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By the 1840s, most states and territories celebrated Thanksgiving, by proclamation of the individual Governors. Not all states celebrated Thanksgiving every year, however, and the dates on which it was celebrated varied widely from state to state. In 1846, Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, began an editorial campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Mrs. Hale was a native New Englander. She hoped that a national Thanksgiving would bring strengthen family ties and bring unity and moral strength to the country. Mrs. Hale’s hopes for national unity were not realized. She continued her Thanksgiving campaign, however, and in 1863, in the midst of America’s Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first annual national Thanksgiving. Every President since has issued an annual Thanksgiving Proclamation. Click HERE to read the most recent Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation.
THANKSGIVING AS AN ANNUAL HOLIDAY 1621 First "Thanksgiving" (a secular harvest feast, not a religious Thanksgiving) at Plymouth. (Other "Thanksgivings" were held in Texas in 1541, St. Augustine in 1564, Maine in 1607 and Virginia in 1610 and 1619). 1623 Bradford proclaims Plymouth's first religious Day of Thanksgiving as drought ends & ship Anne is sighted. 1631 Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay proclaims a religious Day of Thanksgiving as a ship (thought lost at sea) arrives with food for the starving colony. 1668 Plymouth Colony proclaims its first Thanksgiving in gratitude for general blessings of the year : "The Court takeing notice of the goodnes of God to us in the continuance of our civill and religious liberties, the generall health that wee have enjoyed, and that it hath pleased God in some comfortable measure to blesse us in the fruites of the earth" asked the several religious congregations within Plymouth Colony to celebrate Thanksgiving jointly on the 25th of November 1668. 1777 First Thanksgiving proclaimed by national authority (Continental Congress) for all 13 states on December 18 (many states had individual Days of Thanksgiving earlier that year). The national Thanksgivings continued until 1784 and then stopped; the other states were resisting a "New England holiday." 1789 A national Thanksgiving (but not an annual Thanksgiving) is proclaimed by President Washington. Of the early Presidents, only Washington, Adams and Madison declare individual Days of Thanksgiving. Annual Days of Thanksgiving are celebrated in individual New England states and begin to spread (to New York in 1817, Michigan in 1824, Ohio in 1839. 1846 Sarah Josepha Hale begins her campaign in Godey's Lady's Book for a national annual Thanksgiving. 1863 Abraham Lincoln declares national Thanksgiving on last Thursday of November. There has been a national annual Thanksgiving Day ever since. It is still up to the state governors to also declare a Day of Thanksgiving. Not all have done so, and some have proclaimed their state’s Day of Thanksgiving on a different day than the national Thanksgiving. |
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Updated 14 July, 1998
