Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1919 — THANKSGIVING DAY—ITS ORIGIN AND ITS MEANING. [ARTICLE]

THANKSGIVING DAY—ITS ORIGIN AND ITS MEANING.

Thanksgiving day is near at hand, bringing with it all the joys that attend the season, feasting family reunions, fun and jollity, and permeating the whole spirit of reverent thankfulness that warms and cheers. At its best Thanksgiving means a manifestation of hospitality and the enjoyment of friendships that are the ripe fruit of neighborliness. . It is really a country affair, with country ways and country living, country products and country hospitality. Thanksgiving means less in the city, still less in a hotel and nothing at all on a dining car It needs the rural atmosphere, hills and fields, woods’Band lanes, the harvested crops, ripe firuit and the peaceful surroundings which the country alone can provide. A woman it was who gave us the Thanksgiving holiday universally observed. Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, known as “the mother of Thanksgiving,” was editor of the two leading women's magazines of their day, Ladies’ Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, which were published in 'Philadelphia. • _ , , . For twenty, years Mrs. Hale kept up the agitation for a universal observance of Thanksgiving day and finally her efforts were rewarded with the result of co-operation on ithe part of President Lincoln, who established the precedent of pro- : claiming (the holiday on the last Thursday in November of each year, and no president since that time has failed to issue a similar prociama- : tion. j The first national Thanksgiving 1 day, appointed by congress, occurred lon July 20, 1775. The next was 'held on May 17, 1776. In 1778 I Wednesday was chosen, but Washington favored Thursday. Formerly New York observed Thanksgiving a week earlier than New England, and many Gothamites were in the habit of returning to their early homes and thus they got the benefit of two Thanksgiving dinners. „ . , , ' But to Widow Hale belongs the distinction of establishing the national holiday at a uniform time.