Thanksgiving Sea to Shining Sea 2

Thanksgiving: Sea to Shining Sea, continued

Michigan was the first in the Midwest to proclaim an annual Thanksgiving. The territory’s first proclamation was issued by New Hampshire-born governor Lewis Cass for the last Thursday in November 1824 (Michigan did not become a state until 1837) and issued annually thereafter. Ohio and Wisconsin followed with annual proclamations beginning in 1839, Illinois in 1842, Iowa in 1844, Pennsylvania in 1845 and Louisiana in 1846.

Click HERE for an account of an Ohio Thanksgiving celebration of 1832.

By the end of 1840s, most of the other states and territories had also celebrated at least one Thanksgiving, by proclamation of the individual governors. Not all states celebrated Thanksgiving every year, however, and the date on which it was celebrated varied widely from state to state.

The California Gold Rush began in 1846. On November 29, 1849, California Governor Riley issued California's first Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

In 1847, Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of Godey's Lady's Book, a monthly magazine for women, began an editorial campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Mrs. Hale was, like Michigan's Lewis Cass, a native of New Hampshire. Hale hoped that making this New England holiday a national one would strengthen family ties and bring unity and moral strength to the country.

Her 1847 editorial read simply:

THANKSGIVING DAY. -- The Governor of New Hampshire has appointed Thursday, November 25th, as the day of annual thanksgiving in that state.
We hope every governor in the twenty-nine states will appoint the same day -- 25th of November -- as the day of thanksgiving! Then the whole land would rejoice at once.

She noted the next year that “the last Thursday of last November was kept as Thanksgiving Day in twenty-four of the twenty-nine states.”

As the nation grew, so did the number of states whose governor’s issued Thanksgiving proclamations. S.W. Southard, writing to his mother in Newark New Jersey, in 1859, found it particularly worthy of note

”Dear Mother,
Today is thanksgiving day and I have been to church twice which is considerable for me; it has really seemed like Sunday to me, the streets are quiet, the stores and shops all closed and nearly all of the churches are open for service. This day is celebrated by 25 states of this union, a thing never known to such an extent before…”

By the following year, 1860, Mrs. Hale was able to list 29 states (as well as 2 territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and the District of Columbia) out of the nation’s 32, as having an official governor-proclaimed Thanksgiving. Most (although not quite all) celebrated Thanksgiving on the same Thursday in November. The participating states were Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin.

This roster of states, however, was the calm before the storm. As the country divided into North against South, Thanksgiving became seen as a “Yankee holiday.”