"Flashback: Truman was encouraging Americans to participate in "Poultryless Thursdays" to save grain in postwar America in the 1940s. Furious at the effort, the industry sent crates of live chickens to the White House in protest, in an effort known as "Hens for Harry." The National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board, collectively "Big Turkey," presented Truman with a 47-pound turkey that healed the rift and created today's well-known photo-op."
"President John F. Kennedy was gifted a 55-pound white turkey in 1963 with a sign around its neck that said "Good eating, Mr. President." Kennedy never officially called his actions a pardoning, but remarked to Big Turkey: "We'll just let this one grow," before sending the bird back to its California farm. The event was not widely publicized as Kennedy was assassinated days later."
"On the 200th anniversary of George Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, President George H.W. Bush officially formalized the pardon tradition as we know it now. "Our special guest seems . . . understandably nervous, but let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone's dinner table, not this guy. He's granted a Presidential pardon as of right now," Bush said."
A Thanksgiving turkey-pardoning tradition traces back to an 1863 anecdote involving Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad, tied to the establishment of Thanksgiving observance. In the 1940s, President Truman received a ceremonial turkey after the poultry industry protested his "Poultryless Thursdays," producing a public photo-op. President Kennedy received a 55-pound turkey in 1963 and sent it back to a farm, saying, "We'll just let this one grow." On the 200th anniversary of George Washington's proclamation, President George H.W. Bush formally framed the presidential pardon as a ceremonial tradition still continued by subsequent administrations.
Read at Axios
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