Sarah’s Pen and Thanksgiving Day
The
Civil War was raging. Horrible battles were being fought
in the North and South.
During this great crisis, an elderly widow received a letter from President Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward. The letter said, “I have received your interesting letter and have commended the same to the consideration of the President.”
Who was this woman? What had she written that could coax Abraham Lincoln’s attention away from the problems of war? She was Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most influential women’s magazine of the nineteenth century.
Sarah
used her pen and her position as editor to influence many
people. Her articles and letters pushed for such causes
as better education for women, and called for inventors
to design machinery that would make homemaking easier.
Long before the Civil War, Sarah sadly watched as the states
disagreed more and more. Sarah knew that when George Washington
was President, he had proclaimed the fourth Thursday in
November a national day of thanksgiving. But no other President
had continued the practice.
Sarah decided that a national day of thanks would help unite America.
From 1846 on, Sarah wrote editorials in her magazine encouraging governors to follow Washington’s example. She wrote letters to congressmen asking them to make the fourth Thursday of November a national holiday. She even wrote to President Zachary Taylor, but he did not act on her request.
By
1858, the United States had become increasingly divided
on the issue of states’ rights. In her November editorial
that year Sarah wrote:
“We
are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors
of the different States ...THE LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER
shall be the
DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING. . . . Let the people of all
the States and Territories sit down together and pledge
renewed love to the Union and to each other.”
By November of 1860, Sarah had convinced the governors of two territories, twenty-nine states, and the District of Columbia to agree to recognize a day of thanksgiving. Five months later, the first shots of the Civil War were fired in Charleston, South Carolina.
The war didn’t stop Sarah’s pen. She pleaded with Americans to think about the ideals that had been fought for during the Revolution, and she continued to write to state governors.
In September of 1863 she wrote to President Lincoln, explaining how popular the idea of a national day of thanks had become. But, she said, “A proclamation from the President of the United States would be the most fitting method of national appointment.”
Abraham Lincoln recognized Sarah’s idea as a way to reunite the country—if only for one day. Four days after Sarah received Mr. Seward’s letter, President Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November a day of national thanksgiving.
The President’s proclamation was read in churches all over the country. It asked that everyone take a moment on that day to thank God for his blessings and to pray “to heal the wounds of our nation.”
But
a proclamation isn’t a law. After Lincoln was assassinated,
President Andrew Johnson didn’t renew the proclamation.
Sarah was disappointed, but she continued to write letters
and editorials urging each current President and members
of the Congress to consider a law making Thanksgiving a
national holiday. She died in 1879 at the age of ninety-one
without having achieved that part of her goal.
It wasn’t until 1941, in the midst of World War II, that Congress passed a law making the fourth Thursday in November a national holiday.
Sarah Hale used her gift as a writer to unite a troubled country in a time of war. Today we still give thanks, as a nation, for all of our blessings.
