President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for a national Thanksgiving holiday in the United States during the 19th century, eventually winning President Lincoln’s support in 1863. Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation encouraging Americans “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 Prayer to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” . Thanksgiving has been celebrated in the United States ever since. Prior to 1863, Thanksgiving was not a fixed date on the calendar but whenever the President proclaimed it to be.