Abolitionist Sarah Josepha Hale of Newport, New Hampshire spent years promoting the adoption of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. A letter from her to President Abraham Lincoln finally turned the trick.
Born in 1788, Hale lived nine decades. She spent much of her life editing women's magazines, including the widely read "Godey's Lady's Book," which featured writers including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Hale championed women's education and wrote an antislavery novel in the 1820s.
She spent many years pushing to elevate Thanksgiving to the federal level to standardize the holiday, celebrated by various states at different times. Hale wrote Lincoln in September 1863, prodding him on, and he issued a proclamation soon thereafter.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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