Escaping the Thanksgiving Dinner Table
Before each Thanksgiving, the United States White House participates in a very unusual ceremony: pardoning a turkey. In the real world, the President has the power to pardon people and help them escape the legal consequences of their criminal convictions. The equivalent of this for the turkey is escaping the consequence of being on a table for Thanksgiving dinner. So, why does the President pardon a turkey, and how did this odd tradition start?
“Pardoning the turkey” is officially known as the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. A few days before Thanksgiving, the American President is presented with a domestic turkey from the National Turkey Federation. These aren’t just any turkeys - they are usually male Broad Breasted White turkeys. The turkeys are also usually chosen from the home state of the chairperson of the National Turkey Federation.
Two turkeys are chosen so that the one that makes it to the President has a friend, and the pair of turkeys are also given complementary names. This year, the first choice turkey was named Corn and the other was named Cob. In past years, the sets were named Tater and Tot, Apple and Cider, and Peas and Carrots. Only one turkey will make it onto the stage for the ceremony, but both are pardoned.
This tradition first started when a Rhode Island turkey farmer started gifting the Presidents turkeys in 1873. At this time, there was no tradition to pardon the turkeys, and it wasn’t made into a public event. There isn’t clear documentation to what the President would do with the turkey, but one could assume that it would end up in the oven. Early on, President Lincoln broke this trend and decided not to kill his Thanksgiving turkey because his family had grown to love it.
The first time that turkeys in the White House came to national attention was in 1947 with President Harry Truman. Shortly after World War II, the United States did not have enough grain to export, so Truman encouraged Americans to not purchase turkeys, which consumed a large portion of American grain. This was a part of a large publicity campaign by the Truman administration for “Meatless Tuesdays” and “Poultryless Thursdays”. He never exactly pardoned a turkey, but it set the tone for the future.
Photo: National Archives Catalog
To say the least, the National Turkey Federation wasn’t exactly pleased with Truman’s choice to spare the turkey and encouraging others to do so as well. Presidents after Truman did not choose to make a public display of pardoning the turkey until President John F. Kennedy decided to do so in 1963. He said, “We’ll let this one grow,” and newspapers picked up on it and said that he had “pardoned the turkey.” From then on, many of the Presidents have formally pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey, and in recent years, the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation has regularly been broadcasted on TV.
Photo: Official White House Photos by Andrea Hanks
Before the ceremony, the turkeys get to spend a night in a fancy hotel in Washington D.C. After the turkeys participate in the ceremony, they are sent to destinations to live out the rest of their lives. In recent years, the turkeys have been sent to farms in Virginia, colleges, Disneyworld, and petting zoos. Sounds good to be a White House turkey, right? The turkeys this year are originally from Iowa, and they are being sent back to their home state of Iowa to reside at Iowa State University.
Despite the tense post-election environment in the United States right now, pardoning turkeys is a rather light-hearted tradition where politics are put aside. The National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation will most likely endure for many years because of its symbolic significance and attention in American media. During a Thanksgiving where families and friends cannot gather, watching the turkey pardoning ceremony is an especially welcomed distraction.
Vocabulary:
pardon (v.): to forgive or excuse someone; used to describe the action the President can take to excuse someone from jail or punishment
criminal conviction (n.): the decision by a judge or a jury that someone is guilty of a crime
odd (adj.): something that is strange, weird, or out of character
chairperson (n.): the person who is the head of a board and presides over formal meetings
complementary (adj.): describing two things that go together and bring out the qualities of eachother
grain (n.): small, hard seed from wheat, corn, oats, or other cereal crops
Bridgette Lang is an undergraduate student studying International Relations at Boston University. On campus, she helps run a collegiate Model United Nations Conference and manages finances for BU College Democrats. In her free time, Bridgette enjoys traveling, trying to learn Spanish, and visiting with her friends and family back home in Pennsylvania.