Two weeks from tomorrow, we celebrate our national Thanksgiving Day. For days mothers will have been shopping and baking, inspecting the good tablecloths, the best dinnerware, and polishing candelabra. Single folks living far from their families plan gatherings, contributing tableware, and parts of the feast, to a communal table. For most of us, Thanksgiving dinner is a big meal with roast turkey and all the trimmings, plus other traditional fare.
Charities, too, are geared up to feed the hungry with meals just as complete and sumptuous.
Our modern national holiday officially began in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared that a national holiday would be observed on Thursday, November 26, 1863, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty. Lincoln’s proclamation, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, also provided that the last Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. Prior to that, each region, mainly in New England and other northern states, had sporadically, and at different times, observed days of feasting and merriment after the autumnal harvests. In 1863 America was mired in the Civil War; yet decades earlier, even before sectionalist hostilities between North and South boiled over into outright war—one woman had been tirelessly petitioning presidents to declare a nation-wide day of thanksgiving as an American custom and unifying measure.
Her name was Sarah Josepha Hale, and she was the editor of the popular and influential magazine Godey's Lady's Book. Her letters to successive presidents went ignored all those years, until Lincoln responded to Hale’s letter dated September 28, 1863. Mrs. Hale probably deserves much of the credit for the holiday we observe today, and the bountiful meal that is traditionally part of it. Her idea of an ideal feast included our familiar roast turkey with a wide variety of side dishes—including a chicken pie, which has disappeared from modern menus.
California was not yet a state when its residents were urged to observe a day of gratitude. The first “official” Thanksgiving in California occurred in 1849, during the chaotic Gold Rush. This declaration by General Bennet Riley, California’s last American military governor, was printed in all the leading newspapers:
Proclamation
In conformity with the customs of other States and Territories, and in order that the people of California may make a general and public acknowledgement of their gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for His kind and fostering care during the past year, and for the boundless blessings which we now enjoy, it is recommended that Thursday, the 29th day of November next, be set apart and kept as a day of Thanksgiving and prayer.
With a few deviations (from President Andrew in 1865 and President Grant in 1869) Lincoln’s precedent was followed annually by every subsequent president through 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt changed it to the next to last Thursday—creating considerable controversy. Two years later FDR relented, and signed a bill into law officially making the last Thursday in November the national holiday, as it stands today.
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