Episode Three chronicles thanksgiving's transformation during the eighteenth century from regional religious observance to national political tool. Claire Delish explores how New England colonies regularized annual autumn thanksgivings while other regions practiced the holiday sporadically or not at all. The episode examines evolving food traditions as turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pudding became thanksgiving staples in prosperous households. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress used thanksgiving proclamations to build unity and frame independence as divinely sanctioned. The centerpiece is George Washington's landmark seventeen eighty-nine thanksgiving proclamation, the first presidential thanksgiving connecting the holiday to the Constitution and American national identity. The episode also covers the controversial debate over federal religious proclamations, Thomas Jefferson's principled refusal to declare thanksgivings, and the subsequent forty-six year gap before Lincoln revived the practice, leaving thanksgiving as primarily a state-level celebration.
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