Emily Dickinson Lexicon

Thanksgiving, proper n. [see thank, v. + give, v.]

The American celebration of gratitude; the late November feast; the holiday that Abraham Lincoln established in 1863 for the purpose of giving thanks: “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.”