I don't know if you wanted a real answer or not, but here goes, buckle up:
The first unofficially pardoned turkey was actually just a turkey spared in private by President Lincoln in 1863. The bird had been gifted to the president's family for Thanksgiving dinner, but Lincoln's youngest son, Tad, had adopted the bird upon arrival. He asked his father to let the turkey live rather than become their Thanksgiving dinner, and Lincoln obliged. Tad named the bird Jack, and Jack would later be spared from Christmas dinner as well, through the use of a written reprieve note to Tad from his father. In this case, the turkey was spared because he had committed no crimes and a little boy loved him. Heartwarming.
The first public “sparing” of a Presidential Thanksgiving turkey was in 1947, by President Truman. This was not a pardon, but rather part of a lobbying campaign to reduce meat and egg consumption by introducing “meatless mondays” and “poultryless thursdays.” Truman publicly spared the turkeys but there’s no record of it going anywhere alive, and it was most likely not spared in private. This is OFTEN credited as the first “presidential pardon” but that’s just flat out wrong. The birds were not pardoned, pardoning was not a part of it, and likely the birds were not even spared, there was just a public advertising event about eating less/no meat/eggs.
The first non-presidential use of the term “pardoned” in reference to the Presidential Thanksgiving turkey would come later, in 1963, when Kennedy publicly spared his (live) gifted turkey. The press reported that the turkey had been “pardoned” by the president, even though no official presidential pardon had been given. The turkey would outlive Kennedy, who was assassinated 3 days later. Some people count this. I don’t. No crimes were committed here, Kennedy didn’t call it a pardon himself, though the turkey was actually spared.
The first presidential use of the word "pardoned" in reference to the Presidential Thanksgiving turkey was in 1987, as a deflection of Reagan's shady business. Reagan had sent his gifted turkeys to a petting zoo since 1982, but in ‘87, his administration was selling arms to Iran under the guise of rescuing US prisoners, and then using the funds to assist a right-wing terrorist group in Nicaragua (the Contras). During a press conference, when Reagan was being asked whether or not he would pardon two of the national security council members (Oliver North and John Poindexter) involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan deflected by joking that if that year’s (live) Thanksgiving turkey had not already been destined for a petting zoo, he “would have pardoned him,” as if that was a valid answer to the question. Again, no official pardon was issued, but at least crimes were committed, just not by the turkey.
Two years later, in 1989, President Bush would actually go through with the first official, public Presidential pardoning of a turkey. The official quote is: “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 presented a Presidential pardon as of right now.” The turkey was sent to live at a farm, as had been done for spared turkeys in the past. This altered the tradition of sparing a turkey either privately or publicly, and it became pardoning a turkey in a cutesy public event for good PR, despite no crimes having been committed by the turkey.
So, TL;DR: Presidential Thanksgiving turkeys were first spared by Abraham Lincoln, out of love for his son, who had great fondness of the innocent bird. Presidential Thanksgiving turkeys are now pardoned because Ronald Reagan joked about pardoning a turkey as a means of deflecting attention from his administration’s crimes, and George Bush thought a ceremony for publicly pardoning a turkey for crimes it didn’t commit sounded like a good idea.
The answer: The turkeys never committed any crimes, but the humans pardoning them sure weren't innocent.
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dailybridgerton
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
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