Becoming a National Holiday

Although days of thanksgiving were celebrated throughout the colonies, not all were celebrated at the same time.

In 1789, President George Washington signed a proclamation declaring Thursday, November 26, as a national day of Thanksgiving.

Thomas Jefferson was opposed to the proclamation. He believed it to be unconstitutional, citing First Amendment restraints concerning constitutional division between federal and state powers, as well as the Tenth Amendment, which dealt with the separation of the federal government and religious matters.

By the mid-1800s, many states observed a Thanksgiving holiday.

Poet and magazine editor Sarah Hale, better known for "Mary Had a Little Lamb,” had been tirelessly petitioning presidents for decades to have Thanksgiving formally established. Her letter to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War years suggested that such a day might help unite the nation, which may have persuaded him to establish a national Thanksgiving Day.

In 1863, President Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday in November a national holiday to be observed annually.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the date one week earlier to allow more shopping days until Christmas, which caused a national rift. Twenty-three states followed his change, 23 other states kept the traditional date, and two states honored both dates. To end the confusion, in 1941 Congress declared that Thanksgiving would be a national holiday held on the fourth Thursday of November, where it remains today.

In 1963, President Kennedy officially recognized Berkeley Plantation as the site of the first Thanksgiving.