NORFOLK, Va. — Like the other Founding Fathers, George Washington was uncomfortable with the idea of publicly celebrating his life. He was the first leader of a new republic – not a tyrant.
And yet the country will once again commemorate the first American president on Monday, 292 years after he was born.
The meaning of President’s Day has changed dramatically: from a largely unremarkable and work-heavy period for Washington in the 18th century, to the consumerist bonanza it has become today. For some historians, the holiday has lost all discernible meaning.
Historian Alexis Coe, author of “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George of Washington,” said she thinks of Presidents Day in much the same way as the towering D.C. monument that bears his name.
“It’s supposed to be about Washington, but can you really point to anything that looks or sounds like him?” she said. “Jefferson and Lincoln are presented as people with limbs and noses and words associated with their memorials. And he’s just a giant. “, granite point. It has been sanded to such an extent that it has absolutely no recognizable features left.”
Here’s a look at how things have evolved:
Washington was born on February 22, 1732 at Popes Creek Plantation near the Potomac River in Virginia.
However, technically he was born on February 11 according to the old Julian calendar, which was still in use for the first twenty years of his life. The Gregorian calendar, intended to mark the solar year more accurately, was adopted in 1752 and added 11 days.
In any case, Washington paid little attention to his birthday, according to Mountvernon.org, the website of the organization that manages his estate. Surviving documents make no mention of celebrations at Mount Vernon, while his diary shows that he was often hard at work.
“If he was having a good time, he would be home with his family,” Coe said. “Perhaps some beloved nieces and nephews (and friend) Marquis de Lafayette would be ideal. And Martha’s recipe for a delicious cake. But that’s about it.”
Washington’s birthday was mainly celebrated by his colleagues in government when he was president.
Congress voted to hold a short commemorative pause every year during his first two terms, with one exception: his last anniversary as president, Coe said. By this time, Washington was less popular, partisanship was rampant, and many members of his original cabinet had disappeared, including Thomas Jefferson.
“One way to show their disdain for his federalist policies was to continue working through his birthday,” Coe said.
The Library of Congress notes that a French military officer, the Comte de Rochambeau, threw a ball in honor of Washington’s 50th birthday in 1782.
Washington was acutely aware of his inaugural role as president and its distinction from the British crown. He didn’t want to be honored like a king, says Seth Bruggeman, a professor of history at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Still, he said, a market for Washington memorabilia emerged almost immediately after his death in 1799 at age 67, with people snapping up pottery and reproductions of etchings depicting him as a divine figure ascending to heaven.
“Even at that early point, Americans combined consumerism with patriotic memory,” says Bruggeman, whose books include “Here, George Washington Was Born: Memory, Material Culture, and the Public History of a National Monument.”
It wasn’t until 1832, the centennial of his birth, that Congress created a committee to organize national “parades, orations, and festivals,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
And it wasn’t until 1879 that his birthday was formally made a legal holiday for federal employees in the District of Columbia.
The official name is Washington’s Birthday, although it has become informally known as Presidents Day. Arguments have been made to also honor President Lincoln because his date of birth is close, February 12.
A small number of states, including Illinois, celebrate Lincoln’s birthday as a holiday, according to the Library of Congress. And some commemorate both Lincoln and Washington on Presidents Day.
But at the federal level, the day is still officially Washington’s birthday.
According to a 2004 article in the National Archives magazine Prologue, Washington’s birthday in the late 1960s was one of nine federal holidays that fell on specific dates on different days of the week.
Congress voted to move some of those to Mondays, after concerns in part about absenteeism among government workers when a holiday fell in the middle of the week. But lawmakers also noted clear benefits to the economy, including an increase in retail sales and travel on three-day weekends.
The Uniform Monday Holiday Act was passed in 1971 and moved Presidents Day to the third Monday in February. The sales campaigns boomed, historian CL Arbelbide wrote in Prologue.
Bruggeman said Washington and the other Founding Fathers would be “deeply concerned” about the way the holiday was being co-opted by commercial and private interests.
“They were very nervous about companies,” Bruggeman said. ‘It wasn’t like they banned it. But they saw corporations as small republics that potentially threatened the power of the Republic.”
Coe, who is also a member of the New America think tank in Washington, said the day has now become devoid of recognizable traditions.
“There’s no moment of reflection,” Coe said. Given the current widespread cynicism toward the office, she added, that kind of reflection “would probably be a good idea.”