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AAnother Thanksgiving is on us. While your family is coming together to thank you, you may wonder who we should thank for giving us this wonderful holiday.
There were the pilgrims, of course, who started with the first Thanksgiving in 1621. One could say that the merit goes to the local Amerindians, who taught the pilgrims farm councils that helped them survive the first harsh winter of Massachusetts. Some say President Abraham Lincoln was responsible because his proclamation of 1863 restored the holidays.
And of course, there is Sarah Josepha Buell Hale.
No, seriously – a woman you've never heard of played a key role in your heaping every fourth Thursday in November. It was only one of his major contributions to our culture.
Here is how it happened.
Hale was remarkable from the beginning. Born on a New Hampshire farm after the War of Independence, her parents had a radical belief that girls should receive the same education as boys. She was educated at home, married at 24 and widowed at age 35. She has the darkest mourning of her life.
Hale was also an accomplished writer. She published a book of poetry, then a novel. In 1837, she accepts the work that allows her to mark society. Hale became editor of a very popular magazine called Godey's Lady's Book. It was the most influential newspaper of the 19th century. On her pages, women learned to dress – her latest fashion prints were often cut out, framed and hung in the family lounge of thousands of homes – how to cook, how to raise a family and, more generally, to be a family. true half-victorian lady.
She has conscientiously followed the example of Queen Victoria and popularized the white wedding dresses and Christmas trees on this side of the Atlantic. But Hale also had some failures. She recommended applying brown packaging paper soaked in vinegar on the forehead to eliminate wrinkles. She believed that pigeons were "pretty much the only bird that deserves to be cooked".
But she was much more right that she was not mistaken. This includes Thanksgiving.
Hale wrote for the first time in 1827: "The day of Thanksgiving, like July 4th, should be a national holiday celebrated by all the inhabitants."
She lobbied the readers to petition the then president, Zachary Taylor, and the state governors to make sure it was a vacation. Taylor passed the ball saying that it was up to the States to observe Thanksgiving at the time of their choice, which is why it was celebrated locally during the antebellum period, from September to December.
Along the way, Hale filled Godey's pages with roast turkey recipes, various types of salad dressings, and even sweet potato pies. This not only drove subscribers to drool, it also played an important role in boosting public support for the holidays.
His great breakup finally took place in 1863, in full civil war. The North won the crucial battle of Gettysburg on July 3 and captured Vicksburg, Missouri on July 4. These consecutive victories reversed the course of the war in favor of the Union. Hale seized the moment.
She wrote to Lincoln asking her to organize a "national and fixed holiday" each year on the last Thursday of November. She recommended this day because Washington had designated her in her Thanksgiving proclamation of 1789. She also wrote moving editorials encouraging the idea. On October 3, Lincoln proclaimed Thursday, November 26, Thanksgiving Day, breathing new life into the tradition by having everyone watch it on the same day.
Hale was not satisfied. She turned her attention to Congress, lobbying for Thanksgiving to be a holiday. But she did not live to see it happen. Hale remained at the helm of Godey for 40 years before resigning in 1877. She died two years later at the age of 91.
In the aftermath of Christmas 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure designating the fourth Thursday of November as a federal holiday. The mission of Hale's life was finally fulfilled.
I initially wrote that Hale had several lasting claims to fame. In addition to promoting Thanksgiving, white wedding dresses and Christmas trees in the United States, there is a nursery rhyme she wrote in 1830: "Mary had a little lamb".
Whenever a family comes together to thank the blessings it enjoys and every time a parent teaches a toddler the cute little animal to the snowy fleece that has followed Mary wherever she went, Hale's legacy persists.
Few people realize that a silent widow dressed in black from head to toe is responsible for it.
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner The confidential blog of Beltway. He is a former journalist broadcaster and government communicator. His quirky weekly look at our forgotten past, "Holy Cow! History," can be read on jmarkpowell.com.
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