The US celebrates Presidents’ Day to honour its president who didn’t celebrate his birthday

On Monday, the United States will be celebrating President’s Day to commemorate the birth anniversary of the country’s first president George Washington. However, several archival documents suggested that Washington himself was not a fan of celebrating his own birthday. In fact, a diary entry from his 28th birthday, Feb. 22, 1760, suggested that he was busy installing a fence around his peach orchard at his home in Virginia.

While the first POTUS himself was not keen on celebrating his birthday, nearly 300 years after his birth Americans continue to pay homage to him on the third Monday in February. Hence, this year President’s Day will be celebrated on Feb 17.

There are a lot of diverse ways the country celebrates President’s Day. Some Americans refer to the holiday as “Presidents’ Day” to commemorate the birth anniversary of former President Abraham Lincoln and other past presidents. However, the US federal holiday calendar only acknowledges Washington’s birthday. So here’s a look back at how the federal holiday came into being.

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How Washington’s plan to snub King George gave the US a federal holiday

Several historians argued that there has been no mention of how Washington celebrated his birthday until the year 1778. At that time, the future American president was leading the Continental Army against the British. Jeffrey Engel, the executive director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University told New York Times that Washington looked to his foes for inspiration.

Hence, his men who were stationed at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania started beating drums to celebrate his birthday. Washington considered the celebration as a way to snub the British monarch King George.

After he became the president of the newly independent United States, Washington continued with the custom and was subject to regular birthday festivities, including balls and fireworks in his honour in New York and Philadelphia, the sites of the first presidential mansions. Historians believe that the first American leader saw the celebration as a way to unite the country and symbolise it as a success in the war.

How the tradition evolved over the years

Americans continued to informally celebrate Washington’s birthday in the years after his death in 1799. However, the day was first recognised as a national holiday only in 1879. Meanwhile, every year since 1896, the US Senate has its own way of celebrating the birthday. They select one of its members, alternating between the parties, to read Washington’s 7,640-word farewell address in a legislative session on or around February 22.

Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, has been chosen this year to deliver the address on February 18. The contemporary idea of President’s Day only came into existence in 1968, when Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. The legislation designates certain government holidays — including Washington’s Birthday, Labor Day and Memorial Day — to be observed on Mondays.

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The idea behind celebrating these holidays on Mondays was that this way federal employees would end up getting more than a three-day weekend. Columbus Day, now often celebrated as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, eventually became a federal holiday as well. “It’s an economic motivation,” Engel told NYT. “When they talked about the three-day weekend, they said, this would be good for business. They didn’t sugarcoat it," he added.

The law went into effect in 1971. However, the act did not change the name of Washington’s Birthday to Presidents’ Day, nor did it broaden the holiday to celebrate Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12, 1809. The latter’s birthday is still not federally recognised as a holiday.

Different states have their own ways

President’s Day or Presidents’ Day is a complicated affair in the United States. It is pertinent to note that US States are free to enact their own holidays for state employees and public school students, and not all follow the federal calendar. For example, some Southern states have resisted honouring Lincoln, who led the Union during the Civil War and put an end to slavery.

Not only this, some of the former pro-slavery states still treat Confederate figures with respect while also honouring figures from the civil rights movement. While nearly two dozen states officially recognize Presidents’ Day, more than a dozen others do not observe it at all.

In the state of Virginia, where Washington was born and lived for much of his life, the holiday is simply called Washington Day. Meanwhile, some states like Illinois, where Lincoln started his political career, and New York, where he delivered a powerful speech that helped start his presidential campaign in 1860, gave Lincoln and Washington their own holiday rather than combine them into one.

Other states do things more elaborately. The state of Missouri celebrates the birthdays of three presidents on three different days,  they are Washington, Lincoln and Harry S. Truman, who was born in Missouri on May 8, 1884. Meanwhile, Kentucky has public holidays for the birthdays of Washington; Lincoln; Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy; and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In the state of Alabama, the third Monday in February is officially recognized as George Washington & Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday. The latter had owned more than 600 enslaved people and his actual birthday was in April. Interestingly, Georgia and Indiana take an entirely different approach to Washington’s Birthday, which they celebrate around Christmas. Indiana and New Mexico celebrate Lincoln’s birthday after Thanksgiving.

Hence, different states in the United States have different days, ways and presidents to honour on Presidents’ Day.