Narrator (00:01):
Think you know all about Thanksgiving? Think again. What commonly-held truth about turkey is really a lie? What secret about the Pilgrims is never taught to grade schoolers? What Macy's Parade highlight was banned eight decades ago? We're going to shatter myths and unveil the shocking facts. From the calories the typical American downs on the holiday, to the presidential blunder that gave us a year with two Thanksgivings. So, get set to gobble up The Real Story of Thanksgiving.
(00:47)
The turkey farm is to Thanksgiving what the North Pole is to Christmas, it all begins here. The star at 46 million Thanksgiving dinner tables will be what is arguably the world's ugliest bird. Your entree might be right inside. Bongi's turkey Roost near Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Steven Gillon (01:09):
We get the turkeys when they're one day old and we raise them to full maturity, somewhere between 20 and 24 weeks.
Narrator (01:19):
Bongi's raises between 6,000 and 7,000 turkeys each year, just a fraction of the 250 million bred annually in the United States. Unlike wild turkeys, most domesticated birds are snow white, it makes for a cleaner-looking dressed bird. The demand keeps rising. Since Americans eat twice as much turkey as they did a generation ago. That's good news for Bongi's, if it survives the November crush.
Steven Gillon (01:48):
Our busiest week of the year is definitely Thanksgiving week. And the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday prior to Thanksgiving are our three busiest days of the year.
Narrator (01:57):
And a staggering 91% of Americans devour turkey every Thanksgiving. It's an enduring hallmark of the holiday that sees two great American traits collide, excess and sentiment. Once a year on the fourth Thursday in November, we gather to give thanks and chow down.
Melanie Roderick (02:21):
Thanksgiving is a wonderful day because it's not too political, it's not tied to any one religion, it's not too expensive. It's the perfect excuse for a great meal with your family and friends to enjoy some football and to step away from the chaos of everyday life.
Narrator (02:38):
When we nod off on the sofa after prying ourselves from the table, we blame the turkey. That's because turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid that triggers a tranquilizing sensation. But does turkey really make us sleepy?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
There's this myth that's been flowing around for years that if you consume turkey on Thanksgiving, the tryptophan in the turkey is going to put you to sleep. We know that's not true. There is tryptophan in the turkey, but it's actually less than chicken breast and less than cheese. The reason why people feel sleepy on Thanksgiving is simply because of the amount of carbs that we consume, plus a little alcohol that we might've consumed, and the exhaustion of setting up the meal and eating the meal. It has nothing to do with the tryptophan in the turkey.
Narrator (03:28):
Even if the bad rap sticks, no entree's ever going to take the turkey's place on the Thanksgiving table. That tradition's been a lock for centuries, but why? Why is turkey the main dish at Thanksgiving?
James Baker (03:43):
In English custom, a true celebration had some status main dish. And status main dishes were either fowl our game. Well, game is no great shakes in early America, everybody can do that, but fowl is still important. You want this fowl? You want this wonderful, important and expensive luxury bird. And the biggest luxury bird's the best and the biggest bird available here is the turkey.
Narrator (04:13):
The turkey also had a champion in one of colonial America's leading opinion makers, Benjamin Franklin. In a 1784 letter to his daughter, Franklin jokingly proposed it replaced the bald eagle as our national symbol.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Franklin's obsession with the turkey is very characteristic of Franklin. I mean, Franklin was this great, very funny man of the 18th century. He was the best-known American of the colonial period and he also had these very quirky tastes, and so it's perfect that Franklin would reject the idea let's have an eagle because that just strikes so much about European monarchy and royalty and he doesn't seem to care about that.
Narrator (04:52):
Franklin wrote that the eagle was dishonest, lazy, and had bad moral character, but the turkey was a bird of courage.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
When Franklin has himself depicted wearing that raccoon skin cap, it's a celebration of the American forest and what comes out of it. So, it's not at all surprising that he would think the turkey should be the national bird.
Narrator (05:13):
His argument laid an egg, but his love of the turkey may have helped ensure its lasting place on the Thanksgiving table. Although, the turkey is the centerpiece of virtually everyone's Thanksgiving, it's just a part of a gut-busting cavalcade of food. The typical American consumes around 3,600 calories on any given day, but on Thanksgiving Day that can balloon to 4,500 calories, nearly two and a half times the healthy limit.
(05:42)
For many, Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. American farmers grow 1 billion pounds of pumpkins every year. Nearly half comes from Illinois, home to the nation's leading supplier, Libby's. Canned pumpkin has been on grocery store shelves for over a century. Now, Libby's fills the crusts of 50 million pies every Thanksgiving. Ever wonder why we rely so much on the canned stuff instead of using fresh pumpkins?
Libby O'Connell (06:15):
It's actually not such a good idea to make pie out of your big pumpkin that you use for a jack-o-lantern. Those were bred for looks, not for taste. There are pumpkins you can buy specifically for baking. They're smaller and called sugar pumpkins or you can use the canned pumpkin.
Narrator (06:35):
Here's another Thanksgiving legend that just happens to be true. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, there are twice as many calls to plumbers as any other day of the year, and you can guess why.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Oh, yeah. The day after Thanksgiving is always busy, it never stops. We're talking about people throwing their food in the garbage disposal that they're not supposed to throw in their first.
Narrator (06:58):
One fact we're all sure of is that the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year, but is it?
Steven Gillon (07:06):
Sorry, but that's a complete myth. The day before Thanksgiving is not the busiest travel day of the year. It's not even close, actually.
Narrator (07:13):
Measured by the number of airline flights, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving doesn't even rank in the top-25 busiest days. So, what is the busiest air travel day of the year? It varies, but it's often a Friday, usually during June, July or August. In the 19th century, Thanksgiving travel of any significant distance was rare. Many Americans never ventured more than 50 miles from home, mostly on foot or by horsepower. Railroads changed that. By 1916, more than 250,000 miles of track crisscrossed the continent, carrying almost all interstate traffic. Then, the car revolutionized mobility. According to AAA surveys, many more Americans travel by road than by air on Thanksgiving. About 40 million drive 50 miles or longer, but that's no more congested than Labor Day or the 4th of July.
(08:17)
If busting the Thanksgiving travel myth seems like fun, wait until we tackle the myth of all myths about the holiday. That grade school story we all learned about the first Thanksgiving, it isn't true.
(08:37)
The story most of us know about Thanksgiving is the one we learned in grade school. The first Thanksgiving happened in 1621 after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts the previous year in the hostile new world, they triumphed over hardship with an abundant harvest, then invited a few native people for an historic turkey feast. We know the story well, but is it true?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You need a very short story to help elementary students and help immigrants coming in. What's the beginning of America? And so, the story is it's the Pilgrims and it's this first Thanksgiving. And that is what really makes Thanksgiving holiday the type of holiday that it is today. It's what all of us learned in elementary school. And even though we know it's a myth, it's still a wonderful story that we like to continue.
Narrator (09:30):
So, why does the myth endure? Partly because of school kids.
Libby O'Connell (09:35):
The way we imagine the first Thanksgiving is actually a myth sprinkled with some truth. Yes, there were settlers that we call Pilgrims today. Yes, Native Americans were there, but actually, the arrival of the Native Americans was sort of a surprise. Imagine if you had your family over for Thanksgiving and a whole other family arrived and said, "Hello, we're here." It's what was going on. But the truth is we don't know if there was turkey, the Native Americans weren't originally invited. And thirdly, they didn't even call it the first Thanksgiving. That's not what they called it at all.
Melanie Roderick (10:11):
The Feast of 1621 is endlessly fascinating because we know so little about it, yet it plays such a big role in the symbolism and mythology of Thanksgiving.
Narrator (10:21):
We know so little about what really happened because only one eyewitness account survives, a letter written by one of the 50 Pilgrims who was there, Edward Winslow. Winslow and the Pilgrims were a separatist sect of the Puritans. They were a strict bunch, even refusing to celebrate Christmas and Easter because the Bible didn't explicitly tell them to. Today, most describe the Puritans as repressed, judgmental killjoys. How could these uptight prudes be responsible for our annual national holiday of pigging out?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Peter Mancall (11:01):
The Puritans over time have absolutely developed this reputation for being stuck up, prudish, anti-sex, anti-fun. And historians don't have the kind of documents that we could go back and say, "Well, that's flatly false." We do know that they were very serious about their religious beliefs. They had very large families. We know they drank beer. So no, they are not the humorless people who are made fun of every Thanksgiving.
Narrator (11:32):
And like many frontier cultures, the Pilgrims believe that survival hinged on sticking together. So when they landed in 1620, they put the colony instantly under communal rule, forcing settlers to surrender private supplies for the good of all. It stayed that way for years. Communal rule was part of the reason why the Pilgrims survived the first harsh year in Plymouth, but the bigger reason was their neighbors, the native people. When the grains the Pilgrims brought from Europe withered in Plymouth's sandy soil, the Wampanoags taught them how to grow native corn.
John McGrath (12:20):
They were very fortunate, and I think a lot of that has to do with the real efforts to actually pay attention to what the Indians told them about food and where it was available, and how to catch it, and how to grow it.
Narrator (12:33):
Pilgrims recognized that the Wampanoags were key to their survival, but they didn't exactly embrace them as equals. In fact, at first they thought the Wampanoag lands in Eastern Massachusetts were simply free for them to take.
Ramona Peters (12:50):
When the English arrived as family units, we really saw them as part of our nation. They didn't understand that about us, and we didn't understand that they thought they owned this entire territory.
Narrator (13:06):
A potential powder keg was smoldering, but then came a bountiful crop in the autumn of 1621.
James Baker (13:15):
After the harvest was successful, and this is a great relief, it meant they were going to survive at least another year. They decided to celebrate.
Narrator (13:26):
The Winslow letter tells us that the Pilgrims prepped for the celebration by sending four hunters out to shoot some fowl. We assume that they brought back turkeys, but we don't know for sure. In fact, our only record of the feast never mentions turkey.
Libby O'Connell (13:50):
The settlers had gone hunting, so they had various types of fowl, and it's written down in the records that they had that don't know if that was Turkey. It could have been partridge, it could have been duck, but some sort of poultry was consumed.
Narrator (14:07):
We assume that the 1621 feast featured the traditional side dishes we now take for granted on every Thanksgiving table. But the Winslow letter never mentions cranberries and says nothing about pumpkins. So what did the Pilgrims eat at this so-called first Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
We know for sure that they did fishing and they caught cod. They caught bass, and those were most likely a part of that celebration. Lobster were plentiful around in the area, but they're large, tip-to-tip five, feet from claw to claw, and they taste terrible.
Libby O'Connell (14:44):
They also had onions. They had corn. They might've had some type of bread there on the table and they had salt. They also, we know they grew arugula and they grew fresh spinach. They ate a lot of that
Narrator (15:00):
As the Pilgrims feasted, the men indulged in guy games, a lot like they still do today.
Kathleen Wall (15:08):
Mostly, Englishmen like to celebrate with a lot of food and drink, and singing and dancing, and maybe running some races or shooting at marks. And they pretty much had all of that covered in 1621.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
To their feast, the Pilgrims invited their Indian friends. And so, with a day of games and feasting, we come to the end of a year of memories for the people of Plymouth Colony.
Narrator (15:35):
Another myth is that the native people were on the Pilgrims guest list. The Wampanoag were nearby, apparently minding their own business, when the Pilgrims started firing off their muskets and cannons. A show of some aggression.
Linford Fisher (15:55):
I don't think this is people out back just kind of guns off at random for fun. This is clearly display of military strength intended to strike some level fear or some sort of dominance into the hearts of Native Americans.
Narrator (16:11):
If so, the performance backfired. The Wampanoag were on full alert.
Ramona Peters (16:17):
Imagine what it sounds like for muskets and their cannon to go off. That was alarming. And like any leadership, yes, we need to investigate.
Narrator (16:29):
90 armed Wampanoag marched to Plymouth. They outnumbered the Pilgrims nearly two to one.
Ramona Peters (16:36):
We weren't invited, we just arrived.
Narrator (16:40):
But both sides put down their weapons and picked up their spoons. With 90 more mouths to feed, the Wampanoag pitched in by supplying a main course of five deer. So the truth is that the Wampanoag weren't guests so much as co-hosts. There was no pumpkin pie at this feast. The pilgrims hadn't brought much, if any sugar or flour for pies. But the Wampanoag had taught the pilgrims to grow pumpkins. They called them askutasquash and may have introduced them to one of their favorite dishes.
Alexandra Pocknett (17:23):
We could cut them in half and stuff them with anything that we wanted, whether it be fruits or nuts, or just wild garlic and onion. We'd bake them in the hot coals of the fire until the whole outside got soft.
Narrator (17:36):
Aside from a few details like this, the true story of the first Thanksgiving is a far cry from the idyllic myth, but even more astounding, this pilgrim feast wasn't the first Thanksgiving at all. It was just a one-time only event forgotten by history for over 200 years. And Edward Winslow's letter describing this feast was lost until the 19th century. Only when it was rediscovered did people start linking the story to a Thanksgiving tradition that was already established. So if it didn't come from the pilgrims of Plymouth, where did Thanksgiving come from? Incredibly, our holiday of extravagant feasting began as part of a solemn ritual of fasting. European Christians started the practice more than a century before the pilgrims even landed at Plymouth Rock.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
The irony is that today's feast day of Thanksgiving initially came from a religious day of fasting. It wasn't really fasting as much. It really just was, you spent a lot of time in church, and so you didn't have time to cook and you wouldn't be doing frivolous activities.
James Baker (18:58):
Thanksgiving was a day recognizing God's providence as mercies as they would say, and it had nothing to do with a harvest celebration, and it was church all day.
Narrator (19:12):
But with every new generation, these days of Thanksgiving morphed and mellowed, and eventually became linked with the harvest season at the end of the year.
James Baker (19:22):
You end up with a Thanksgiving in the fall or early winter. The year is over. You can sum up what God has given you over the year and give thanks for what you've gotten. And in the fall, you've got all the best amount of food you'll ever have that year.
Narrator (19:39):
But in the mid-19th century, Thanksgiving was still an informal tradition, with no national endorsement of any fixed date. One woman would make it her life's work to put this holiday on the calendar for good. The fourth Thursday of November, we think of it as a date chiseled in stone for centuries, marking a day of celebration older than America itself. So you might be surprised to learn that Thanksgiving has been a legal national holiday only since 1941.
Libby O'Connell (20:17):
For scores of years, Thanksgiving was celebrated as a wonderful harvest festival, but it was never an official holiday. It was never recognized by the government. I mean, think about Super Bowl Sunday. Everybody celebrates, but it's not an actual holiday that's in the calendar. You don't get the day off.
Narrator (20:37):
Until the mid-19th century. The date of Thanksgiving varied and was largely just a regional tradition observed in New England. If not for a New Hampshire widow, it might still be that way. Sarah Josepha Hale made it her mission to make Thanksgiving a federal holiday celebrated on the same day in every state in America.
Richard Pickering (20:59):
Sarah Josepha Hale was the Martha Stewart of her day. She had a deep commitment to transforming American culture, to refining it, and to teaching Americans how to celebrate Thanksgiving properly.
Libby O'Connell (21:15):
She was the editor of the most popular women's magazine in America, Godey's Ladies Book. It was a big advocate for Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday.
Narrator (21:28):
Hale launched her crusade in 1846 in response to the sectional crisis that would erupt into the Civil War.
Libby O'Connell (21:36):
She was aware of the growing animosity between north and south, the increasing interest of discrete regions, and she wanted to use Thanksgiving as a way to bring us all together in a holiday that was only positive.
Narrator (21:55):
Hale labored for two decades, writing governors, senators and presidents.
Narrator (22:00):
She lobbied for Thanksgiving to be held on the date we recognize now, the last Thursday in November. But why? Why is Thanksgiving celebrated on a Thursday?
Libby O'Connell (22:13):
Hale didn't choose Thursday at random. Thursday was the day when the local minister would give his midweek sermon, so it seemed natural for that to be a day for giving thanks for the harvest and gathering the family together.
Narrator (22:27):
But why did Hale specify not just any Thursday, but the last Thursday in November as the date to celebrate Thanksgiving? President George Washington might've inspired her. In 1789, in the first year of his presidency, Washington had proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving, following a long tradition in which politicians, clergymen and community leaders declared days of thanksgiving whenever it felt appropriate. But this was the first such proclamation by a president on the national level. The date Washington chose, November 26th, was the last Thursday of the month. That was good enough for Hale. Her crusade gained traction in the 1840s and '50s as the New England Thanksgiving tradition made its way west.
James Baker (23:19):
When New Englanders, Yankees, emigrated out of the stony soil and went to the western part of the country, especially the old Northwest around the Great Lakes, they brought their holiday with them.
Narrator (23:32):
But the power brokers in Washington ignored Hale's pleas to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. In the South, the response was also loud and clear, hell no.
Melanie Roderick (23:45):
The people of the South thought of it as a Yankee holiday and part of a northern plot to impose their ways on the South, including the abolition of slavery.
Narrator (24:00):
Hale's goal had been to use Thanksgiving to unify the nation. In 1863, the Civil War was destroying it. But the president who had sworn to preserve the union at all costs may have seen the wisdom in the widow's pleas. On October 3rd, Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing Thanksgiving as a national and annual day of gratitude.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise.
Narrator (24:47):
Lincoln's edict kicked off the unbroken chain of nationally celebrated Thanksgivings that continues to this day. But it did not make Thanksgiving a legal federal holiday that would happen automatically every year like Independence Day. Instead, each president had to declare the event every November. 76 years passed before one chief executive compelled change. In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt began pressuring Congress to make Thanksgiving a legal national holiday. But he didn't do it intentionally. It all started with a decision he thought would boost the economy during the Great Depression.
Libby O'Connell (25:30):
He wanted to allow extra time for Christmas shopping because he thought it would drive more retail sales and he wanted to help support the merchants, and so he wanted to move Thanksgiving. People just went nuts.
Narrator (25:43):
Roosevelt's one-week change to help the Christmas shopping season did more harm than good to Thanksgiving.
James Baker (25:55):
Well, this confused everybody. They didn't know the President was going to do this. So it ended up, on that first time that they did this, that half the country celebrated one day, half celebrated the other, and the others celebrated both just to be sure. And then, it happened again. By this time, this holiday, which they called Franksgiving after Franklin Roosevelt, had angered a lot of people.
Narrator (26:25):
In 1941, Congress finally cleaned up the President's mess. It made Thanksgiving the law of the land, fixing the date of the new national holiday to the fourth Thursday in November. Somewhere, Sarah Josepha Hale was smiling.
(26:47)
Thanksgiving now held an even firmer hold on the American temperament. And today, one of its most treasured institutions emerges just for the day from an abandoned candy factory.
(27:11)
Thanksgiving is more than a holiday when we give thanks, grab our forks and get full. It's also a day of spectacle. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has become an American institution. Though it's not the only Thanksgiving Day parade, it is the biggest, and the two-and-a-half-mile march through the streets of Manhattan has been wowing the world for nearly 90 years.
Libby O'Connell (27:39):
Families in America, so many of them never miss the Macy's Parade. They watch it on TV. Some of them make the voyage to New York City to watch it in person. It's a really strong part of their family tradition.
Narrator (27:52):
More than 9,000 participants entertain three and a half million spectators on the parade route and 50 million watching TV at home. The logistics are daunting, but 4,000 volunteers psych themselves up for the challenge.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
You turn that over so that the line going to the balloons on the bottom and slide it on one of those…
Robert M. Grippo (28:19):
All the volunteers feel the excitement in the air. Everyone is wishing everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. People you don't even know gather as volunteers, giving up their Thanksgiving morning to take part in this event that all of New York City is making way for and the country will see on television in a few short hours. It's just so wonderful and it's magic, there's a magic to this parade.
Narrator (28:42):
You probably thought Macy's invented the Thanksgiving parade. But actually, it's archrival department store chain, Gimbels, had the idea first. Gimbels staged the original Thanksgiving parade in Philadelphia in 1920. Macy's didn't unveil its New York version until 1924. Cynics say the retail giant was just upstaging a competitor, but there's another story.
Robert M. Grippo (29:11):
The legend is basically that a group of the store employees were very thankful for their jobs, for their life in New York City. A lot of them were immigrants, new to America. They love the opportunities that living here gave them, their freedoms, and they went to their employers and said, "Let's do a parade."
Narrator (29:29):
In its early years, the oddest part of the parade was its name. Though it was held on Thanksgiving, it was called the Macy's Christmas Parade to signify the launch of the Christmas shopping season. Another weird thing was the fate of the helium-filled balloons at the parade's end. Volunteers just let them go, and up they went.
Robert M. Grippo (29:52):
They were fixed with small leaks, and they figured that these balloons would stay in the air for like four or five days. And there is footage of each balloon coming into Herald Square down to 34th Street and being released after they made it to the end of the parade route.
Narrator (30:06):
In 1932, the fun almost proved fatal. A passing airplane snared a runaway balloon, nearly triggering a crash.
Robert M. Grippo (30:16):
Once that happened, they said, "Okay, that's it, we're not going to release the balloons removed." So the last time they released the balloons was 1932.
Narrator (30:24):
Today, the balloons remain the parade's undisputed stars, and spend every other day of the year stored in an old Tootsie Roll factory in New Jersey. Inflating them every Thanksgiving is no problem for Macy's. It's the world's second-largest consumer of helium, second only to the United States government. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is if anything reliable, no matter what the weather. In nearly a century, the balloons have been grounded for a period of only three years during World War II, when they were called to serve a higher purpose.
Robert M. Grippo (31:08):
On November 13th, 1942, there was a ceremony on the steps of City Hall in New York City, and Jack Straus of Macy's handed over the balloons to Mayor La Guardia, and La Guardia thrust a dagger into the dragon balloon and the balloon was donated to the war drive, to the rubber drive. So the Macy's balloons were pressed into service. They became tires, they became life rafts, they served the country.
Narrator (31:36):
For many of the soldiers under siege in Europe and the Pacific during the Second World War, Thanksgiving back on the home front embodied what they were fighting for abroad. The true meaning of a tradition of hearth and home could only intensify for a soldier at war, thousands of miles away from both.
Kathleen Wall (31:59):
A lot of these were guys who probably grew up in households where they didn't have much of a clue as to what Thanksgiving was. But they had a very unified view of what Thanksgiving was after their experience in the war.
Narrator (32:12):
In every American war, the meaning of the holiday is magnified for those soldiers who get a taste of home in their Thanksgiving rations. Vietnam vet, Terance Duddy, was one of those soldiers.
Terance Duddy (32:24):
It was a couple of days before Thanksgiving and we hadn't had any hot chow for weeks, we'd been out in the bush on missions. And Thanksgiving morning, they brought in choppers and brought all the food and all of the aluminum containers that they use for those things. And of course, they had everything you could ask for, including all the pumpkin pie you could eat, et cetera, et cetera. And then, a little bit later on, they brought in a satellite unit on a helicopter, and of course, this was long before cell phones, but on a satellite unit back then, which was the size of
Terance Duddy (33:00):
A small bus. You could call home on it. And so they offered a three-minute phone call home for each one of the guys in the unit. Then of course, you waited in line for eight or nine hours at a time, but eventually everybody got to make that phone call. And so I called my brother. It was one of the most memorable Thanksgivings I had.
Narrator (33:27):
Far from home, soldiers yearn for the normalcy of everyday life. Dinner with the family, the change of seasons, sports rivals squaring off on the gridiron. Thanksgiving's love affair with Spectacle includes a weekend of high school, college, and professional football. But how long has that tradition been going on? A lot longer than you'd think. For nearly a century, football has been as central to the Thanksgiving holiday as turkey and stuffing.
Richard Johnson (34:07):
The Thanksgiving Day football tradition remains a staple of most communities. What was a football game, but sort of another version of the harvest, of a barn raising, of a gathering of townspeople for a common end, for a common goal?
Narrator (34:28):
The NFL's Thanksgiving games have attracted as many as 38 million viewers helping the league pocket its annual TV fees of over $3.7 billion. But how did the whole idea of Thanksgiving football start? Thank two Ivy League rivals who've been slamming helmets for more than a century: Princeton and Yale. In 1876, they played college football's first Thanksgiving Day game kicking off a grand tradition.
Steven Gillon (35:02):
Football was a new game. It had just been invented, and the end of the season took place right around the time of Thanksgiving. So the organizers thought, what a great idea. We'll have the championship game on Thanksgiving. So you'll have a big holiday, big game, and ideally a big audience.
Narrator (35:20):
By the 1890s, the Ivy League's Thanksgiving game was America's premier athletic event. The team's duked it out yearly at the Polo Grounds in New York, drawing 40,000 fans. Other colleges, clubs, and high schools piled on. By the turn of the 20th century, 120,000 players were battling in 5,000 Thanksgiving Day games across the nation. In 1934, the Detroit Lions played the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving, the first NFL Thanksgiving Day game to be broadcast.
Steven Gillon (35:58):
The Lions have played every Thanksgiving Day since 1934 except for World War II. Beginning in 1966, the Dallas Cowboys hosted a game, and in 2006 the NFL added a third game to their football lineup on Thanksgiving. There's a lot of football on Thanksgiving these days.
Narrator (36:18):
These modern high school and college rivalries recall the shooting matches among the rowdy pilgrims at the feast of 1621, proving that generation after generation, boys will be boys. Preserving that spirit of the past led to the creation of an unusual living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Plymouth Plantation was incorporated in 1947 as a tribute to those mythical characters we learned about in school. Today, it's a time machine, a collision of the 17th and 21st centuries that reveals the real story of the real pilgrims. With 400,000 tourists trekking each year to Plymouth, Massachusetts, the site of the fabled first Thanksgiving, Plymouth has long been a tourist mecca. But the town didn't really market itself as a tourist destination until after World War Two. Like today's Americans, earlier generations felt a deep sense of connection to the holiday, but wondered why. They've been finding their answers here. Plymouth Plantation is a faithful recreation of the pilgrim settlement, that transports visitors back in time. Role players called interpreters dress in authentic costumes, answering questions about the men and women who helped give birth to a new nation some 400 years ago.
Libby O'Connell (37:59):
Plymouth Plantation is a wonderful living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and they tell it like it is. You don't get a lot of myths there. You get an accurate story of how the pilgrims lived. That doesn't include our version of the first Thanksgiving, but they do tell you about how daily life went on in the 17th century.
Narrator (38:23):
But these interpreters don't just answer questions. They portray the pilgrims, staying in character as 17th century time travelers full of information about the daily lives of these founding fathers and mothers.
Speaker 6 (38:36):
Do any of you intend to settle here in the town?
Audience (38:38):
No,
Speaker 6 (38:43):
No. Bound for Virginia. Now they have been settled now for some 13 years or so, much longer than ourselves. So there you will find thousands of people I understand.
Speaker 7 (38:50):
[inaudible 00:38:51], set, fire.
Narrator (38:58):
The plantation, gives an accurate glimpse into the lives of the long-lost pilgrims, but it also reveals buried truths about the Wampanoag, the native people who help the pilgrims survive and who still live in southeastern Massachusetts.
Melanie Roderick (39:15):
We've been here but sort of hiding in plain sight. I think it's easier for the general public to feel like we're gone just because then we don't have to deal with that shared history that isn't always a pretty one.
Narrator (39:33):
The real story of Thanksgiving isn't the simplistic grade school tale we learned so long ago. It's richer and more complex revealing who we really are, warts and all. And even as our attachment to Thanksgiving grows, the day's essentials remain the same: friends, food, floats and football. The changes are on the fringes. Thanksgiving is much more than what's on a plate or on a gridiron. The real heart of the holiday is the company you keep.
Libby O'Connell (40:12):
Thanksgiving today is pretty close to the vision of Sarah Josepha Hale 150 years ago. She said The holiday is vitally important because it would awaken in American hearts, the love of home and country and of thankfulness and peace.
Narrator (40:26):
For most Americans, Thanksgiving remains a hopeful promise that this country is still a beacon to those forging a new life in a new world just as it was for the pilgrims so long ago. We still gather together each year with family and friends, young and old, rich and poor, and of every stripe, to give thanks.