Is Presidents Day the most confusing holiday in the U.S.?
States seem to have as many names for it and ideas about whom to honor as there have been presidents. The federal government doesn't even recognize Monday as Presidents Day. It's officially Washington's Birthday, honoring the first president and the original American yardstick for measuring greatness.
The holiday hasn't been celebrated on Washington's actual birthday of Feb. 22, or any other president's birthday, for more than 50 years. Presidents Day became the popular name after the holiday was fixed to a Monday.
The result is a jumble, causing some people to yearn for the holiday to just celebrate Washington again.
“The concept of Presidents Day is a confusing mishmash of ideas,” Hunter Abell, a Republican state legislator from Washington state, said recently. “By celebrating all the presidents, I believe that we inadvertently celebrate none.”
Abell's interest is more than academic: he wants his state to rename its Presidents Day holiday and made his remarks during a hearing on that proposal.
First in war, first in peace, first with a holiday
The federal holiday for Washington started in 1879, but the current date was fixed by law as of 1971.
States, of course, have been left to their own devices for decades. Thirty-four still use some form of Washington's name in their laws, while 19 use some form of Presidents Day. A few use both, while California law goes with “the third Monday in February.”
Forty-seven states will celebrate a public holiday on Monday. Indiana and Georgia celebrate Washington by giving state workers the day after Christmas off.
Delaware has no holiday. In 2009, its lawmakers started giving state employees “two floating holidays” instead of honoring individual presidents or having a Presidents Day, according to the state archives.
What's in a name? Plenty, some say
Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia wants to return to a federal holiday on his birthday. Its website says Washington’s character and accomplishments shouldn’t be “muddled” by a “vague” holiday.
A dozen states celebrating Washington by name make him share the day with someone else.
In Alabama, Washington shares the spotlight with friend-turned-rival Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president and primary author of the Declaration of Independence. In Arkansas, it's Daisy Gaston Bates, a civil rights leader best known for her work to integrate Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.
Most often, it’s Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War president who sometimes outranks even Washington among historians for keeping the Union intact.
Fourteen states have a separate holiday just for Lincoln. Most are on Honest Abe's Feb. 12 birthday. Indiana honors him with a day off for state employees on the day after Thanksgiving, which Lincoln is often credited with starting in 1863.
Other presidents have their days, too
A few states have special days for presidents identified with them: Herbert Hoover in Iowa, Dwight Eisenhower in Kansas, Harry Truman in Missouri, Lyndon Johnson in Texas and John F. Kennedy in Massachusetts.
On JFK’s May 29 birthday, his home state also honors favorite sons John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Calvin Coolidge, who was a Vermont farm boy before becoming Massachusetts' governor and, later, the country's 30th president.
Since 1958 in Kentucky, Jan. 30 has been Franklin D. Roosevelt Day, though the president who guided the country out of the Great Depression and through most of World War II was a New Yorker.
In Oklahoma, a Republican state senator has proposed a new holiday for Nov. 5, the anniversary of last year's presidential election, to celebrate President Donald J. Trump Day.
What if you had a holiday and people forgot?
A presidential day doesn't necessarily inspire public fanfare.
Take Herbert Hoover, whose Depression-marked White House work gets low marks from many historians, though he is highly regarded for nonpresidential humanitarian work.
Iowa set aside a day for him in 1969, but it appears to get little notice outside Cedar County, the home of his presidential library.
“Most Iowans are not aware there is a Hoover Day,” said Leo Landis, the state historical society's curator, who acknowledged in an email that he once was among them, despite living in Iowa for more than 45 years.
First in reenactments?
Presidential impersonators pop up in hundreds of places each year. It's not just Lincoln and Washington. The Association of Lincoln Presenters website even lists a portrayer for Rutherford B. Hayes, the often-neglected single-term 19th president.
But Lincoln stands head, shoulders and stovepipe hat above the rest when it comes to presidents audiences want to see, and he dominates the association's roster of historical presenters.
John Cooper, the association's president and a Lincoln impersonator himself, said that in scores of professional presentations since 2008, only two people have been displeased with meeting Lincoln. Honest Abe appeals to all groups and is many people's favorite president, he said.
“Everybody is happy to see Lincoln,” he said. “When I go to a county fair, I usually don’t have to wander far before I have people come up to me, and they want to talk and they want to get a picture."
