This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and in celebration of that anniversary, the State Library launched the exhibit
Raising the Alarm: Revolutionary Broadsides at the State Library. Using broadsides from 1773 through 1779, the exhibit tells part of the story of the American Revolution in Massachusetts while also highlighting a significant primary source resource in our collection. The exhibit further expands into our collection by highlighting additional 18th-century resources available in Special Collections, like almanacs, city directories, newspapers, and proclamations. Due to the nature of the cases, the exhibit utilizes facsimiles, but each month for the duration of the exhibit, one featured item will be on display in our Collection Spotlight – this month we’re sharing a Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, issued as a broadside on November 8, 1783 by then Governor John Hancock.
Our Special Collections holdings includes a number of original proclamations issued by governors of the Commonwealth dating from the 1720s to the 1930s (more recent proclamations, like ones issued by Governor Healey and Governor Baker, are also uploaded and saved in our digital repository). In colonial New England, proclamations were periodically issued to initiate days of fasting and days of thanksgiving and prayer, the latter were most frequently declared to celebrate a bountiful harvest and were religious in nature. However, during the Revolutionary War, proclamations also drew a strong connection between religion and military affairs, as days of thanksgiving were often established to give praise to God after the colonists achieved a victory against the British.
This specific proclamation was issued following a recommendation made by the Congress of the Confederation (the precursor to the United States Congress) that all thirteen colonies observe a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer in recognition of the end of the Revolutionary War. It established the upcoming Thursday, December 11 as the designated day, and then the notice was printed as a broadside and distributed throughout the Commonwealth. Massachusetts residents were directed to devote themselves to prayer and giving thanks, and were urged to “assemble to celebrate with grateful hearts and united voices,” a sensibility that continues today for our own Thanksgiving holiday.
This proclamation was previously on display in November 2019 and it returns to our Collection Spotlight case once again to align with the Thanksgiving holiday.
Click here to read our past blog post, which provides more information about the proclamation itself, and also explains how colonial proclamations for a day of thanksgiving differ from the Thanksgiving we know of today, though there are some overlapping sentiments.
Step back into November 1783 by visiting us from November 3 through November 30 to see this proclamation on display.
Click here to read about the previously shared
Raising the Alarm broadsides.
Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian
