President Abe Lincoln issued his powerful Thanksgiving proclamation on Oct. 3, 1863, asking Americans to set aside the last Thursday of November to praise "our beneficent Father." ...

On Oct. 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving. He saw the occasion as a peaceful interlude amid the Civil War.

Several presidents opposed days of national thanksgiving, with Thomas Jefferson openly denouncing such a proclamation. It was not until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln established the regular tradition ...

Life Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation on Thanksgiving 1863 is appropriate today. This year we again were entertained by the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, while today, shoppers are looking for ...

President Abraham Lincoln (left) declared the last Thursday in November a national day of Thanksgiving in an Oct. 3, 1863, proclamation written by Secretary of State William Seward (right).

Earlier, Lincoln had ordered government offices closed on November 28, 1861, for a day of thanksgiving. Up until the 1863 proclamation, individual states had celebrated days of giving thanks.

Thomas Nast’s cartoon “Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation” (1863) is one of the images most associated with Lincoln’s historic proclamation. It was printed ov… ...

The idea seemed to catch on, and the northern states celebrated Thanksgiving on the date noted in Lincoln’s proclamation — the last Thursday in November, which fell on November 26, 1863. As ...

When President Lincoln made his Thanksgiving proclamation in 1863, the last Thursday of November became standard. Then came the big date dispute of 1939 when two Thanksgiving holidays were observed.

Thomas Nast’s cartoon “Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation” (1863) is one of the images most associated with Lincoln’s historic proclamation. It was printed over two pages in the ...