Who Exactly Are We Celebrating This Presidents Day?

Who will we be celebrating today? George Washington? Washington and Abraham Lincoln? All American presidents?

I guess it all depends on where you put the apostrophe.

Actually, the apostrophe issue is moot; there is no such holiday as Presidents (or President’s or Presidents’) Day. The holiday honors George Washington and bears only his name in state and federal law.

Washington’s Birthday, first officially celebrated on February 22, 1880, was added to the list of federal holidays by Congress a year earlier. Although originally applying only to federal workers in Washington, D.C., observance expanded to include all federal workers in 1885. This practice continued until 1971 when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect moving Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day to Mondays from their previous date-specific observances. Since then, United States Code designates the third Monday in February a holiday in honor of Washington’s Birthday. No federal holiday exists celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s birthday or Presidents Day.

Like in federal law, New Jersey Statutes – Title 36:1-1 designates the third Monday in February as Washington’s Birthday, although you would not know it by looking at the official State holiday list for 2011, which includes Presidents Day instead. I suppose it is convenient (especially for retailers running their big sales) to combine the celebrations of Lincoln’s Birthday, recognized as February 12 by New Jersey law and that of at least four other states, and Washington’s Birthday. Although this combined commemoration has been the practice in recent memory, New Jersey law continues to separate the two presidents’ birthdays.

Maybe none of this matters after all. Ancestry Magazine states Washington was born on February 11, 1731 not February 22, 1732, under the Julian calendar in use at the time. The British Empire didn’t switch to our current Gregorian calendar until 1752.

So where did all this confusion come from? It seems to have started with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. An early draft of the bill changed Washington’s Birthday to Presidents Day, but that language changed back after public outcry. Shortly after the Act took effect, erroneous newspaper reports quoted a proclamation in which President Richard Nixon stated all presidents should be honored on the third Monday of February, but no such proclamation exists. Popular usage of the Presidents Day moniker evolved over the years, especially in retail advertising, to replace Washington’s Birthday. Throw in the hodgepodge of state holidays celebrating Lincoln, Washington, or both and it is easy to forget the roots of this federal holiday.

Call me a purist, but I think the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army and the first president of the United States deserves his own day!

Ways to Celebrate Washington’s Birthday

No matter how you refer to the holiday, there are ways to celebrate.

• Battleship New Jersey in Camden is offering special guided and audio tours from 9:30am-3:00pm today. 
• The State Theater in New Brunswick celebrates Family Day with free and low-cost events for children beginning at 10:00am today.  Of course, there are also sales to be found at retail outlets throughout the area.

For those who would prefer to focus on Washington and the close connection he had to New Jersey during the Revolutionary War, options abound throughout the weekend.

• Monmouth Battlefield State Park offers events entitled  “Walk the Bloodied Ground: The Hedgerow & Parsonage” from 1:30pm-3:00pm on Monday, February 21. 
• Washington’s Headquarters Museum at Morristown National Historical Park presents “The Many Faces of George Washington” throughout the day on Sunday and Monday, and “Images of Washington” from 1:30pm-3:30pm on Monday. Fee is $4.00 for each program.

by Matt Mingle, Supervisor of Social Studies and REACH, Hillsborough Township Public Schools.