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In support of the proposed national holiday, Hale wrote presidents Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln convinced him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863. [33]
Sarah Hale, credited for getting Abraham Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, shows how one person can make a difference.
By 1855, 16 states celebrated Thanksgiving (14 on the fourth Thursday of November, and two on the third). President Lincoln's first proclaimed days in April, October and November. However, it was not until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln established the regular tradition of observing days of national thanksgiving. [6] [20] [21] [22]
George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday in 1789. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln codified the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving, to be commemorated each year. In keeping with tradition, every President had declared a general day of thanksgiving to be observed on the last Thursday in November.
Hale was so taken with the story of that first Thanksgiving that she lobbied five U.S. presidents to make it a federal holiday. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln finally declared Thanksgiving an ...
Author and editor Sarah Josepha Hale persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. This is a Nov. 26, 1996 photo of a painting of Sarah Josepha Hale ...
On Oct. 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving. He saw the occasion as a peaceful interlude amid the Civil War.
In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November of that year to be a day of Thanksgiving. Before Lincoln's presidency, Thanksgiving, while a regional holiday in New England since the 17th century, had been proclaimed by the federal government only sporadically and on irregular dates. [217]