Abraham Lincoln Thanksgiving Proclamation Holiday History US

Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving

Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving Proclamation

The Day of Thanksgiving Proclamation

Thanksgiving Day Holiday History

Abraham Lincoln and Lessons in History

The making of the Thanksgiving Day holiday spanned three sitting U.S. presidents, and was born out of a time when their personal lives were challenged to the limits, pushed to the breaking point, and during an era when each president donned the hat as commander-in-chief during war–the Revolutionary War, American Civil War, and Second World War–and when the presidents faced personal tragedy of their own, deaths in the family, bouts of deep depression, and physical infirmities.

Spanning presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D Roosevelt, would evolve a day of thanks to our annual Thanksgiving Day Holiday. This is a good read for children to know the story of the festive occasion, what the day means, and why we continue to celebrate Thanksgiving each year. It is also an interesting read for individuals who would like to refresh their memories of the festive time, and perhaps share the story with loved ones during Thanksgiving, and it is a fascinating history of the holiday that was born out of hardship and struggles of a people who today form the United States.

Thanksgiving is generally known as the annual family gathering around many delicious dishes (with some known only as that secret recipe), and many thoughts and memories of so many past years that seem to fade rather quickly from one gathering to the next. Thanksgiving still remains the preeminent annual time of the family as relatives traverse the nation's highways with much enthusiasm and efforts to gather one more time for the festive tradition, all the while setting aside, or at least trying to, the familiar sounds of even the cell phone which serves as a stark reminder of the encroaching work week. The children and their spontaneous smiles illuminate the atmosphere as they approach grandma for one more hug. As children and family are quickly seated around a table full of grandma's most scrumptious servings, some siblings casually glance around the table to take in the snapshot moment of seeing family and children, the many loved ones, that have not been graced since the last annual celebration. But what about the day itself, what is the true meaning and purpose of Thanksgiving? So why do we as a nation currently celebrate the holiday?

Here are just a few of the common questions associated with Thanksgiving. What is the true history of Thanksgiving? Was Thanksgiving initially celebrated with Native Americans and Pilgrims exchanging food? Which U.S. President made Thanksgiving a Federal holiday? What is the definition of Thanksgiving? Is Thanksgiving celebrated on the same day each year? Why was Thanksgiving created? Below you will find answers for many common questions about Thanksgiving, as well as some facts that you may not know.

Thanksgiving Day History

President Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865)

On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789, as an official holiday of “sincere and humble thanks.” The nation then celebrated its first Thanksgiving under its new Constitution. On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln made the traditional Thanksgiving celebration a nationwide holiday to be commemorated each year on the fourth Thursday of November. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, President Lincoln issued a Presidential Proclamation in which he enumerated the blessings of the American people and called upon his countrymen to "set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the third Thursday of November to lengthen the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy, which was still recovering from the Depression. This move, which set off a national debate, was reversed in 1941 when Congress passed and President Roosevelt approved a joint house resolution establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

In the midst of the American Civil War (1861-1865), a war with no end in sight, Abraham Lincoln had many reasons to despair and to be unthankful. By 1863 more than 250,000 Americans had already died as a result of the conflict, including personal friends of Lincoln. The United States had just witnessed 50,000 casualties in its bloodiest battle in history at a small Pennsylvania town known as Gettysburg. The day the Battle of Gettysburg concluded, another battle simultaneously concluded at Vicksburg, Mississippi, but at a cost of an additional 20,000 casualties. Both battles had concluded on July 4th, 1863. And only two weeks prior to proclaiming a Day of Thanksgiving, the nation witnessed nearly 35,000 casualties at the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia. The nation had been ripped asunder.

Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving Holiday

Mary Todd Lincoln tribute

(About) "My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl, and I, a poor nobody then, fell in love with her; and what is more, I have never fallen out." Abraham Lincoln. (Right) This mezzotint print of the Lincoln family produced by New York engraver John Chester Buttre in 1873 was based on a composite portrait by New York artist, Francis B. Carpenter. Carpenter relied on a photograph taken at Mathew Brady's Washington studio on February 9, 1864, for his representation of President Lincoln and Tad. The images of Mary Todd, Willie, and Robert Lincoln are his own creation. Library of Congress.

In Indiana in 1818, when Lincoln was only nine, his mother Nancy died. After the death of Lincoln's mother, his older sister, Sarah, took charge of caring for him until their father remarried in 1819; Sarah later died in her 20s while giving birth to a stillborn son. Lincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem; by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died on August 25, most likely of typhoid fever.

Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd on November 4, 1842, in Springfield, Illinois. In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near Lincoln's law office. Abraham and Mary had 4 sons. Robert Todd Lincoln was born in 1843 and Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie) in 1846. Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children" and the Lincolns were not considered to be strict with their children. Edward died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis. "Willie" Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850, and died on February 20, 1862. The Lincolns' fourth son, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871. (Robert was the only child to live to adulthood and have children. His last descendant, grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985.)

Although President Abraham Lincoln had many reasons to be very unthankful and even ungrateful, it only took one reason, just one thought, for Abraham Lincoln to be thankful. As Lincoln meditated and realized his own personal time of thanksgiving (not misgiving), may each of us also find something on this occasion to be thankful for.

Lincoln and Thanksgiving Day. Lincoln Quotes.

Lincoln and McClellan at Antietam, Sept. 1862

Thanksgiving Holiday History

President Abraham Lincoln Thanksgiving.jpg

President Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving History. Lincoln, painting by George P A. Heal in 1869.

President Lincoln and Thanksgiving Holiday

Personal items found on Lincoln at the time he was assassinated

Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving Holiday

President Lincoln and son Tad (Thomas) on Feb. 5. 1865

(Left) This is one of five photographs of President Lincoln taken at the studio of Alexander Gardner on February 5, 1865. It was Lincoln's last studio sitting, and the effects of four long years of war are all too apparent in his haggard and care-worn face. His son Tad, on the other hand, appears to be his usual mischievous self, proudly wearing his tailored uniform and chain. (Right) Lincoln's first presidential portrait.

"BLESSINGS OF FRUITFUL FIELDS"

Thanksgiving was first celebrated by the settlers at Plymouth in the Massachusetts colony in 1621 under the leadership of Governor William Bradford. Washington and Madison each issued a Thanksgiving proclamation once during their Presidencies. It was not until 1863, however, when President Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation that the holiday was established as a national annual event, occurring on the last Thursday of November. The first observance of the national holiday came one week after the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg. The language of the proclamation is beautiful and marked by a rare felicity of expression:

"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the everwatchful providence of almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, 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. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed."

--PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION, OCTOBER 3, 1863.

President Lincoln and Thanksgiving Holiday

(Page 1 of 3) President Lincoln and Thanksgiving Proclamation.

History of Thanksgiving Holiday

President Lincoln Thanksgiving Holiday.jpg

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President George Washington

President Abraham Lincoln

On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln made the traditional Thanksgiving celebration a nationwide holiday to be commemorated each year on the fourth Thursday of November. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, President Lincoln issued a Presidential Proclamation in which he enumerated the blessings of the American people and called upon his countrymen to "set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving Holiday

President Abraham Lincoln in 1862

Abraham Lincoln's fondness for poetry influenced the nature of his thought and the character of his writing. From an early age, the future president read, memorized, and recited poetry. As an adult, he wrote several poems based on his childhood memories and developed a prose style that often bordered on the poetic. While president, he received many celebratory poems from the public which he read with pleasure and saved; he has since been the subject of hundreds of published poems. The Abraham Lincoln Homepage, among a wide variety of subjects related to Lincoln, provides an overview of Abraham Lincoln as a reader, writer, recipient, and subject of poetry.

Sources: National Park Service; National Archives; Library of Congress; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.


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