established.

"There had been a movement led by a woman, Sarah Josepha Hale, who was the editor of a popular ladies magazine who was leading a movement for a national holiday."

Her campaign finally paid off when Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, a celebration of home, hearth, and food.