The Woman Who Helped Make Thanksgiving

The fourth Thursday in November today means family, food and giving thanks. The national holiday of Thanksgiving, however, did not come quickly or easily. The precedent for the holiday can be attributed, in part, to the determination of one woman: Sarah J. Hale.

Born in 1788, Hale was an American activist, editor and writer, best known as creator of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” As editor of the popular Godey’s Lady’s Book magazine for women, she advocated for women’s education and the right to own property. A talented writer, she used her skills to persuade President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November.

After years of writing to other government officials, Hale finally took her case to the top.

“You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States,” she wrote Lincoln in September 1863. With Lincoln’s help, Hale hoped, “the permanency and unity of our Great American Festival of Thanksgiving would be forever secured.”

On Oct. 3, Lincoln issued a proclamation urging his fellow citizens “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

The country, then engaged in a bloody civil war, would not celebrate the day together: Confederate states didn’t consider themselves subject to Lincoln’s proclamation.

Still, Hale’s persistent efforts helped set a precedent of celebrating Thanksgiving in late November. In 1870, congressional legislation officially made Thanksgiving a national holiday and, in 1941, set the day as the fourth Thursday of the month.

More than 160 years after Lincoln’s proclamation, Thanksgiving Day still fills Americans with a sense of community, love and gratitude, thanks in no small part to the determination of Sarah Hale.