From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.

Did you know that a woman helped make Thanksgiving a national holiday?

Sarah Josepha Hale was a novelist, poet, and editor of a very popular pre-Civil War lifestyle magazine.

Hale campaigned for a national day of Thanksgiving for decades.

In the 1840s, many states had an annual Thanksgiving

day, but the date varied depending on where you lived. There wasn't one specific day to celebrate

together as a nation. Sometimes referred to as the godmother of Thanksgiving. She wrote

thousands of letters, editorials, stories, and even recipes promoting a National Day of Thanksgiving. She wrote thousands of letters, editorials, stories, and even

recipes promoting a national day of Thanksgiving. Hale saw Thanksgiving as an important

supplement to the nation's principal civic holiday, Independence Day. While Independence Day

celebrates the birth of our nation, our founding fathers, and our founding principles,

Thanksgiving celebrates the origins of the American people, family, and faith in God.

Hale envisioned that a nationwide celebration of Thanksgiving would also help bind the nation together more tightly.

She believed that living under the same constitution and sharing the same federal government

was not enough to forge one people from America's diverse inhabitants and distinct regions.

Many presidents ignored Hale's letters, but President Lincoln did not.

His October 3, 1863, Thanksgiving Proclamation read,

In the midst of a civil war, of unequaled magnitude and severity,

peace has been preserved with all nations.

Order has been maintained.

The laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed

everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict.

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