Since 1863, Americans have celebrated the third Thursday in November as a national holiday defined less by patriotism and prayer than by family and food. But, as historian Tara Thompson Strauch writes, official days of thanksgiving are a much older tradition that merged state and religious concerns in a way that could be threatening to outgroups—notably the Quakers.
Throughout early modern Europe, Strauch writes, governments used days of fasting, prayer, and thankfulness to bring citizens together in a patriotism founded on shared religious beliefs. The British colonies in North America continued this tradition, for a variety of political purposes. The king and colonial governors declared days of fasting and prayer in support of the British forces in the French and Indian War. Later, in the years leading up to the American Revolution, thanksgiving days took on a rebellious character. In 1774, for example, many colonists responded to the Coercive Acts targeting Boston with days of prayer and fasting that also functioned as economic boycotts.
However, in some colonies, most notably Pennsylvania, the practice divided the population since Quakers did not celebrate holidays. Like with honorific titles and church liturgies, the religion viewed setting aside special days as a human convention outside of divine law.
Strauch writes that Quakers who opened their shops in defiance of the prayer days looked to those unaware of their beliefs like supporters of the British treatment of Boston. They faced social snubbing, damage to their stores and homes, and even physical assault. Some Quakers responded by pragmatically going along with the thanksgiving days, while others distributed handbills attempting to explain to their neighbors that their objection was religious rather than political.
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This tension continued after the revolution. At the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting after the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, six Quakers presented a treatise titled Reasons why Friends do not Illuminate their Houses at the Time of public Rejoicing, nor shut their Shops for the public Fasts, Feasts and Thanksgivings. This explained the Quakers’ position and offered a reminder that Pennsylvania had been founded with religious freedom in mind.
“Quakers continued to insist that America treat thanksgivings and fast days as religious events and not religio-political events with dual meaning,” Strauch writes.
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Over the next two decades, other Christian denominations followed suit, redefining days of thanksgiving and fasting as purely religious holidays. Meanwhile, federal and state governments largely got out of the business of declaring days of prayer.
“Thanksgivings and fast days called for the government were increasingly seen as political ploys rather than as part of the duty of devout citizens,” Strauch writes.
By the mid-nineteenth century, days of thanksgiving were divorced from politics to the extent that Quakers were generally fine with participating in them if they felt so moved. And when President Abraham Lincoln declared a national Thanksgiving holiday deliberately focused on home and hearth, it met with no opposition from the denomination.
