National Archives Celebrates Thanksgiving
Press Release · Sunday, November 22, 2020

Washington, DC

See our special page highlighting Thanksgiving at the White House and more!
Special program tonight! Learn the “backstory” to this holiday!

"Thanksgiving, like Ambassadors,

Cabinet officers and others

Smeared with political ointment,

Depends for its existence on

Presidential appointment."

--Ogden Nash

On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789, as an official holiday of “sincere and humble thanks.” The nation then celebrated its first Thanksgiving under its new Constitution. On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln made the traditional Thanksgiving celebration a nationwide holiday to be commemorated each year on the fourth Thursday of November. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, President Lincoln issued a Presidential Proclamation in which he enumerated the blessings of the American people and called upon his countrymen to "set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the third Thursday of November to lengthen the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy, which was still recovering from the Depression. This move, which set off a national debate, was reversed in 1941 when Congress passed and President Roosevelt approved a joint house resolution establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. 

The three-page engrossed Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln is part of Record Group 11, General Records of the United States Government; Presidential Proclamations, 1791-2000, in the custody of the National Archives. The October Proclamation (Presidential Proclamation 2373) signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 31, 1939, is also part of Record Group 11 and the Presidential Proclamation series. The House Joint Resolution (H.J. Res. 41) is part of Record Group 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives held by the Center for Legislative Archives.

Related program:  Learn about the “Mother of Thanksgiving’s” Relentless Campaign
We Gather Together: A Nation Divided, a President in Turmoil, and a Historic Campaign to Embrace Gratitude and Grace, by Denise Kiernan
Tuesday, November 24, 2020, 7 PM ET. Watch the livestream on the National Archives YouTube channel.  

We (virtually) welcome back bestselling author Denise Kiernan to discuss the dramatic story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother with no formal schooling who became one of the 19th century’s most influential tastemakers and who campaigned for decades to make real an annual day of thanks. Alongside the story of Hale, Kiernan brings to the fore the stories of Indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, women’s rights activists, abolitionists, and others. Joining Kiernan in conversation will be author and historian Karen Abbott. Presented in partnership with the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia.