Opinion: The birth of a national holiday - Thanksgiving in 1800s

Though we most often associate Thanksgiving with Pilgrims and New England Indians, the holiday, at least as an official national event, began 150 years ago, at the height of the Civil War.

On Oct. 3, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation announcing that the final Thursday of November would be set aside to express appreciation for the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.” Even amid war’s many horrors, Americans had much to be thankful for. And Lincoln insisted that the rightful object of their gratitude was “the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.” Divine mercies required public acknowledgment. And so, Lincoln invited all Americans to “observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Of course, Lincoln did not create Thanksgiving from nothing. There were historical antecedents. The “original” Thanksgiving feast did happen in 1621. But it was not until the 19th century that it became enshrined as the progenitor of the modern event. In the meantime, early Americans celebrated Thanksgiving not as a fixed annual event, but as a series of ad hoc holidays called in response to specific events. These were religious occasions, intended to invoke God’s help to cope with hardships, or to offer God thanks for positive developments.

The custom gradually solidified and by the 1840s and 1850s Thanksgiving was celebrated each November by a majority of states and many localities across the country. But the practice was uneven — a patchwork of local celebrations rather than a national holiday.