Fourth Thursday in November Thanksgiving

In a Thanksgiving State of Mind

Announcement from movie industry
trade magazine 1939

There were five Thursdays in November 1939. While Thanksgiving had been celebrated on the last Thursday of the month, the nation's retailers begged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up a week to increase the shopping days before Christmas and he agreed. 

MGM's Thanksgiving Menu for 1939
The Women, Babes in Arms, Blackmail
Thunder Afloat, Dancing Co-Ed
Ninotchka

Football coaches rescheduled games set for November 30th. Families didn't know when to have their holiday meals. Schools, the travel and entertainment industries were just some of those who were boggled by the situation. The country was divided, some states observing the holiday on November 23rd, some observing it on November 30th. In 1940 there were similar problems. 

To end the confusion, in 1941 the House and Senate passed a joint resolution establishing the holiday as the fourth Thursday in November, which would take into account those years when November has five Thursdays.

"Sorry Mr. President, We can't space our
Holiday Pictures to conform with your changes!"

On December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed the legislation.

In the years 2007 and 2012, November had five Thursdays. The fourth Thursday, November 22nd, was Thanksgiving Day both of these years.

The 1942 movie, Holiday Inn starring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby is said to start with an animated turkey demonstrating the confusion FDR caused by changing around the dates of the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Mary Pickford and Zasu Pitts in The Little Princess, 1917
Will your Thanksgiving dinner bring such looks of shock and awe?!

Speaking of changing times and dates do you remember.....

In 2007, the United States and Canada started Daylight Saving Time (DST) on the second Sunday of March and end on the first Sunday of November.

NPR All Things Considered
The Reasoning Behind Changing Daylight-Saving
March 8, 2007 Melissa Block interviews Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time 

BLOCK: This may be kind of an urban legend, but I thought I had heard that one of the backers behind extending Daylight Saving Time into the beginning of November was the candy industry, and it all had to do with Halloween.

Mr. DOWNING: This is no kind of legend. This is the truth. For 25 years, candy-makers have wanted to get trick-or-treat covered by Daylight Saving, figuring that if children have an extra hour of daylight, they'll collect more candy. In fact, they went so far during the 1985 hearings on Daylight Saving as to put candy pumpkins on the seat of every senator, hoping to win a little favor. They didn't get it then (1985), but they got it this time (2007). 

Related Pages of Interest:

Happy Thanksgiving from Boris Karloff; Favorite old Folk Music Favorites, Old time radio

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