Who Does Presidents’ Day Really Honor?

Ask half a dozen people who Presidents' Day is meant to honor, and you may get half a dozen different answers. There isn't even universal agreement on whether there is an apostrophe in "presidents."

To the U.S. government, Presidents' Day is still recognized as “Washington’s Birthday." On the government website’s list of official holidays, sandwiched between Valentine’s Day and Easter, it says:

Washington’s Birthday is a federal holiday observed the third Monday of February to honor George Washington, the first President of the United States. This date is commonly called Presidents’ Day and many groups honor the legacy of past presidents on this date.

In fact in some states the day jointly honors the birthdays of Washington, born Feb. 22, and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday is Feb. 12. But in others the day is meant to honor Washington and Thomas Jefferson but not Lincoln, or all of the presidents.

Here’s a brief history of the day:

--Feb. 22, Washington’s actual birthday, became a U.S. government holiday in 1885.

--In the early 1950s, there was a movement led by a coalition of travel organizations to create three-day weekends by moving the celebration of some holidays to Mondays.

One of the suggestions was to create a Presidents’ Day between Washington’s and Lincoln’s Feb. 12 birthday. Lincoln’s was a holiday in some states but was never made a federal holiday though it was a holiday in some states. A few states tried the new arrangement but it was not universally adopted across the country. Also in the early 1950s, there was a proposal to make March 4 -- the original presidential inauguration day -- a day to honor all presidents.

--In 1971, some holidays moved to Mondays under a U.S. law that created three-day weekends for federal employees. States, however, were not required to honor them.

Today, there is no unanimous name for this holiday, always on the third Monday in February.

And even when it is called Presidents’ Day, sometimes the apostrophe is missing, sometimes it is between the last two letters, and sometimes (as used here) after the last letter.

In Virginia, the first president’s home state, the holiday is called George Washington’s Day. Not in Alabama. There it is “Washington and Jefferson Day," in honor of George and Thomas Jefferson, even though he was born on April 13. Lincoln isn’t mentioned.

Article courtesy of Valerie Strauss, Washington Post