Like the other founding father, George Washington was uncomfortable about the idea of celebrating his life publicly. He was the first leader of a new republic – not tyrannical.
And yet 292 years after the birth of the nation, on Monday, the first US President will be celebrated once again.
The meaning of President’s Day has changed dramatically, mostly from being infallible and in the 1700s, it has become a consumerism bonanza filled with work for Washington. The holiday for some historians has lost all clear meanings.
Historian Alexis Coa, the author of “You Never Forgate Your First: A Biography of Washington”, she said that she thinks about the day of the presidents in the same way as a huge monument in DC that tolerates their names.
“It is considered about Washington, but can you really point to anything that looks or feels like him?” He said. “Jefferson and Lincoln are presented as people with organs and nose and have just a huge, granite point. He has no identifiable characteristics.”
There is a look here how things have developed:
- Washington’s birthday
- After his death
- Make it official
- Changes in consumerism
Washington’s birthday
Washington was born on 22 February 1732 at the Pope Creek Plantation near the Potomac River in Virginia.
Technically, however, he was born on 11 February under the ancient Julian calendar, which was still in use for the first 20 years of his life. The Gregorian calendar, to mark the solar year more accurately, was adopted in 1752, adding 11 days.
Either way, Washington paid very little attention to his birthday, according to the organization’s website Mountainvernon.org that manages his property. The remaining records do not mention the observation in Mount Vernon, while their diary suggests that he was often difficult to work.
“If he had this path, he would have been at home with his family,” Koa said. “Maybe some lovely nieces and nephews (and friends) Markis de lafiyet will be ideal. And recipe for a Martha’s enjoyment. But it’s about it.”
Washington’s birthday was celebrated in government by his colleagues when he was the President – mostly.
Coa said that the Congress voted to take a small memorial break every year during its first two conditions, with an exception, his last birthday in the office, Koa said. By then Washington was less popular, was biased and several members of his original cabinet had gone, including Thomas Jefferson.
“One way to show his disdain for his federal policies was to work through his birthday,” Koa said.
The Library of Congress noted that a French military officer, Comte de Rochambo bowled a ball in 1782 celebrating Washington’s 50th birthday.
After his death
Washington knew a lot about his inaugural role as President and its difference from the British Crown. He did not want to be honored like a king, Seth Brugman said, a history professor at Temple University, Philadelphia.
Nevertheless, he said, a market for the Washington Memorbilia bounced almost immediately after his death at the age of 67 in 1799, in which people painted the breeding of earthen utensils and mighty as a divine figure in heaven.
“Even at that early moment, Americans like consumerism with patriotic memory,” said, “Brugman, whose books” was “here, George Washington born: memory, material culture and public history of a national monument.”
Make it official
It was not until 1832, the centenary of his birth, that the Congress established a committee to arrange the national “parade, organ and festivals” according to the Congress Research Service.
And only in 1879 his birthday was formally built on a legal holiday for federal employees in Columbia district.
The official designation is as the birthday of Washington, although it is informally known as President’s Day. Arguments have also been made to honor President Lincoln as his date of birth passes near 12 February.
Many states including Illinois, according to the library of the Congress, sees Lincoln’s birthday as a public holiday. And some people remember both Lincoln and Washington on President’s Day.
But at the federal level, the day is still officially the birthday of Washington.
Changes in consumerism
By the end of the 1960s, Washington’s birthday was one of the nine federal holidays that fell on specific dates on different days of the week, according to a 2004 article in the National Archives Prolog Magazine.
The Congress voted to move some of them on Monday, followed the concerns that were about the absence among government employees, when a holiday fell. But MPs also gave clear benefits to the economy, including an increase in retail sales and traveling on a three -day weekend.
The Uniform Mande Holiday Act carried forward the President’s Day on the third Monday in February 1971. Sales operations increased, historian CL Arbelbide wrote in the preamble.
Brugman said that Washington and other founding father were “deeply concerned” by the father of the father “how the holiday was taken by commercial and personal interests”.
“They were very nervous about corporations,” said Brugman. “It was not that he refused them. But he saw the corporations like small republics, who potentially threatened the power of the Republic.”
Koa, who is also a companion in the Washington Think Tank New America, said that the day is still devoid of recognizable traditions.
“There is no moment of reflection,” Koa said. Looking at today’s widespread condemncy towards the office, he said, such a reflection “maybe a good idea.”