It Wasn’t Always About Eating and Shopping

How Thanksgiving became the consumption holiday that we know and love.

An illustration of price tags in the shape of a Thanksgiving turkey. November 24, 2022, 6:00 AM Comment icon View Comments ( )

Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this week. Like with most holidays, the origin story is a little fuzzy. What we do know is that Americans tend to do a lot of traveling, eat a lot of turkey, and buy a lot of consumer goods over the holiday—making Thanksgiving a time of spending.

How much spending? And how does the holiday affect the U.S. economy? Those are two of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with Foreign Policy economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze . What follows is an excerpt,

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