When Did Thanksgiving Become a U.S. National Holiday? Full Timeline & History

Table of Contents#

Pre-National Holiday: Thanksgiving’s Early Regional Roots
Sarah Josepha Hale: The 36-Year Campaign for a National Thanksgiving
1863: Abraham Lincoln’s First Official National Thanksgiving Proclamation
The 1870 & 1885 Acts: Thanksgiving Becomes a Federal Statutory Holiday
1941: The Final Codification of Thanksgiving’s Fixed National Date
Common Myths About Thanksgiving’s National Holiday Status
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Takeaways
References

1. Pre-National Holiday: Thanksgiving’s Early Regional Roots#

The 1621 harvest feast between Wampanoag leaders and Plymouth colonists was a one-time, unofficial celebration, not a formal holiday. For the next 200 years, Thanksgiving observances were entirely local and inconsistent:

Colonial governments would declare one-off Thanksgiving days to celebrate good harvests, military victories, or the end of droughts.
After the U.S. was founded, George Washington issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation under the new Constitution in 1789, designating Thursday, November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving. John Adams and James Madison also issued proclamations for national days of prayer, fasting, or thanksgiving.
However, Thomas Jefferson famously refused to issue such proclamations, believing that presidential declarations of religious holidays violated the separation of church and state (the Establishment Clause). Following Madison's presidency in 1815, no U.S. president issued a Thanksgiving proclamation for nearly 50 years.
By the early 1800s, only New England states held annual Thanksgiving celebrations; most southern states viewed the tradition as a Northern regional or "Yankee" custom and did not observe it at all.

2. Sarah Josepha Hale: The 36-Year Campaign for a National Thanksgiving#

The push for a uniform national Thanksgiving was led almost single-handedly by Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent 19th-century author and editor (best known for writing the children’s rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb).

Beginning in 1827 while editing the Ladies' Magazine (which she edited before it merged into Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1837), Hale launched her campaign to unify the increasingly divided country around a shared, family-focused holiday.
For 36 years, she published annual editorials advocating for a national Thanksgiving and sent hundreds of letters to sitting governors, members of Congress, and five different U.S. presidents: Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln.
She popularized many of the Thanksgiving traditions we recognize today, publishing standard recipes for roast turkey, pumpkin pie, stuffing, and cranberry sauce in her magazine.
Her campaign finally gained traction in 1863, at the height of the U.S. Civil War, when she wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to declare a national day of Thanksgiving to help heal and unify the nation.

3. 1863: Abraham Lincoln’s First Official National Thanksgiving Proclamation#

On October 3, 1863—just five days after receiving Sarah Josepha Hale's letter and months after the Union’s victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg—President Lincoln issued a formal proclamation declaring the last Thursday of November as an annual national day of Thanksgiving.

The proclamation, drafted by Secretary of State William H. Seward, called on Americans to give thanks for the "blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies" and to pray for those who had become "widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers" in the "lamentable civil strife."
For the first time, all Union states were requested to observe the holiday on the same date; former Confederate states slowly adopted the tradition over the next 30 years as Reconstruction ended.
While this proclamation established the annual national observance, it did not codify Thanksgiving as a permanent federal holiday with a fixed date. It remained a presidential proclamation that had to be renewed annually by subsequent presidents.

4. The 1870 & 1885 Acts: Thanksgiving Becomes a Federal Statutory Holiday#

While Lincoln’s annual proclamations established a consistent tradition, they were presidential decrees rather than statutory laws. Congress took steps to formalize the holiday in the late 19th century:

The Act of June 28, 1870: Congress passed the first federal holiday legislation (16 Stat. 168), designating Thanksgiving Day, New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and Christmas Day as legal holidays. However, this law applied only to federal employees working within the District of Columbia.
The Act of January 6, 1885: Congress passed a Joint Resolution (23 Stat. 516) that extended paid holiday leave benefits to all federal employees across the country.
Why the Date Remained Unstable: Crucially, neither the 1870 nor the 1885 legislation fixed Thanksgiving to a specific calendar date. Instead, the laws defined the holiday as "any day appointed or recommended by the President of the United States as a day of public fasting or thanksgiving." Because the holiday's date remained tied to presidential discretion, it set the stage for a major national dispute in the mid-20th century.

5. 1941: The Final Codification of Thanksgiving’s Fixed National Date#

The date of Thanksgiving remained unstable for decades because it was dictated by annual presidential proclamations, which led to a major national controversy in the late 1930s:

The "Franksgiving" Controversy (1939–1941): In 1939, November had five Thursdays, meaning the last Thursday fell on November 30. Retailers, led by Fred Lazarus Jr. (founder of Federated Department Stores), lobbied President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move the holiday to the fourth Thursday (November 23) to extend the Christmas shopping season during the Great Depression.
A Divided Nation: Roosevelt agreed and moved the date by proclamation. However, this sparked intense public backlash. The country split: some historical analyses count 32 states adopting the new date and 16 keeping the traditional date, while others report a 22-to-23 state split, with three states (Colorado, Mississippi, and Texas) observing both dates. Critics mockingly dubbed the new date "Franksgiving." The division disrupted school calendars, Thanksgiving football rivalries, and holiday travel. Roosevelt continued the early Thanksgiving schedule in 1940 and 1941.
Congressional Intervention (1941): The confusion proved that presidential discretion over the holiday was unsustainable. In October 1941, the House of Representatives passed H.J. Res. 41 to declare the "last Thursday" of November as the legal holiday. The Senate amended the resolution to set the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November to prevent a too-early holiday during years with five Thursdays. The House agreed to the amendment, and President Roosevelt signed the joint resolution into law on December 26, 1941.
Taking Effect: The new federal law took effect in 1942, officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the permanent, legal federal Thanksgiving holiday.

6. Common Myths About Thanksgiving’s National Holiday Status#

Myth	Fact
The 1621 Plymouth feast was the first national Thanksgiving	The 1621 event was an informal, one-time harvest celebration with no official government recognition.
Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a permanent federal holiday	Lincoln established the annual national observance, but Thanksgiving was not codified into federal statutory law until the Acts of 1870/1885, and its date was not fixed until 1941.
Thanksgiving has always been observed nationwide	Southern states resisted adopting the holiday for decades after 1863, viewing it as a northern regional custom.
Thanksgiving has always been held on the fourth Thursday of November	Traditionally, the holiday fell on the last Thursday of the month. The date was only fixed to the fourth Thursday by federal law in 1941 to resolve the "Franksgiving" confusion.
Sarah Josepha Hale began her campaign by writing to Abraham Lincoln	Hale began writing editorials in 1827 and petitioned five other presidents (Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan) before Lincoln finally acted on her request in 1863.

7. Frequently Asked Questions#

Q: Is Thanksgiving a national holiday in other countries? A: Canada has its own national Thanksgiving holiday, observed on the second Monday of October, which was formally recognized in 1879. Many other countries hold harvest festivals, but they are not officially called Thanksgiving.

Q: Do all U.S. states observe Thanksgiving? A: Yes, as a federal holiday, all government offices, public schools, and most private businesses close for Thanksgiving nationwide.

Q: Why is turkey the traditional Thanksgiving main course? A: Sarah Josepha Hale popularized turkey as the ideal Thanksgiving centerpiece in her 19th-century magazine recipes, framing it as a uniquely American, affordable option for large family meals.

Q: Why did Thomas Jefferson refuse to proclaim Thanksgiving? A: Thomas Jefferson believed that presidential Thanksgiving proclamations violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (the separation of church and state). He argued that the president had no constitutional authority to recommend religious observances.

Q: What was the "Franksgiving" controversy? A: "Franksgiving" refers to the period from 1939 to 1941 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with tradition and proclaimed Thanksgiving one week early to extend the Christmas shopping season. This caused calendar and retail chaos as states split on which date to observe, eventually prompting Congress to intervene in 1941.

Q: What is the difference between a national holiday and a federal holiday in the U.S.? A: Under the U.S. Constitution, the federal government does not have the authority to establish a mandatory holiday for the entire nation (which would bind state governments and private businesses). Instead, Congress designates "federal holidays" that legally apply only to federal government employees and the District of Columbia. However, all 50 states choose to recognize Thanksgiving, making it national in practice.

8. Final Takeaways#

Thanksgiving evolved from a scattered regional tradition to a national holiday thanks to 36 years of grassroots advocacy by Sarah Josepha Hale, who petitioned five presidents before Lincoln.
Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation established the annual national observance during the Civil War, but it remained a presidential tradition rather than statutory law.
In 1870 and 1885, Congress designated Thanksgiving as a statutory federal holiday, though the exact date remained subject to presidential proclamations.
The 1939 "Franksgiving" dispute over shopping season dates divided the nation and led Congress to pass a joint resolution (H.J. Res. 41) in 1941, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 26, 1941, which permanently fixed Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November starting in 1942.

References#

Library of Congress. (n.d.). George Washington’s 1789 National Thanksgiving Proclamation. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.12000300/
U.S. National Archives. (n.d.). Congress Establishes Thanksgiving. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving
U.S. National Archives. (2021). Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?doc-slider-gallery=5
Congressional Research Service. (2020). Federal Holidays: Evolution and Current Practices (CRS Report R41990). Retrieved from https://crsreports.congress.gov
History.com Editors. (2023). Sarah Josepha Hale: The Mother of Thanksgiving. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/mother-of-thanksgiving-sarah-josepha-hale
New England Historical Society. (2022). Franklin Roosevelt Celebrates Franksgiving – Er, Thanksgiving. Retrieved from https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/franklin-roosevelt-celebrates-franksgiving-er-thanksgiving/