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Where Did the Tradition of Pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey Come From?

Learn how the White House turkey pardon really began, from 1870s gift birds and Kennedy's reprieve to Reagan's joke and Bush's 1989 ceremony.

By Written Facts Staff8 min read

Every November you can count on seeing it: the week before Thanksgiving, a president stands next to a very large white turkey, tells a few corny jokes, and "pardons" it. It looks like a custom that goes back to the Founders. It doesn't. The official turkey pardon began on November 17, 1989, with George H.W. Bush. The years before that include gift birds, one clear reprieve and a political joke, plus two famous legends that don't hold up well.

The short answer

George H.W. Bush made the pardon official in the White House Rose Garden on November 17, 1989. The bird was a tom of about 50 pounds. Instead of going to a dinner table, it went to a children's farm in Herndon, Virginia.

Presidents had been getting turkeys for more than a century before that, and a few had let one live. But none of them held a formal pardon, and the word "pardon" didn't become part of the ritual until the late 1980s. Historians call the early history murky, and the Truman Library Institute has written that it can't say who pardoned the first turkey.

Two origin stories come up every year. One says Harry Truman started the tradition. The other goes back to Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad. Neither stands up well. The Truman story is disputed by Truman's own presidential library, and the Lincoln story is a family anecdote with little record behind it. The real history begins with turkeys that were sent to the White House to be eaten.

Before the pardon: turkeys as White House gifts

Sending the president a turkey is an old custom. In the 1870s a Rhode Island poultry dealer named Horace Vose began sending well-fed birds to the White House, and his gifts became a fixture there for decades. After Vose died in December 1913, the field opened up. By 1914, according to the Truman Library Institute, "the opportunity to give a president a turkey was open to all comers."

The version that leads to today's ceremony started under Truman. In December 1947 he became the first president to receive a turkey from the poultry and egg industry board. The timing involved some politics. That fall, the government had promoted "poultryless Thursdays" to save grain, and poultry growers pushed back. Under the banner "Hens for Harry," they sent crates of live chickens to the White House. The campaign faded before Thanksgiving, and the industry's turkey presentation became, in the Institute's words, "an annual news niche that endures today."

Those birds were not pardoned. In December 1948 Truman accepted two turkeys and said they would "come in handy" for Christmas dinner. The Institute's verdict: "There was clearly no plan for these birds to receive a presidential pardon." Truman started the presentation, but not the pardon.

The Lincoln and Kennedy stories

If Truman isn't the origin, many people turn to Lincoln. The story goes that a turkey meant for the Lincolns' Christmas dinner won over young Tad, who named it Jack and begged his father to spare it, and Lincoln did. It's a charming story, and presidents have retold it at the ceremony. Notice, though, that even the legend is about a Christmas turkey, not a Thanksgiving one. Historians who have looked into it describe it as a story with thin documentation, not an established event.

The first well-documented case of a president sparing a turkey is much later. In November 1963, days before his assassination, John F. Kennedy was presented with a turkey of about 55 pounds and chose not to keep it for dinner. Accounts differ on the details. History.com reports that the bird went back to its farm in California and that Kennedy called the reprieve a Thanksgiving present to the turkey. CBS News quotes him as saying, "We'll just let this one grow." Neither source says he used the word "pardon." What Kennedy gave the turkey was a reprieve. The legal-sounding word came later, from a president who was facing questions about real pardons.

Reagan's joke and Bush's ceremony

On November 23, 1987, Ronald Reagan was at the annual turkey presentation when a reporter asked a pointed question: would he pardon Oliver North and John Poindexter, the two central figures in the Iran-Contra scandal? Reagan answered with a joke about the bird, a turkey named Charlie. According to the Reagan Library transcript, he said: "If they'd given me a different answer on Charlie and his future, I would have pardoned him."

It was a way to avoid the question, and the line stuck. History.com says this was possibly the first time a president used the word "pardon" for a Thanksgiving turkey. "Possibly" is the right word, because nobody has shown an earlier example, but an earlier one can't be ruled out either.

Two years later George H.W. Bush turned the joke into a ceremony. At the Rose Garden event on November 17, 1989, animal rights activists were picketing nearby, according to the White House Historical Association. Bush made a joke out of the wording itself: "reprieve" or "pardon" made no difference to the turkey, he said, as long as it stayed off his holiday table. Then he formally spared the bird and sent it to the farm in Herndon. Every president since has kept the custom, so a political joke from 1987 became an annual event.

How it works today

The ceremony still traces back to Truman's 1947 gift. The National Turkey Federation presents the birds, usually two: an official National Thanksgiving Turkey and an alternate in case the first one isn't up to the job.

The 2025 ceremony is a typical recent example. On November 25, the federation presented Gobble (the official bird, 52 pounds) and Waddle (the alternate, 50 pounds) to President Trump in the Rose Garden. Both had hatched on July 14. Both were pardoned and sent to North Carolina State University, where the federation says they will serve as industry ambassadors for the rest of their lives.

Where the birds go has changed over time. Bush's 1989 turkey went to a children's farm. In 2002 George W. Bush pardoned Katie, the first female turkey to receive a pardon. In 2016 Barack Obama pardoned Tater and Tot, about 40 pounds each and 18 weeks old, raised on an Iowa family farm. They went to Virginia Tech's "Gobbler's Rest." CBS News reports that some past birds were sent to Disneyland or Disney World.

Retirement tends to be short. History.com reports that most pardoned turkeys die within about a year, because birds bred to grow that heavy have bodies that can't support their own weight.

The tone has stayed close to Reagan's: light comedy with a political edge. In 2025 Trump joked that he was also pardoning Joe Biden's 2024 turkeys, Peach and Blossom. He was referring to a Justice Department finding that Biden's use of an autopen had made his pardons invalid. "They were on their way to being processed," Trump said.

Why the myths stick

Part of the reason the myths last is that presidents have repeated them. At the 1997 ceremony Bill Clinton said, "President Truman was the first President to pardon a turkey." In the same speech he traced the tradition back to Lincoln, Tad and a turkey named Jack. When a president says something from the Rose Garden, people tend to believe it. The Truman Library has disputed the Truman claim ever since, pointing out that Truman's turkeys were intended for dinner.

The Lincoln story lasts because it's a good story: a soft-hearted president, a pleading child and a named turkey. It gets retold every November, and the more it's repeated, the more it sounds like history.

Here is what the record actually supports. Presidents have received turkeys since the 1870s. The industry presentation started in 1947, and those birds were eaten. Kennedy spared one in 1963 but didn't call it a pardon. Reagan used the word as a joke in 1987. Bush made it official in 1989. The Lincoln story is a legend, and the Truman story is a mistake. So when the clip runs again this Thanksgiving, on November 26, the tradition you're watching is about 37 years old.

Sources (13)

Photo: The 2018 National Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon by The White House, Public Domain.