One of the first really American customs was to set aside one day each year to
give thanks. On this day, People give thanks with feasting and prayer for the
blessings they may have received during the year. The first Thanksgiving Days
were harvest festivals, or days for thanking God for plentiful crops. For this
reason the holiday still takes place late in the fall, after the crops have
been gathered.
In the United States, Thanksgiving is usually a family day, celebrated with big
dinners and joyous reunions. The very mention of Thanksgiving often calls up
memories of kitchens and pantries crowded with good things to eat.
Thanksgiving is also a time for serious religious thinking, church services and
prayer.
The first day of prayer and thanksgiving was celebrated by the Plymouth
colonists in 1621 and the custom spread to the other New England colonies.
For many years there was no regular national Thanksgiving Day in the United
States. Some of the states had a yearly Thanksgiving holiday; others did not.
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 Josepha Hale, the editor of
Godey's Lady's Book
, worked many 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 President of the United States formally
proclaimed that Thanksgiving Day should be celebrated on the last Thursday of
November. But in 1939, President Roosevelt set it one week earlier. He wanted
to help business by lengthening the shopping period before Christmas. Congress
finally ruled that after 1941 the fourth Thursday of November would be observed
as Thanksgiving Day and would be a legal federal holiday.
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