Ben Franklin's Crispy Thanksgiving Turkey Was Almost the Symbol of America
- Kevin Lankes
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NJna3nL73yQ
Did Benjamin Franklin really want the noble turkey to be the symbol of our great American republic?
No, he did not.
Why does everybody say this, then? Why does this myth persist? Because we all know the story about how the bald eagle was put forward, and Ben Franklin is all like, “the bald eagle sucks, it’s a lazy scavenger, and we want a noble glorious bird that’s native to our nation.” Well there are a lot of issues with this story. One is that both birds are native to North America. The other is that the bald eagle isn’t really just a scavenger. It’s an opportunistic eater, so yeah, it’ll grab something you dropped on the ground just like your toddler will, but it also absolutely hunts for itself.
So where did this whole thing get started? The year, my friends, is 1776. The Day, July 4th. Do you like my American Revolution hat? It’s for the sun, but it’s cool and bendy, so now it’s for the Revolution, too. A committee was put together on the Fourth of July to create the great seal of the United States of America. Three people you may have heard of were appointed. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and yes, Benjamin Franklin.
The first seal design proposed by Franklin was an image of Moses parting the Red Sea. The accompanying text read, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to god.” Jefferson proposed a similarly religious motif, about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness led by a pillar of fire. John Adams proposed an image of Hercules for the seal. The only thing that remains of any of the original designs is the text that still reads today, “e pluribus unum.” You’ll note that none of these designs included birds of any sort. No turkeys, no eagles, no sparrows, or hottentot buttonquails.
The myth is so crazy because that was the only the first committee formed to create the seal of the United States. There were two more after that. The second committee involved the guy who’s credited with creating the first flag of the United States, Francis Hopkinson.
A third committee formed and also failed. At that point, Charles Thomson, secretary of the continental congress, was like, guys, what are we even doing here. And he plopped together a seal combining elements from all three committees and designs, and in 1782, came up with the seal that we all know today. I think everybody was equally fed up, because he submitted it to Congress and it was approved the very same day.
In 1784, Ben Franklin sends a letter to his daughter making fun of the bald eagle. He wrote, "For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country." What people miss about this is the same thing your boomer parents miss in your text messages. Because you can’t always read tone in text. Franklin was making a joke here. There’s this organization called the Society of Cincinnati. It was formed in 1783 and it says it’s the world’s oldest patriotic organization, because it was founded by officers of the Continental Army. But the part that’s relevant here is that they chose an eagle for their own seal, and Ben Franklin was riffing on the fact that a lot of people at the time said that the Society of Cincinnati's eagle actually looked like a turkey. This letter is where the idea comes from that Franklin thought the bald eagle possessed a “bad moral character.”
He goes on to say, of the turkey itself: “For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America. Eagles have been found in all Countries, but the Turkey was peculiar to ours, the first of the Species seen in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and serv'd up at the Wedding Table of Charles the ninth. He is besides, tho' a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."
I am also, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, Benjamin Franklin. Thank you for informing me of my own true identity as a turkey. Hmm.
So he wasn’t advocating for the turkey to be the national symbol of America. He was making fun of the Society of Cincinnati, which was and still is a hereditary organization and thought by many especially in the time of overthrowing kings to be very anti-democratic. And the birds just happened to get caught in the middle. So go ahead and eat your turkey this year at Thanksgiving with no remorse, at least not for the symbolic statement it may bear on the character of the United States of America. And especially because, Ben Franklin himself ate plenty of turkeys, and especially loved the ones he murdered by electrocuting them to death in his experiments. You gotta get that crispy skin somehow.
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