## Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History

by Diana Karter Appelbaum

Facts on File Publications 1984

CHAPTERS 8 AND 9: PROCLAMATIONS IN DIFFERENT STATES, SARAH HALE,
THANKSGIVING AS AN ABOLITIONIST PROJECT

APPELBAUM GETS SARAH HALE'S MIDDLE NAME WRONG IN SOME SPOTS

# Transplanted Yankees Sow the Seeds of Thanksgiving

Pages 110-113

By the early 1840s, Thanksgiving had spread far beyond the borders of
New England. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Vermont and Maine still celebrated the holiday born two centuries
earlier along the banks of the Connecticut River, but governors of New
York, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana also proclaimed an
annual thanksgiving day, and in 1843 Pennsylvania and Missouri joined
the growing list.

Louisiana observed Thanksgiving for the first time on Thursday, January
15, 1846. . . . Louisiana celebrated Thanksgiving on a Thursday in
November or December from November 26, 1846, on. Thanksgiving Day,
December 9, 1847, was especially joyful, coming just six days after
General Zachary Taylor led a triumphal parade of soldiers fresh from
victory in the Mexican War through the streets of New Orleans.

Missouri's first Thanksgiving \[1843\] was a success, but Thanksgiving
did not become an official annual holiday in Missouri until 1855.
Between 1843 and 1855, some governors proclaimed the holiday, others
omitted to do so.

Such erratic proclamations were common. Thanksgiving Day might come in
September, October, November, December or even January, and in many
states it was some years proclaimed, some years neglected, according to
the whim of the governor.

# Mrs. Hale's Campaign

Pages 113-4

Sarah Josephine Hale was a remarkable woman. Born near Newport, New
Hampshire, in 1788 to a revolutionary war veteran and his wife, Sarah
Hale was left a poor widow with five children to support in an era when
no profession open to women enabled them to earn an adequate living.
Mrs. Hale determined to support her family with her pen and wrote
*Northwoodd; or Life North and South* a novel that set out to
demonstrate the superiority of democratic, virtuous, rural New England
by contrasting it with decadent, slaveholding southern society . . . .

The success of *Northwood* led to a job as editor of the *Ladies'
Magazine* in Boston, one of the earliest women's magazines and the first
to be edited by a woman. In 1837, the *Ladies' Magazine* merged with the
*Lady's Book* of Philadelphia, and Mrs. Hale became editor of the new
*Lady's Book and Magazine*, published by L.A. Godey. In 1841, she moved
her home and editorial offices to Philadelphia.

*Godey's Lady's Book* was, for the next two decades, the most widely
distributed periodical of any kind in the United States . . . .

Sarah Hale began her campaign to make the last Thursday in November the
national Thanksgiving Day in 1846. Whether she was inspired by the
recent gubernatorial decision to make Thanksgiving a holiday in
Pennsylvania, or whether she in some way influenced the governor to
proclaim the holiday, is impossible to say. Old issues of the *Lady's
Book* do show that she waged an unremitting campaign for a nationwide
Thanksgiving holiday beginning that year.

Each year Mrs. Hale wrote a rhapsodic editorial on the desirability of a
national Thanksgiving Day.

# Thanksgiving Takes Root

Pages 114-127

In addition to her editorials, Mrs. Hale wrote letters. Each summer the
governor of every state and territory received a letter from her urging
them to proclaim the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. Her
requests, and the similar efforts of others, fell on fertile soil. . . .

The Presbyterian church played an especially important role in
introducing Thanksgiving to new states. Presbyterian state synods
commonly proclaimed days of thanksgiving for Presbyterians in states
where the governors did not, and sometimes formally petitioned the
governor to proclaim Thanksgiving Day. . . .

Thanksgiving had the additional advantage of being introduced to people
who, while not accustomed to celebrate it, were at least familiar with
it as a New England custom, much as Americans today recognize Mardi Gras
as a customary holiday in New Orleans.

New Englanders were not shy about instructing their fellow Americans in
the reasons that demanded the observance of Thanksgiving. . . . A people
who felt free to tell their reluctant fellow citizens to educate their
children, free their slaves and give women the vote were unfettered in
their eagerness to suggest that other regions join their home states in
celebrating Thanksgiving Day.

Governor Thomas Drew proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day in Arkansas
for December 9, 1847. . . .

Thanksgiving Day was officially proclaimed in California even before the
state was admitted to the Union, and observed by individual Californians
well before it was officially proclaimed. . . .

Since California was not admitted to the Union until 1850, that first
Thanksgiving proclamation \[on November 29, 1849\] was issued over the
signature of Military Governor General Riley, at the urging of his New
York-born adjutant.

Governor John Gaines issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation for
Oregon Territory in 1852, stating that he did so, "In conformity to a
usage in most of the States of the Union," and this was true. By that
year, the Northeast and Midwest, along with many parts of the South and
several territories, celebrated Thanksgiving as an annual holiday.
Oregon did not have another Thanksgiving until it achieved statehood in
1859---and a most begrudgingly proclaimed Thanksgiving it was.

Acting Governor Thomas Cuming set the first Thanksgiving Day in Nebraska
on November 30, 1854, just six months after Nebraska Territory was
established by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The settlers were Yankees moving
into the new territory from nearby Iowa and other northern states, and
they would keep their old New England holiday in this new free-soil
territory. The introduction of Thanksgiving to Kansas would prove more
controversial and bloody.

On that first Thanksgiving Day, December 26, 1850, St. Paul
\[Minnesota\] was a frontier village of about 225 buildings, and St.
Anthony was the next largest town with but 115 houses; indeed, the
entire Minnesota Territory, including both Dakotas as far as the
Missouri River, held only 6,000 settlers. New and sparsely populated
though the territory was, a "magnificent ball" was held in St. Paul in a
hall decorated with "paintings, pictures, transparencies and chandeliers
in a style of superb elegance," while the three hotels in town "each
served elaborate dinners of buffalo, bear, and venison."

Governors of the young Minnesota Territory proclaimed Thanksgiving every
year, a practice regularized by the first legislature after Minnesota
became a state in 1858.

. . . 5,000 Latter-Day Saints whom Brigham Young led over the Rocky
Mountains in 1847 to settle the Great Salt Basin of Utah.

In one proclamation, issued in 1851, Governor Young gave thanks for the
harvest, good health, general prosperity and peace, but went on to
incorporate uniquely Mormon concepts of priesthood and to emphasize such
Christian virtues as brotherhood and charity.

The landing of the Pilgrim Fathers did not become the honored myth of
our nation's birth because of a realistic understanding of who these
people were . . . but because of who their descendants became. . . .

Here was a third holiday for the nation to celebrate together along with
Washington's birthday and the Fourth of July. Here was a new
constellation of mythic Pilgrim heroes to place in the firmament
alongside Washington and Lafayette. Just as Thanksgiving had been
created to fill a need for holidays in Puritan New England, so it was
adopted by western and southern states that needed myths and nationwide
holidays.

# Thanksgiving as Politics in the North

Pages 130-131

Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, opposed
slavery in his Thanksgiving sermon of 1847 more on the grounds that it
degraded white Americans than out of direct sympathy for the slaves.

Despite the strident tone of many Thanksgiving sermons, there were
people of both North and South who felt that Thanksgiving Day could be a
useful tool in the effort to preserve the Union in harmony and
compromise. The hope, expressed by Sarah Josepha Hale . . . was that a
national holiday on which all Americans gathered to count their
blessings would encourage a feeling of national unity and make all
parties more willing to compromise.

# Thanksgiving as Politics in Virginia

Pages 132-133

\[1855\] was a special thanksgiving . . . held expressly in gratitude
for the end of the \[yellow fever\] epidemic \[that killed 2,000
citizens during the summer\], not the importation of a Yankee holiday to
Virginia; and, to underscore the distinction, Johnson set November 15 as
Thanksgiving, while other governors who issued proclamations ordered
celebrations on November 29.

\[slave-holding Governor Henry H. Wise was elected in Virginia in 1856
and he received\] a polite letter from Mrs. Sarah H. Hale, who, like
Wise, supported Democratic candidate James Buchanan for the presidency.
"I am aware," wrote Mrs. Hale, "that Virginia has not often joined in
keeping this Festival; but this year, when, as I trust, the Democratic
party will gain such a victory as will insure the perpetuity of our
beloved Union, surely the 'Old Dominion' will gladly keep the Day of
Thanksgiving---and *lead* in the Festival of the States."

In no uncertain terms, Wise told Mrs. Hale what he thought of her pet
holiday: "This theatrical national claptrap of Thanksgiving has aided
other causes in setting thousands of pulpits to preaching *'Christian
politics'* instead of humbly letting the carnal Kingdom alone and
preaching singly Christ crucified." By "other causes" Governor Wise
meant abolition, and Wise was not a man to abet a Yankee abolitionist
holiday.

# Attempts at Compromise

Page 135

A prelude to that \[abolitionist\] victory \[in Kansas\] was the
Thanksgiving Day proclaimed for December 25, 1855, by Colonel James
Lane, chairman of the Free State executive committee of Kansas
Territory, which met in Topeka in the confusing days when Kansas had two
rival territorial governments.