November 25, 1920. Thanksgiving Day

It was Thanksgiving Day for 1920. 

Thanksgiving's date has moved over the years but this one was nearly on the exact same day as it will be this year, 2020.  Also the same as a century later, normally, there was a full slate of football games, including a local high school game, to entertain people on their Thursday off.

And it was the start of broadcasting those games as well, which you can read about here:

November 25, 1920: The First Broadcast of Play by Play College Football By Radio Station

Commercial radio, as we've discussed before, was brand new.  1920 was turning out to be quite a year for radio firsts.

My father used to listen to football and baseball both on the radio, and I've listed to baseball occasionally that way. Football is a sport I lost interest in when I was a kid, although my wife likes it.  I haven't listed to a football game on the radio for years, and probably haven't ever listened to one that way of my own volition.  Indeed, the last time I did that I think I was going hunting with a friend during football season and he wanted to listen to a game that was being played.

The day wasn't limited to team sports.  On the same day the Pulitzer Prize Trophy Race was held, which is mentioned in the newspaper above, and which you can read about on this blog here:

This Day In Aviation:  25 November 1920

Aviation was a new thing as well, as we have been tracking, and things associated were still so novel as to make the front page in newspapers.

Also on this day the last big event of the automobile racing season occurred with a 250 mile race in which the youngest of the Chevrolet brothers, Gaston, was killed.

Gaston Chevrolet.

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

Catherinettes parading in 1932 in Paris.  By this time the tradition must have been changing as a photograph from 1920 (copyright protected, apparently, and therefore unable to be posted here) shows a huge crowed of young women on the streets generally dressed in the fashions of the day, save for odd hats. The weather must have been colder on that 1920 day as well, as  they're all wearing coats.  This photo makes less sense, but the references to sailors probably is a bit more salacious.

Then, as now, magazines offered advice on how to cook the perfect Thanksgiving Dinner:

How to Serve a Great Thanksgiving Dinner, 1920 Style