Who supplied U.S. presidents with Thanksgiving turkeys from 1873 to 1913?

Horace Vose supplied U.S. presidents with Thanksgiving turkeys from 1873 to 1913.

Vose was a Rhode Island turkey farmer who became the leading presidential turkey supplier during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He presented a dressed turkey to the president each year for four decades, beginning in 1873 and continuing until his death in 1913.

These gifts predated the organized National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation that began in 1947. They were also different from today’s live-bird ceremony: Vose’s turkeys were dressed, meaning prepared for cooking, and were intended as food rather than candidates for a ceremonial pardon.

After Vose died in December 1913, competition among farmers and civic groups intensified. That year, South Trimble presented Woodrow Wilson with a turkey, arguing that his smaller, red-pepper-fed bird tasted better than Vose’s. The early history is therefore easy to confuse with the later National Turkey Federation tradition, but Vose is the canonical answer for the 1873–1913 period.