Which founder issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in the United States?

George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in the United States. On October 3, 1789, he called for a day of public thanksgiving and prayer on Thursday, November 26.

Washington’s proclamation followed a request from Congress, which had passed a resolution asking the president to recommend a day of thanksgiving. The announcement praised the end of the Revolutionary War, the new Constitution, and what Washington described as national blessings. It applied to the newly formed federal nation rather than establishing a permanent annual holiday.

Thanksgiving observances had much older colonial and local traditions. Presidents issued occasional proclamations during the nineteenth century, but the holiday became an annual federal observance after Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation. Congress later set the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November.