Sarah Josepha Hale

7. This national holiday, originally celebrated on a state-by-state basis, was officially established by Lincoln in 1863.
A. Thanksgiving
B. Labor Day
C. Independence Day
D. Memorial Day

A. THANKSGIVING. Thanksgiving had already been celebrated in America for many years by the time Lincoln was in office, but not on consistent dates or in consistent ways throughout the country. Presidents George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison all declared Thanksgivings, and by 1858 the governors of 25 states and 2 territories had issued proclamations for a day of Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until 1863 that Thanksgiving became a fixed national holiday, when Lincoln issued a proclamation inspired by letters from writer Sarah Josepha Hale.

An excerpt from Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving, dated October 3, 1863:

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.