 November |
We would like to thank Alli Buell from Santa Rosa, California, for providing this information.
The custom of Thanksgiving Day spires from Plymouth to other New England colonies. During the Revolutionary war, eight special days of thanks were observed for victories and for being saved from dangers. On November 26, 1789, President George Washington issued a general proclamation for a day of thanks. In the same year the Protestant Episcopal Church announced that the first Thursday in November would be a regular yearly day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities."
For many years there was no regular national Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Some states had a yearly Thanksgiving holiday, and others did not. But by 1830 New York had an official state Thanksgiving Day, and other northern states soon followed its example. Virginia was the first southern state to adopt the custom. It proclaimed a Thanksgiving Day in 1855.
Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book, worked for 30 years to promote the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day. Then President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November, 1863, as "a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father." Each year afterward, for 75 years, the rest of the U.S. formally proclaimed that Thanksgiving day should be celebrated on the last Thursday of November. But President Roosevelt set it one week earlier. He wanted to help business by lengthening the shopping period before Christmas. Congress finally ruled after 1941 the fourth Thursday of November would be observed as Thanksgiving Day and would be a legal holiday.
That is the story of thanksgiving day in the USA - however it does change from place to place.
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