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Thanksgiving became an official holiday 152 years ago when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November each year to be a “Day of National Thanksgiving.”
We’re convinced that since that day, Chicagoans have searched the Tribune to compare food prices for the annual feast. (By the way, the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates this year’s Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people will cost $50.11 – up 70 cents from 2014.)
We flipped through a century of pages to pull out the following Thanksgiving food advertisem*nts – one for each decade. It’s not meant to be a scientific price comparison, but more of a sign of the times. We picked the lowest advertised turkey price per pound in each ad. We’ve also included an inflation-adjusted price of what turkey would have cost in today’s dollars. In some years, families would have been thankful just to have a roasted bird on their table.
TURKEY COST BY THE POUND The lowest price found on each advertisem*nt
Nov. 21, 1915: Stop & Shop
Cost of turkey: 28 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 24, 1929: Hillman’s Pure Foods
Cost of turkey: 37 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 19, 1939: Stop & Shop
Cost of turkey: 31 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 18, 1945: Stop & Shop
Cost of turkey: 49 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 20, 1950: Kroger
Cost of turkey: 49 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 20, 1960: Jewel Food Stores
Cost of turkey: 39 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 23, 1970: A&P Mart Discount Foods
Cost of turkey: 31 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 24, 1980: Dominick’s Finer Foods
Cost of turkey: 69 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 18, 1990: Jewel
Cost of turkey: 69 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 20, 2005: Aldi
Cost of turkey: 84 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Nov. 15, 2015: Jewel
Cost of turkey: 47 cents per pound.
Actual cost in 2015 dollars
Sources: Chicago Tribune archives, Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator
Originally Published:
