By Denise Kiernan

For being one of the most popular holidays in America, Thanksgiving labors under a bit of an identity crisis. Founding stories that have been told countless times can sometimes take on a life of their own. Thanksgiving may be the greatest example of this, especially when the real story is far more complicated than the manufactured one. 

When I started researching how Thanksgiving became an American holiday, I was amazed at what I found. I decided to write a nonfiction story about how this annual expression of gratitude came to be. Well, I actually decided to write two stories—one for adults called We Gather Together and one for children called Giving Thanks. Both books are important American stories that focus on the essence of the holiday. 

Many aspects of Thanksgiving’s history have gotten lost among Black Friday sales, football games, parades, travel mayhem, and turkey trotting. But in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the holiday was very different from what we know today. To start, it used to be on different days every year. Depending on where you lived and what year it was, Thanksgiving was a moveable feast, changing from year to year and sometimes from season to season. 

Today, the centerpiece of the holiday is a large meal with family and friends. But, in the past, food was not always the main event. Presidents, governors, Congress, and other community leaders issued proclamations announcing “thanksgivings” for everything from battle victories to harvests. Thanksgiving was understood to be a communal expression of gratitude. One of these older interpretations of the practice took place as recently as this past September. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the United Kingdom held, among other events, a religious “thanksgiving service” in honor of the late monarch.

So, where did the annual American Thanksgiving in November get its roots? We owe its existence to a woman who is the heart of Giving Thanks—Sarah Josepha Hale. A widowed mother of five with no formal education, Hale was one of the most influential magazine editors in 19th-century America. She wielded her influence as editor of a women’s magazine that had one of the largest readerships in the country. What to wear, how to cook, who to read—the “editress” of Godey’s Lady’s Book wielded a unique kind of power at a time when she couldn’t even vote. 

Thanksgiving was not an official national holiday in America until World War II. That’s right, until 1941, Thanksgiving was still, theoretically, up to the president to proclaim and for governors to follow suit.

To give you a sense of Hale’s influence, she is the one who first promoted the idea of wearing white wedding dresses and erecting Christmas trees in one’s home. She didn’t just use her power to sell copies of her magazine, but also promoted the writing of other women and raised funds for libraries, veterans, their widows, monuments to their memory, and more. 

Hale also made it her life’s mission to ensure that Thanksgiving would be celebrated throughout the United States on the same day, everywhere, every year, at the end of November. She lobbied governors, ambassadors, her readers, and five presidents to make it happen. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln granted her November wish. That first Thanksgiving came in the midst of the Civil War and just a week after the Gettysburg Address. 

However, Thanksgiving was not an official national holiday in America until World War II. That’s right, until 1941, Thanksgiving was still, theoretically, up to the president to proclaim and for governors to follow suit. Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Congress finally established the holiday in a legal sense once and for all. Sarah Josepha Hale didn’t live to see this momentous occasion but it would not have happened without her.

Historically, any time a human on this planet used the word “thanksgiving”—notice the under case “t”—they focused on community and gratitude. And at the same time, our big-T Thanksgiving, unfortunately, reminds members of the Native American community and others of the atrocities that the North American continent’s original inhabitants suffered at the hands of European colonialists. The long history behind what we know of Thanksgiving's past has been muddied for more than 100 years, often to the detriment of the Indigenous community. Ironically, some of the most long-standing and now widespread expressions of gratitude come from the Indigenous cultures themselves—a holiday reminder for us all. 

The truth is, we’d be hard-pressed to nail down a “first” thanksgiving on this continent like the one most learned about as children. And while the Thanksgiving we know today has evolved dramatically over time, its core is timeless and connects with some of the most universal instincts humans have ever expressed. Gratitude has been with us since the dawn of humankind. 

Hale’s genius was understanding that giving thanks during our darkest hours—in a time of war, for example—can bestow the deepest benefits. If we can find common ground in these times, things for which we are thankful, we might be able to rescue a holiday, and perhaps even ourselves.

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Denise Kiernan is an author, journalist, and producer who has worked as a writer for more than 20 years. Her last two books—The Last Castle and The Girls of Atomic City—were instant New York Times bestsellers in both hardcover and paperback. The Last Castle was a Wall Street Journal bestseller, a finalist for the 2018 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize.