Abraham Lincoln issued America’s first Thanksgiving proclamation in a time of violence. The year was 1863, and the president found it appropriate to give thanks even though America was torn by ...

As early as 1849, Abraham Lincoln believed that ... No Confederate states took the offer, and on January 1 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared, "all persons ...

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation ... in the White House, Abraham Lincoln, with Mary Todd, and their sons, celebrated that day of Thanksgiving and prayer ...

historian and chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. It took the trauma of the Civil War to make Thanksgiving a formal, annual holiday. Lincoln issued his proclamation on Oct. 3 ...

Learn more about Sarah Josepha Hale and why she so desperately wanted President Abraham Lincoln ... but President Lincoln did not. His October 3rd, 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation read, "In the ...

The Inkwell used by Lincoln, the Proclamation draft and Lincoln's pen. Robert Clark / Institute On July 20, 1862, John Hay, Lincoln’s private secretary, predicted in a letter that the president ...

George Washington issued his Thanksgiving proclamation, designating “a day of public thanks-giving” to be held on “Thursday the 26th day of November” that year. Abraham Lincoln would later ...

Thanksgiving became regularly celebrated on the last Thursday in November starting in 1863 with a proclamation from President Abraham Lincoln. The last Thursday in November fell on the last day of ...