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10 | NORTH STAR PORT | FALL 2025 refused to recognize "Franksgiving," as Mayor Charles White of Atlantic City, New Jersey, dubbed it. Minnesota Governor Harold E. Stassen was blunt in his Franksgiving dissent. "I don't believe commercial consider- ation should be the basis for the fixing of Thanksgiving Day," he said. Many of the nation's college football coaches didn't like it either. "Few persons were more stirred up by SEASONS OF YORE hat better place than Canada—land of the early Thanksgiving—for United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare that America's annual day of thanks would come a week earlier than expected? Meeting the press at his mother's summer home in New Brunswick, Roosevelt did exactly that on Aug. 14, 1939. He said the gap between Labor Day and American Thanksgiving was too long, and in years like 1939, when November ended on a Thursday, the interval between Thanksgiving and Christmas was too short. 1939 W | By Jayson Hron Thanksgiving times two PHOTOS / Minneapolis Tribune/Hennepin County Library; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library This resulted from Thanksgiving not being a fixed-date holiday in the U.S., but rather, a holiday observed on the last Thursday of November since President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it in 1863. Most often, it fell on either Nov. 24 or Nov. 26, except when November had five Thursdays, which shifted Thanksgiving to Nov. 30. The date made no difference to tur- keys, but for holiday shoppers, leftover fowl signaled a strong response. A late Thanksgiving left only 20 shopping days before Christmas. Fewer days equated to fewer dollars. Staring into that retail spending abyss, Roosevelt threw busi- ness a bone—or perhaps more fittingly, a meaty drumstick. By executive fiat, he changed Thanksgiving Day from Nov. 30 to Nov. 23, rendering incorrect every 1939 calendar except those in Minne- sota, Wisconsin and 21 other states that The William B. Schiller sailed with iron ore from Duluth-Superior on "Franksgiving" 1939, while Franklin D. Roosevelt (below), the holiday's namesake, carved turkey with his wife, Eleanor, and a young guest.