Thanksgiving became a national holiday in the United States through a long, multi-step process that stretched from the first Congress in 1789 to a federal law in 1941. It evolved from occasional presidential proclamations into a recurring national tradition, and finally into a legally fixed federal holiday on the fourth Thursday in November.

Early national thanksgivings

  • In 1789, the first U.S. Congress asked President George Washington to recommend a national day of thanksgiving, and he proclaimed November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer under the new Constitution.
  • Later presidents sometimes issued similar proclamations, but the dates and even the months varied, so there was no single, consistent national Thanksgiving Day for many decades.

Sarah Josepha Hale’s campaign

  • In the mid‑1800s, magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale used her influential position to lobby governors and presidents for a regular national Thanksgiving to promote unity in a divided country.
  • Hale wrote letters for years to political leaders, and her campaign helped build public and political support for making Thanksgiving an annual national observance rather than an occasional proclamation.

Lincoln makes it annual

  • During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln responded to Hale’s appeals and the wartime mood by proclaiming a national day of thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, 1863.
  • Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation framed Thanksgiving as a yearly national observance, and subsequent presidents continued issuing annual Thanksgiving proclamations, generally placing the holiday in late November.

From custom to federal holiday

  • In 1870, Congress passed a law (sometimes called the Holidays Act) making Thanksgiving, along with New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and Christmas, official holidays in Washington, D.C., though the exact date for Thanksgiving was still left to the president.
  • Presidents typically chose the last Thursday in November, but it was still a matter of custom and presidential proclamation rather than a single fixed date in federal law.

The 1941 law fixing the date

  • In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the second‑to‑last Thursday in November to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, which caused a nationwide split, with some states following him and others sticking to the traditional last Thursday.
  • To end the confusion, Congress in 1941 passed a joint resolution establishing Thanksgiving as a federal holiday on the fourth Thursday in November, and Roosevelt signed it on December 26, 1941, finally fixing the national holiday as it is known today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.