What president proclamed Thanksgiving day an official holiday?

Answer 1

President George Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26, 1789 to be "a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer". He proclaimed a second Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, February 19, 1795. It wasn't until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November of every year to be "a day of Thanksgiving". In June 1870 it legally became a paid holiday for federal employees working within the District of Columbia. In 1885 the law was expanded to apply to federal employees nationwide. In 1939 and 1940, in order to help retail businesses by making the Christmas shopping season longer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Thanksgiving Day to be the third Thursday of November. So many people protested the change in the Thanksgiving tradition that, as a compromise, Congress passed a bill making the fourth Thursday of November Thanksgiving Day. President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on December 26, 1941, and it remains in effect to this day.

Answer 2

Although President Abraham Lincoln started the tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving every year, it didn't officially become a national holiday until 1941. Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving, but in 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt changed it to the 2nd-to-last Thursday of November to make the Christmas shopping season longer. That was very unpopular with many people, so as a compromise Congress passed a joint resolution in 1941 officially making the 4th Thursday of November Thanksgiving.