In addition to championing Thanksgiving, Sarah Josepha Hale used her influence promote women’s education and major public projects, while also writing the famous children’s rhyme often credited to her. Yet her decades-long campaign for Thanksgiving is still missing from most basic holiday histories.

influential magazines of the 1800s, Godey’s Lady’s Book, and used that platform to sell Americans on the idea of a cozy, family-centered Thanksgiving table. Many “traditional” images of Thanksgiving dinner—family gathered, roast turkey, home cooking—were popularized through her writing and recipes.

she published repeated editorials and wrote thousands of letters urging presidents and governors to create a national day of thanks. Her persistence finally paid off in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing a national Thanksgiving holiday. She edited one of the most

Sarah Josepha Hale, sometimes called the “Mother of Thanksgiving.” For nearly 20 years she used her magazine and personal letters to pressure politicians to make Thanksgiving a unifying national holiday.​ Long before social media campaigns, Hale ran a one-woman Thanksgiving lobby: starting in 1846

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