When did Thanksgiving become a national holiday?

Answer 1

President Lincoln signed a proclamation in 1863 asking "all Americans to ask God to "commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife" and to "heal the wounds of the nation." He made the fourth Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day. Congress would riot make Thanksgiving a national holiday until 1870.

The first official US holidays were declared by Congress on June 28, 1870. New Years Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day were all declared holidays in the first act. George Washington's Birthday was declared a holiday in 1871.

Interesting Facts:

According to Title 5 of the US Code, neither Congress or the President has the authority to declare a holiday that must be enforced by the states - Federal holidays are only applicable to Federal employees and the District of Columbia.

Each state chooses which holidays it will recognize.

QUOTE:

"The act of June 28, 1870, which was apparently prompted by a memorial drafted

by local "bankers and business men," provided that New Year's Day, Independence

Day, Christmas Day, and "any day appointed or recommended by the President of the

United States as a day of public fasting or thanksgiving [were] to be holidays within the District." This legislation was drafted "to correspond with similar laws of States

around the District,"3 and "in every State of the Union."

Answer 2

Answer

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At the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, Thanksgiving was not a fixed holiday; it was up to the President to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation to announce what date the holiday would fall on. However, Thanksgiving was always the last Thursday in November because that was the day President Abraham Lincoln observed the holiday when he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.

Actually, the first official American observance of a holiday called "Thanksgiving" occurred when Congress declared that December 18, 1777 should be celebrated as a national day "for solemn Thanksgiving and praise" in response to and in recognition of the surrender of the British forces commanded by General Burgoyne in the battle of Saratoga, regarded as the turning point (since it brought France into the conflict) in the struggle for American independence.

Then, on October 3, 1789, George Washington, at the request of both houses of Congress, assigned Thursday the 26th day of November 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer acknowledging the divine favor and protection which sanctioned the adoption of the new national Constitution. This established a tradition that the last Thursday of November was a day of national Thanksgiving, not necessarily or primarily a harvest celebration commonly and now widely associated with the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth Plantation.

It is not by accident that President Lincoln selected October 3rd as the day on which he similarly signed his proclamation of a day of Thanksgiving, the country then being engaged in a struggle which could very well mean the end of that very Constitution celebrated in Washington's original Thanksgiving proclamation. It is interesting then, considering the circumstance of a civil war, that Lincoln should begin his remarks by reflecting on the blessings of fruitful fields at year's end, thus linking Thanksgiving to a secular harvest celebration which it has by and large become over the last century.

Answer 3

President Abraham Lincoln made it a holiday in 1863.

Answer 4

Christmas became a federal holiday in the United States of America when Ulysses S. Grant declared it a federal one in 1870. Hope this helped!

Answer 5

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Answer 6

1840