The history of the White House Thanksgiving traditions date back more than 160 years to President Abraham Lincoln, who established the national holiday.
While in office, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for the celebration of Thanksgiving, triumphing over similar efforts by presidents who came before him, according to the National Park Service.
The official name of the annual national holiday is partly due to writer Sarah Josepha Hale. The NPS notes that in 1827, Hale – as editor of “Boston’s Ladies Magazine” – began writing essays calling for the national holiday. Finally, on September 18, 1863, she wrote a letter to Lincoln asking him to use his presidential powers to create the holiday.
Lincoln agreed, and a few weeks later, on October 3, 1863 – during the height of the Civil War – he issued the Thanksgiving Proclamation. The country has been celebrating Thanksgiving Day ever since.
But it was not until a bill was passed by Congress on December 26, 1941 that the holiday fell annually on the fourth Thursday of November.
Thanksgiving at the White House is usually relatively low-key and includes the tradition of pardoning lucky turkeys from their doomed fate at the dinner table.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
Presidential pardon for Turkey
According to the White House Historical Association, the first ever turkey pardon is believed to have been granted by Lincoln, as recorded by White House reporter Noah Brooks in an 1865 dispatch.
Lincoln had granted clemency to a turkey named Jack from his son Tad Lincoln, which was originally scheduled to be eaten at the family’s Christmas dinner in 1863.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
But the annual practice of the White House sending pardoned turkeys to a farm to live out their days didn’t occur until Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s, the WHHA says. Decades before that, presidents would occasionally receive turkeys from the poultry industry and decide not to eat them without an official pardon.
The WHHA notes that sending presentation turkeys to the president became a norm in 1981, and the pardon ceremonies quickly became a national sensation. In 1989, the annual tradition was established when President George HW Bush – as documented by the association – addressed the pardoned turkey and uttered the phrase that his successors still repeat during ceremonies today: “He has been granted a presidential pardon as of now .’
George Bush Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
President Biden on Monday granted the last two turkey pardons of his term, to Peach and Blossom, sending them on to spend the rest of their lives at Minnesota’s Farmamerica as poultry ambassadors for agricultural students.
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Gathering with family and friends
Turkey-giving spectacle aside, presidents spend Thanksgiving the same way households across the country do.
The first documented Thanksgiving gathering at the White House, according to the WHHA, dates back to November 28, 1878. Then-President Rutherford B. Hayes held a large Thanksgiving dinner with his family and private secretaries, after which he sang hymns in the Red Room and African-American invited staff to enjoy their own Thanksgiving meal in the State Dining Room.
The tradition has since stood the test of time. Economic hardship and times of war have forced presidents to make time for family. The WHHA notes that President Woodrow Wilson’s first Thanksgiving meal during World War I on November 29, 1917 was an economical meal – and one without cranberries.
In recent decades, presidents have adopted the tradition of celebrating the holiday outside the White House at their so-called “go-to” vacation spots. President Ronald Reagan traveled to the family ranch in Santa Barbara, California, in 1985.
President-elect Donald Trump spent all but one Thanksgiving of his first term at his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. President Biden has spent every Thanksgiving during his term in office with family in Nantucket, Massachusetts, as the Biden family has over 40 years.
