It was 1939. Thanksgiving, always the last Thursday of November, came on the 30th that year. Business owners, aware that most people waited until after Thanksgiving to start shopping for Christmas, were concerned about the late start to their best season of the year. They persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare the holiday a week early, on the 23rd. He might have been surprised at the uproar which followed. Calendar makers were obviously upset. So were school officials, factory managers, churches, and all others who had made plans for the holiday on the 30th. The result was that many communities stuck with the original date. Some went with both, including the Indiana cities of Washington, New Albany, and Delphi, where city workers got the day off on both dates. History will record that 1939 was the year with two Thanksgivings. One newspaper reported that, regardless of what was on the menu, everyone was in a stew. By the way, in 1941 the holiday was changed to the fourth Thursday in November, thereby guaranteeing that Thanksgiving would never come any later than November 28.
