“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies,” President Abraham Lincoln stated in a proclamation on October 3, 1863, during the Civil War. ” I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” he would continue.
According to Abraham Lincoln Online, “Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863,” urging him to have Thanksgiving our “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival,” she began. “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive [sic] fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”
The proclamation was written Secretary of State William Seward and set the date for Thanksgiving until President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 until the fourth Thursday of the month.
History Of Thanksgiving
According to History Channel:
In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
“In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition,” they continue.
What Markets Are Closed For The Holiday
According to Market Watch, “U.S. financial markets are closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving Day holiday,” they began. “The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq will close at 1 p.m. Eastern time on Friday.”
