History of Thanksgiving: The Pilgrims to “Franksgiving”

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• It is the 224th year of Thanksgiving, not 150th. Our first President, George Washington, issued the first American Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789!
  President Jefferson Davis declared Nov. 15 as a day of Thanksgiving back in 1861. It was two years later when Lincoln followed suit.
  Thank you, George Washington and Jefferson Davis!

  • Thanks for your comment. You're right that the thanksgiving declared by Lincoln in 1863 was not the first one, but it was the first time it was held every year. Washington and Davis declared thanksgiving days for special events - not as an annual holiday.

• Sarah Joseph Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, was the Godmother of Thanksgiving. In September 1863 she wrote to President Lincoln urging him to make Thanksgiving Day a fixed nation festival. Lincoln liked the idea and issued his proclamation on October 3, 1963, proclaiming the last Thursday of November to be a National Thanksgiving Day. That is not the end of the story. In 1939 President Roosevelt was pressured by store owners to to move Thanksgiving Day to the 3rd Thursday in November, to provide more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He did, but most Americans continued to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday of November. In 1940 FDR realized his mistake. In December 1941, he assigned the holiday to the 4th Thursday in November.