After George Washington died in 1799, his birthday was informally commemorated as Washington Day. Throughout the 19th century, people used this day to honor the man who shaped America and his legacy. In 1832, a resolution authorized the removal and imprisonment of George Washington’s body in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The erection of the Washington Monument in 1848 provided further festivities across the country.
It wasn’t until the late 1870s that Steven Wallace Dorsey proposed that Washington’s birthday should become a national federal holiday. President Rutherford B. Hayes signed it into law in 1879 and joined the four existing bank holidays that were previously approved in 1870. Because of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy and the proximity of his birthday on February 12, it was proposed that Washington Day should become Presidents’ Day to celebrate both men, but that idea was rejected by Congress.
Washington’s birthday didn’t officially become President’s Day until the late 1960s. Sen. Robert McClory of Illinois has drawn up a plan to move major bank holidays to Monday to increase the number of three-day weekends for workers in the Uniform Monday Act. Hopefully it will increase productivity and reduce employee absenteeism. Not surprisingly, unions agreed with the idea, as did the private sector.
In 1971, Richard M. Nixon issued an executive order passing the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved Washington’s birthdays, Columbus Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day to Mondays. Since the day coincides with Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays, it’s called President’s Day, and it also benefits retail stores as they advertise their special promotions during the period. Presidents Day became a generic term in the mid-1980s and is still called it today.
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