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Feb-15-2009 15:07
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Presidents Day - Washington's Birthday History
Matt Lintz Salem-News.comIs it Presidents Day or Washington's Birthday?
 George Washington by Gilbert Stuart |
(Salem) - Washington's Birthday as a federal holiday was created in 1880 for government offices in the District of Columbia and expanded nation wide in 1885. It was the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen.
A draft of the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 would have renamed the holiday to Presidents' Day to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but this proposal failed in committee and the bill as voted on and signed into law on June 28, 1968 kept the name Washington's Birthday.
In 1971 the Uniform Monday Holiday Act Moved Washington's Birthday to the third Monday in February.
Advertisers looking to take advantage of the three day weekend pushes Presidents Day as the norm.
For advertisers, the Monday holiday change was the goose that laid the golden "promotional" egg. Using Labor Day marketing as a guide, three-day weekend sales were expanded to include the new Monday holidays. Once the "Uniform Monday Holiday Law" was implemented, it took just under a decade to build a head of national promotional sales steam.
Local advertisers morphed both "Abraham Lincoln's Birthday" and "George Washington's Birthday" into the sales sound bite "President's Day," expanding the traditional three-day sales to begin before Lincoln's birth date and end after Washington's February 22 birth. In some instances, advertisers promoted the sales campaign through the entire month of February. To the unsuspecting public, the term linking both presidential birthdays seemed to explain the repositioning of the holiday between two high-profile presidential birthdays.
From: By George, IT IS Washington's Birthday!Approximately a dozen state governments have officially renamed their Washington's Birthday observances as "Presidents Day", "Washington and Lincoln Day", or other. Oregon celebrates Presidents Day.
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Q Madp February 15, 2009 10:51 pm (Pacific time)
It is sad that our country no longer has any holidays dedicated to great leaders such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
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