Thanksgiving and "The Pacific"

So, I'm watching HBO's "The Pacific" and a character claimed (unchallenged) that the FDR created the holiday. Maybe someone in this group can correct me but I'm pretty sure that Abe L. created the holiday during the Civil War.

If I'm right I find this to be quite a disturbing piece of propaganda by HBO, Spielberg and Hanks as they could be seen as trying to link the Progressive (Statist) FDR with a great American tradition.

Not only that, the New Deal ended the Great Depression and stopped a black hole from swallowing the earth.

Lincoln indeed established Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863. FDR messed with which Thursday it would be creating a huge public backlash. In the aftermath, Congress established it as the fourth Thursday in November which FDR signed. See Amity Schlaes The Forgotten Man.

Just bought Forgotton Man and can't wait to dig into to it.

Anyway, leave it to a Progressive to mess with something that most people think works just fine so that they can sign a "solution" to the "problem". sound familiar??

Forgotten man was an interesting read.