With so much focus on Halloween and Christmas, I feel like Thanksgiving is left out most of the time. Every time we go to a store in the months of September to December, we only see decorations for either of those two holidays. Although Thanksgiving is admittedly a much lamer holiday compared to Halloween and Christmas, I was a little curious how turkey, of all things, became the holiday’s traditional meal. No one I know seems to even like turkey compared to chicken and other meats, so how did it become so popular?
Well, it turns out that favoritism was actually the reason why turkeys became so popular. Sorta. While chickens, ducks, and cows were raised for their milk and eggs, turkeys were really only around for their meat, so they became the go-to for large meals. And to that end, one large turkey was actually large enough to feed one family, so nothing would go to waste. The original Pilgrims might be able to attest to this, as one of the original colonists, William Bradford, actually wrote about a large number of turkeys in the area at the time. So, it’s entirely possible that the early colonists ate turkey as well.
However, Thanksgiving’s association with turkey is largely thanks to the efforts of Sarah Jospeha Hale, a writer. In her 1827 novel Northwood, Hale wrote an entire chapter on Thanksgiving, including descriptions of turkey being eaten. She began campaigning to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, which finally paid off when President Lincoln made it an official holiday in 1863. Writing associations like Hale’s were then later reflected by popular media after the fact, and that association between turkey and Thanksgiving stayed from that point on.