You'll hear it referred to as Presidents' Day all day – on TV newscasts, as the theme of various store sales – but actually, it just happens to be the day that George Washington's Birthday is celebrated, instead of the actual date of Feb. 22nd.
The Mount Vernon website explains it nicely. It notes,"The road to what the majority of the public in the United States now recognizes as Presidents’ Day is a long and confusing one. After Washington died in 1799, his birthday was informally celebrated across the country.
"It wasn’t until January 31, 1879, that Washington’s birthday became a federally recognized holiday.
"Until 1968, Washington’s Birthday had always been celebrated on February 22. It was tradition and a powerful reminder of the man who helped create what we have today in the United States.
"On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act”. This law was to provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays. The act was also created to provide federal employees with more three-day weekends. Under this new law, Washington’s birthday would be celebrated on the third Monday of February, partially losing the value and identity of the importance of his birthday. Washington’s birthday has not been celebrated on the actual day of his birth since the law took effect in 1971."
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| May 10, 1971 |
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| June 28, 1971 |
The initial rollout in1971 of the new Presidents' Day caused some confusion, according to this article that ran in the Journal on Feb. 11, 1971.
For some businesses, they merely ran their Washington's Birthday (or Brithday, in Arby's case) sales on Feb. 15th.
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| Feb. 15, 1971 |
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| Feb. 15, 1971 |
At least it didn't use clip art of young George with hatchet in hand.
Whenever I see a mistake in an ad I’m immediately transported back to my days at The Journal. Mistakes were by and large pretty rare considering the amount of copy, logos and artwork that ran on a daily basis. When it did happen it definitely ruined your day. Todd
ReplyDeleteTodd: I was going to ask if anybody had experience with large-scale typographical errors. My gut tells me whoever was responsible took a bit of a ribbing from other. I have experience with typos in published books. Always makes me grind my teeth and hope (fruitlessly, I suspect) that nobody else will notice.
ReplyDeleteOh, and all those 3-day holidays are fake and represent the beginning of the end of the world as we kown it!
Todd - As the proprietor of a blog, I can tell you that typos still happen with automated tools that flag your flubs for you. Dan's blog is remarkably flub-free, however. (Hope I didn't jinx you, Dan.)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Buster! An occasional boo boo still slips through once in a while (my eyesight is not as good as it used to be) but I try to catch it and fix it early in the day before someone comments on it!
DeleteMy grandmother, Mary Stough Emerson, worked at The Style Center for over 50 years!
ReplyDelete