[4][5] The dinner often consists of foods associated with New England harvest celebrations: turkey, potatoes (usually mashed and sweet), squash, corn (maize), green beans, cranberries (typically as cranberry sauce), and pumpkin pie, but has expanded over the years to include specialties from other regions of the United States, such as pecan pie (the American South) and wild rice stuffing (the Great Lakes region) as well as international and ethnic dishes.

After the harsh winter of 1620–1621 killed half of the Plymouth colonists, two Native intermediaries, Samoset and Tisquantum (more commonly known by the diminutive variant Squanto, and the last living member of the Patuxet) came in at the request of Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag, to negotiate a peace treaty and establish trade relations with the colonists, as both men had some knowledge of English from previous interactions with Europeans, through both trade (Samoset) and a period of enslavement (Squanto).

[25] "While the celebrants might well have feasted on wild turkey, the local diet also included fish, eels, shellfish, and a Wampanoag dish called nasaump, which the Pilgrims had adopted: boiled cornmeal mixed with vegetables and meats.

At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.

[28]Jeremy Bang opines that, "Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land.

Indeed, that 1621 event does not appear to have contributed to the early development of the modern holiday at all, as Bradford's "Of Plimoth Plantation" was not published until the 1850s and the booklet "Mourt's Relation" was typically summarized by other publications without the now-familiar thanksgiving story.

Every November, Hale would focus her monthly magazine column on Thanksgiving, positioning the celebration as a pious, patriotic holiday that lived on in the memory as a check against temptation, or as a comfort in times of trial.

Her vision aimed at a broad audience: The stories in Godey's depicted Black servants, Roman Catholics, and Southerners celebrating Thanksgiving, and becoming more American (which for Hale meant becoming more like White Protestant Northerners) by doing so.

The changing demographics prompted not only xenophobic responses in the form of restrictive immigration measures, but also a greater push towards the Americanization of newcomers and the conscious formulation of a shared cultural heritage.

Congress then adopted the final version:For as much as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of: And it had pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary war, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success: It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these United States to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth Day of December next, for Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please God through the Merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, Independence and Peace: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth "in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.

Boudinot said he "could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them.

"[42] As President, on October 3, 1789, George Washington made the following proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America: Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

[48] [49] In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale,[50] began the regular practice of proclaiming a national Thanksgiving.

The document, written by Secretary of State William H. Seward, reads as follows: The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.

To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.

I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

[50][53] Lincoln issued another proclamation of thanksgiving in October 1864, again for the last Thursday in November, after Union victories that included the fall of Atlanta and the capture of Mobile Bay.

Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores, is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving to a week earlier to expand the shopping season, and within two years the change passed through Congress into law.

[65][57] The amendment also passed the House, and on December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law and fixing the day as the fourth Thursday of November.

[73][74][75] Joy Fisher, a Baptist writer, states that "this holiday takes on a spiritual emphasis and includes recognition of the source of the blessings they enjoy year round – a loving God.

[150] Since 1970, the United American Indians of New England, a protest group led by Frank "Wamsutta" James (Aquinnah Wampanoag, 1923−2001), has accused the United States of fabricating the Thanksgiving story and of whitewashing genocide and injustice against Native Americans, and it has led a National Day of Mourning protest on Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the name of social equality and political prisoners.

[151][152] Professor David J. Silverman notes that the story of the pilgrims and their Wampanoag allies dining together in peace mythologized this interaction but at the same time the later breakdown in relations between the two groups was ignored.

He believes that this perpetuates the notion that the Wampanoag's chief legacy was to present America as a gift to the pilgrims and to concede to colonialism similar to the stories of Pocahontes and Sacagawea.

Entitled Harvest of Shame, the hour-long documentary was designed "to shock Americans into action" regarding the treatment of impoverished migrant farmworkers in the country, hoping to contrast Thanksgiving dinner and its excesses with the poverty of those who picked the vegetables.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, it became known as Black Friday, the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and a day for chaotic, early-morning sales at major retailers that were closed on Thanksgiving.