In 1789, President George Washington called for an official “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” Although Congress agreed with his suggestion, no official annual holiday was enacted. However, on October 3, 1863, almost 75 years later, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation to express gratitude for the important Union Army’s victory at Gettysburg, stating that the country will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863 and thereafter the fourth Thursday of every November will be considered an official U.S. holiday. What most people don’t know is that while the proclamation was written by then Secretary of State William Seward, most of the credit for the Thanksgiving Proclamation should probably go to a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale.
Hale, the author of the children’s poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (originally “Mary’s Lamb”) written in 1830, was a well-respected writer, founder of the American Ladies Magazine, which promoted women’s issues. Among the many accomplishments during her lifetime, in 1837 she became the editor in chief of Godey’s Lady Book and by the time the Civil War had began, it was one of the most influential periodicals in the nation. She persistently argued and lobbied for a national holiday in November, believing it might help heal the wounds of the Civil War.
Born in New Hampshire, she had regularly celebrated a thanksgiving holiday and had published “Northwood: A Tale of New England” in 1827 in which there was an entire chapter devoted to the Thanksgiving tradition which had already become popular in many parts of the United States.
The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of Thanksgiving from Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863 until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost an ailing economy at the end of the depression, moved the holiday to the third Thursday to give merchants and consumers an extra week to shop between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But Congress wouldn’t have it and in 1941, in deference to Congressional wishes, agreed to restore and permanently establish the official Thanksgiving holiday on the fourth Thursday of November.