Show chaij ch grave mi T T ib 41 14 1 Us our lt f vi 71 1 j j k rt IM lairs 41 1 an 1 r ar aej BP I 1 SR 4 k lincoln 1 5 lard josephe hale 1 t k 16 ilk k F i 1 2 r n rf aa home for thanksgiving m n a cur ives brint by ELMO SCOTT WATSON SK SR ten americans why do we celebrate Thanks thanksgiving gIN ing on the last thurs day in november and nine of them r probably will anaw er why that s because the pilgrim fathers who es it celebrated it then and j J that like so many of our popular 4 beliefs Is only a half truth at best it s true that the pilgrim fathers were principally responsible for thanksgiving day being a red letter day on our calendars but its it s also true that we owe the establishment of thanksgiving day as a national holiday on a tain date certain to the extent that it always occurs on the last thursday in november main ly to two tro persons a man and a woman oman to abra ham lincoln and sarah josepha hale but before d sc sassing ssang their part in the matter of establishing this popular national holiday let lets s check up a bit on the history of the development of thanksgiving the story of the first new england thatis from which our present day dav celebration Is a d descendant Is familiar to all americans how that first winter of the pilgrims in america had bad been a terrible one of cold and sickness which had left only 55 of the little company of alive when the spring of 1621 came aro ind how all through the summer they watched with the greatest anxiety the progress of the crops they had sown and how when autumn came there was a boun ticul harvest then according to s relation or jour nal of the plantation Plant plantation atlon at plymouth our bar vest rest being gotten in our gouveneur Gou venour sent foure men on fowl ng that so we might after a more special manner rejoyce together after we had gathered the fruit of our labours laboure they foure in one day killed as much foule as with a little delpe besides served the company almost a week at which time amongst other recreations we exercised our armes many of the indians corn com ing amongst us and amongst the rest their greatest king ring massasoit Massa with some nineties men whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted and they went out and killed five deere which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Gouvern our and upon the cap balne and others the popular view Is that this first thanks giving was the beginning of a series of such celebrations every year but the fact is that the following year 1622 no such observance oc burred in 1623 a day of thanksgiving was held but not in the autumn and not in connection with the harvest it was observed on july 30 and had to do with the safe arrival of a ship load of provisions from england from then on for decades thanksgiving was observed in most irregular fashion some years were skipped some years had more than one celebration sometimes for the arrival of ships more often for victory over the ind ans as in the instance of quelling the in 1637 and the defeat of king philip in 1678 1676 it was not until 1689 that the massachusetts general court issued the first recorded formal thanksgiving proc la lama mation fion during the revolutionary war the people and the army observed an annual thanksgiving day by proclamation of the continental congress but after a peace was declared it was discontinued 1789 in that year a new element came into the observance of thanksgiving and one which has survived in the present celebration that was the presidential proclamation of a thanksgiving day for the whole nation and it was george washington the first president who issued such a proclamation setting aside thursday novem ber 26 1789 as the day it so happened that thursday november 26 was the last thursday in november that year and that that fact was to have an important bearing on the later history of thanksgiving day as we shall see sed farther on in this article but although washington was the first to issue a presidential proclamation proc for a national thanksgiving day he did not establish a prece dent which was followed consistently during his second administration he again issued a thanksgiving proclamation on january 1 1795 in philadelphia which was then the national capital he called upon his fellow americans to set apart and observe thursday the nineteenth day of february next as a day of public thanks giving and prayer and on that day to meet together and render their sincere and hearty thanks to the great ruler of nations for a long list of blessings which the country was then en joving the example set by washington was followed by h s successor john adams who proclaimed two athani days during his administration one on wednesday may 9 1798 and the other on thursday april 25 1799 this custom how bow ever was allowed to lapse during the two terms of thomas jefferson but it was revived by james madison who issued four such proclamations dur ing his administration the first one of these set aside the third thursday in august of 1812 the second named the second thursday in septem ber her 1813 as the day the third designated thurs day january 12 1814 and the fourth and last set aside the second thursday in april 1815 thus it will be seen that although ing days by presidential proclamation in the main picked upon thursday as the day of the week for such an observance the month varied greatly and there was no connection between these thanksgiving days and the annual observe ance established by the pilgrims no other presidents after madison seemed to have had occasion for proclaiming a thanksgiving day and it remained for abraham lincoln to resume the custom and to link up the proclaimed med thanks giving day with the pilgrim custom by establish ing the last thursday in november as a national feast day and a day for giving thanks but before adding another star to the crown of the great emancipator heed now the ancient french admonition cherches Cher chez la femmel it Is here that sarah josepha hale comes into the thanksgiving picture for it was mrs hale a na tive of newport N H known wherever english Is spoken as the author of mary had a little lamb editor of the famous magazine godey s ladys lady s book and a pioneer in educational and civic problems of her day who by canvassing the governors of states and territories and reconciling conci ling sectional differences and by appeal ing constantly to successive presidents brought about tl ti e establishment of thanks thanksgiving iving day as a national holiday on the last thursday in november sarah josepha hale was a farsighted far sighted woman in many respects she was the first to advocate women omen teachers in c schools she demand ed for housekeeping the d anity of a profession and put the term domestic science into the language she started the first day nursery and was the first to stress the necessity of physical training for her sex as well as the first to advocate public playgrounds she founded the first society for the advancement of women s wages I 1 1 etter working conditions for women and the re luction of child labor As early as 1827 she began advocating a na ion wide observance of thanksgiving day we have too few hoi hol days she wrote at that time thanksgiving like the fourth of july should e considered a national festival and observed y all our people as an exponent of our republican institutions but it was not until 1846 that she began campaign through the editorial columns of odey s lady s book to hold such a nation wide celebration on a certain date and every year from that time on she waged her campaign i arty arly in the spring she would write letters to the governors of all the states and territories and ond Influential to persons everywhere asking their assistance in making the last thursday in november which had been washington s choice a universal holiday in the hope of bringing 1 dessure res sure to bear upon the governors she next opened correspondence with literally thousands of private persons of influence with senators and congressmen and the clergy in her effort tor for the estabi ashment of state she was almost immediately sue by 1849 the third year of her cam laign most states and territories were keeping individual festivals but no attempt was made to coincide the dates maine might celebrate and frequently did in september virginia in october and pennsylvania in november A conglomeration ot of state holidays however was not by any manner of means sarah hales hale a goal she dreamed of the states joined in a great national observance and to this end she soon began appealing to whoever happened to be the president in office using washington s single act as a precedent and example she privately wrote again and again to billmore rill more pierce and buchanan Bue hanan all to no avail it was an age when women outside the home were seen and not heard she herself at the time was the only successful business woman in the country re feminine minine meddling in public affairs was not only frowned on but resented mrs hale was quite aware of this antagonistic attitude in one of her letters to prest dent fillmore now preserved in a public col lection at buffalo she begged his excellency not to be prejudiced against the idea because he was being addressed by a woman I 1 he ile may way not have been so prejudiced but at least he did nothing about it neither did pierce his successor nor buchanan Bue hanan who nho preceded lin coin coln falling with the presidents she tell fell back on her editorials thus carrying her appeal again directly to the people As early as 1852 she had succeeded in whipping 29 states and territories into line for the last thursday of november bach each year all through the seething she proclaimed in godey s lady s book that that day would be thanksgiving day and in the main the country kept it with her the most gigantic civil strife in the history of the world was pending and political and sectional bitterness was rife in 1859 while the storm was brewing she was more mord vigorous than ever with her thanksgiving plan in hope that it might hein help to avert dis union if every state she wrote in an editorial in godey gooley s would join in union thanksgiving on the twenty fourth of this month mouth would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the constitution of the united states which guar altees peace prosperity progress and perpetuity to our great republic so in 1859 18 an almost versal thanksgiving Thanks iving day was kept not in response to a presidential proclamation but be cause a woman asked it in 1861 with the smoke of battle darkening the land mrs hale begged for a thanks IV ing in day of peace but there was no peace in 1862 she again failed but in 1863 she won after 17 years it came about in this way in the september number of godey s she wrote would it not be better that the proclamation that appoints thurs day the twenty sixth of november 1863 as the day of thanksgiving for the people of the united states of america should in the first instance emanate from the president of the republic to be applied by the governors of each and every state in acquiescence with the chief executive advisor on the twenty n nth of september she received from seward lincoln s secretary of state an answer to her letter to the president stating that it was receiving official attention four days later abraham lincoln issued the first na lional thanksgiving day proclamation since washington s day in it he said and so the last thursday in november Is hereby set apart as a day of thanksgiving and praise that set the precedent and lincoln followed it up the next year 1864 by naming the same date the last thursday in his second and last regular thail day proclamation since that time other president tc have never deviated from the custom mor a have governors of the states As for sarah josepha hale the mother of thanksgiving so long as she remained editor of godey s lady ladys s book she resigned in december 1877 she stood guard over her cherished holiday had it not been for her in the years of civil strife and reconstruction the precedent set by lincoln might very well have been put aside but by the time she laid dowil dowa her editorial pen in her ninetieth year the custom had been firmly established thanksgiving day had taken its place in the hearts of all the people and on the calendar of the nation for all time to come 0 by western newspaper union |