Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day, in the United States, is an annual festival of thanksgiving for the mercies of the closing year. Practically it is a national harvest festival, fixed by proclamation of the president and the governors of states, and ranks as a legal holiday. In 1789 the Episcopal Church formally recognised the civil government's authority to appoint such a feast, and in 1888 the Roman Catholic Church also decided to honour a festival which had long been nearly universally observed—though nowhere with such zest as in the New England states, where it ranks as the great annual family festival, taking the place which in England is accorded to Christmas. The earliest harvest thanksgiving in America was kept by the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth in 1621, and was repeated often during that and the ensuing century; congress recommended days of thanksgiving annually during the revolution, and in 1784 for the return of peace—as did President Madison in 1815. Washington appointed such a day in 1789 after the adoption of the constitution, and in 1795 for the general benefits and welfare of the nation. Since 1817 the festival has been observed annually in New York, and since 1863 the presidents have always issued proclamations appointing the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day.