Thanksgiving has had many proponents in many times that include thankful pilgrims, sailors and discoverers.
But the holiday we celebrate today on the last Thursday of November can be credited to the efforts of the remarkable Sarah Josepha Hale.
Hale, born in 1788, to the Buell family, was the self-taught daughter of modern thinking parents who believed women should be educated. In the 1820s, Hale became the first American to write an anti-slavery book. By 1828, she was the editor of an influential ladies magazine.
During this period, it was Hale who penned a still-popular series of children's poems that included Mary Had a Little Lamb.
By 1863, the nation was deeply entrenched in the bloodiest years of the Civil War. Tens of thousands were already dead and the war seemed likely to go on, which it did, until 1865.
It seemed an unlikely time for Thanksgiving and homecoming, since so many fathers and sons were dead. Few families knew where their loved ones died — or even if they died, and most everyone lived in anguish.
Still, it was Hale who more than 150 years ago wrote to President Abraham Lincoln and asked that the last Thursday of November be set aside for Thanksgiving. And so it came to be.
In arguing for Thanksgiving, Hale wrote:
"Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of worldliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart."
