When FDR moved Thanksgiving
November 27, 2014 8:48 AM   Subscribe

 
Well, at least no one accused him of ignoring the Bible.
posted by coldhotel at 9:03 AM on November 27, 2014


Interesting to see Godwin's law in full effect. What was the pre-Hitler equivalent?
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:15 AM on November 27, 2014 [3 favorites]


The monster Bonaparte.
posted by Nevin at 9:16 AM on November 27, 2014 [8 favorites]


See, back in the old days they knew how to balance things. On one side you had people trying to manipulate the public in order to serve business interests, and on the other you had people trying to manufacture public controversies to gain a partisan advantage. Kept everyone in check (especially the public). 'Twas a simpler time.
posted by Riki tiki at 9:21 AM on November 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


> What was the pre-Hitler equivalent?

I think it was actually the Spanish, e.g. "Remember the Maine!".

At least that's who I remember T. Herman Zweibel railing against.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:26 AM on November 27, 2014


What was the pre-Hitler equivalent?



The Perfidious Kaiser?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:32 AM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


He moved the date to boost retail sales, and yet pro-business republicans called him a dictator. The more things change...
posted by jabah at 9:41 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Hitler before Hitler was the The Pharoah, it turns out. It's nice living in a more secular age.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:44 AM on November 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


equivalent?

The "Asiatic despot".
posted by stbalbach at 9:47 AM on November 27, 2014


Although on one hand I am glad the move failed, since the Christmas "shopping season" is already too long by half, we have increasingly failed to hold the line and keep the forces of Christmas from infiltrating mid-November. So while we won the Thanksgiving Battle, it was but a delaying action in the War On Christmas, which I am sad to report is not going well.

In retrospect, Thanksgiving was always a difficult place to make a stand; without the benefit of an alliance with Crass Commercialism it was probably doomed from the start. Falling back to Halloween, where the candy companies have dug in and are prepared to offer solid resistance, is probably inevitable.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:36 AM on November 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


I'm from Canada and I assure you we have the best economy ever.
posted by RobotHero at 11:29 AM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Perfidious Kaiser?

My story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say "dickety" because the Kaiser had stolen our word "twenty". I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles.
- Abe Simpson
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:24 PM on November 27, 2014 [7 favorites]


Although on one hand I am glad the move failed

Actually, it was partially successful, as indicated in the article: It is now the fourth Thursday instead of the last Thursday in November. No more November 30th Thanksgivings, which is what started the whole thing.
posted by eye of newt at 12:55 PM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, which is manifestly an economic thing, but since fewer people actually get a harvest anymore, substituting that with a "harvest" of deals to get the economy going honestly isn't the worst thing ever.
posted by Small Dollar at 1:11 PM on November 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


"I would say practical progressive, which means that the Republican party or any political party has got to recognize the problems of a growing and complex industrial civilization. And I don't think the Republican party is really wide awake to that."

-Alf Landon

Oh snap.
posted by clavdivs at 1:50 PM on November 27, 2014


Republicans pounced, and used the move to portray Roosevelt as a power-mad tyrant. In an early example of Godwin's Law, FDR's recent presidential opponent Alf Landon said Roosevelt sprung his decision on "an unprepared country with the omnipotence of a Hitler." Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire suggested that while Roosevelt was at it, he should abolish winter.

This is the GOP's rhetoric in 1939. I forget all too easily that Reagan didn't invent the kind of cynical hyperbole that's endemic in this party.

I love "Franksgiving" though. He walked into that one, you have to admit.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:18 PM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


I learned last night that my grandparents were set to get married on Thanksgiving in 1939 because that's when my grandmother would be on Thanksgiving break from her teaching job. But then! Thanksgiving got moved! And lo, it was a "mad scramble" to get things ready a week earlier than planned.

THANKS FDR.
posted by altopower at 8:51 PM on November 28, 2014


Thanksgiving....the holiday of Manifest Destiny....in the early days, Americans were thankful they had a whole continent to conquer....they're thankful now, because they still imagine they control the world.
posted by eggtooth at 11:11 AM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]


You know, if we consider it as a harvest festival, maybe each state should set its own Thanksgiving. In Canada it's the second Monday in October, how does it make sense that if I cross over into North Dakota, suddenly it changes by more than a month? North Dakota harvest has a lot more in common with a Manitoba harvest than a Texas harvest.
posted by RobotHero at 11:54 AM on November 29, 2014


Yeah, I think the harvest thing has become totally un-moored from the manufactured holiday. To me, Thanksgiving will always be about the time my brother (age 10 or so) was driving the tractor pulling a rusty old horse-drawn hay rake. They're like an axle 12 feet long with a big iron wheel at each end, a whole bunch of spring steel tines at the back, and a guy in the middle who pulls a lever to lift the tines and dump the hay. You can go pretty fast back and forth in a field and rake all the hay into the middle. I was the one sitting on the rake when my brother caught the front of my dad's car with the hub sticking out of the axle. The wood tow bar broke in half and my end stuck into the ground, catapulting me into the air. I started running like a cartoon character and landed about a car-length (a 1962 Chev Bel-Aire station wagon, btw) away from the rake, and didn't even fall down. After that we brought the hay to the barn and forked it by hand into the hay loft (over a weekend, maybe).

That's probably why we were happy to have lots of turkey and pumpkin pie, and garden potatoes. Plus the weather is generally pretty nice that time of year (Canadian Thanksgiving in early October).
posted by sneebler at 4:54 PM on November 29, 2014


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