DOVER — For many, Thanksgiving Day celebrations invoke a variety of festive images: overstuffed turkeys, outrageous quantities of autumn treats, large family get-togethers, parades, and even buckled-shoe-wearing Pilgrims breaking bread with American Indians.



The annual day to give thanks for anything for which you are thankful means a myriad of things to many people, although the holiday hasn't always been nationally recognized or even celebrated on the same day by the entire country.



That didn't happen until 1863, despite the fact many scholars say the first Thanksgiving, as Americans know it today, occurred in 1621, while others say there's evidence the first harvest celebration in "The New World" was hosted by Spanish explorers in Florida in 1565, according to USA Today.



So how did a largely independent, scattered feast observed for years by many become a designated national holiday woven into the culture of the United States?



The answer? The persistent campaigning of New Hampshire-born writer Sarah Josepha Hale and her influence on President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 signing of a proclamation that marked a set Thursday each November as a national day of thanksgiving.



Through various literary magazines such as "The Ladies Magazine," "Godey's Lady's Book," and her novel "Northwood," Hale advocated as early as 1827 for a day for families to get together, share a large meal with one another, and enjoy both each other's company and the country, according to Sharon Wood, a recognized Sarah Hale impersonator from Claremont.



Wood said Hale — a poet born in 1788 also known for her nursery rhyme "Mary Had A Little Lamb" as well as her distinction as the first editor of the "The Ladies Magazine," the first women's magazine — wanted to bring the entire country together through a celebration similar to the way her family was brought together over mountains of food at her childhood Thanksgivings in Newport, N.H.



"Patriotism was a big part of the idea," said Wood, who said Hale's earliest mention of a national Thanksgiving was in "Northwood" in 1827. "She wanted to bring whole country together because she felt the country needed another holiday. The Fourth of July was the only other national holiday, and she felt that wasn't enough."



Individual states, the U.S. Congress and other governing bodies had designated days for Thanksgiving-style celebrations as early as 1776, she said, although Hale began advocating for the entire country to recognize the celebration on the same day as a way to bring rifting parts of the young nation together.



Wood said a rift had been growing steadily since 1776 between the North and South over issues such as slavery, and she said Hale wanted "continuity" for Thanksgiving as a way to help close that rift.



"Sarah was thinking of a desire for a strong country, a brotherhood of the North and South, patriotism, a family reunion and a big meal," said Wood.



Hale wrote letters, and encouraged her readers to write letters, to state governors, politicians and every president from Zachary Taylor to Lincoln, according to Wood. The rift came to a head due to the Civil War, at which point Wood said Lincoln signed the proclamation stating the final Thursday in November was to be considered a national day of thanksgiving as a way to reunite the country.



"We need to credit Lincoln for seeing the possibility of perhaps a national holiday and focusing on togetherness instead of war," she said.



Wood said she wasn't sure if the Civil War was the catalyst for Thanksgiving finally becoming a recognized holiday almost 40 years after Hale's first push, although she said individuals previously opposed to the idea commonly cited a desire to maintain a state's right to decide if and when a festivity would occur rather than a federal government that mandated the holiday.



Wood and her husband, Steve, who is an award-winning Lincoln impersonator, travel the state and other parts of the country to give theatrical presentations about Hale's letters and Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation. Recently, the duo performed their sketch in front of about 50 people at the Summersworth Historical Museum in downtown Somersworth.



Sharon said the image of Thanksgiving has changed over the years, moving away from the Pilgrims', Hale's and Lincoln's intended religious aspects to a more secular celebration everyone can enjoy.



Even the day for the holiday has changed since then. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress passed legislation permanently designating Thanksgiving Day as the fourth, but not always final, Thursday in November, according to History.com.



Steve Wood said it doesn't matter whether Americans today base their idea of Thanksgiving on Hale's vision of a Victorian Thanksgiving, today's most common image of the Pilgrims and American Indians, or a day to give thanks while watching football and gearing up for a day of shopping.



He said the thing that does matter today is people recognize just as much as ever a day that has great significance in the culture and history of the United States.



"It's a unifying thread throughout our country and throughout our history," he said. "It gives us an occasion to think about a lot of things you take for granted. Hopefully people who still observe it include that it's a day for thanks — it's just perhaps exactly what people are thankful for that varies from family to family."







