Thanksgiving Trivia: The year Roosevelt changed the date

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a bold and controversial decision to move Thanksgiving up by a week, from the last Thursday in November to the second-to-last. The motivation behind this shift? To extend the holiday shopping season, giving retailers more time to capitalize on pre-Christmas sales during the lingering Great Depression. At the time, Thanksgiving marked the unofficial start of the shopping season, and Roosevelt hoped the change would help boost the economy.

However, the move was met with widespread backlash. While some states adopted the earlier date, others flatly refused, leading to a divided nation where different states celebrated Thanksgiving on different days. This confusion even led to jokes about “Franksgiving” and complaints from football leagues and businesses, as the shift interfered with longstanding holiday plans.

Franklin Roosevelt at Thanksgiving dinner

The controversy grew to the point that in 1941, just two years after his experiment, Roosevelt conceded and moved Thanksgiving back to its traditional spot—the last Thursday of November. Later that same year, Congress passed a resolution officially codifying the date as the fourth Thursday of November, ensuring the holiday would remain consistent across the country.

And thus, the modern Thanksgiving as we know it was restored, putting an end to the brief, contentious period of “two Thanksgivings” in America.