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Presidents’ Day: 4 facts about the federal holiday

By Michael Gryboski, Editor Twitter

Changing the date

Lady Bird Johnson, left, and President Lyndon B. Johnson are shown during the signing ceremony for the Interior Department Appropriation Bill at the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., July 26, 1968. Lady Bird died Wednesday, July 11, 2007, at her home in Austin, Texas.
Lady Bird Johnson, left, and President Lyndon B. Johnson are shown during the signing ceremony for the Interior Department Appropriation Bill at the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., July 26, 1968. Lady Bird died Wednesday, July 11, 2007, at her home in Austin, Texas. | LBJ Library/File

Although the holiday had long been on a fixed date every year and solely about George Washington, things changed in 1968 with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.

Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, the Act moved the holiday to the third Monday in February. It was also combined with a celebration of Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was Feb. 12.

The same Act also made Memorial Day the last Monday in May, established Columbus Day as a federal holiday and put Veterans Day on the fourth Monday in October. Veterans Day was eventually moved back to Nov. 11.

Johnson and others defended the legislation as a way to give federal government workers more convenient three-day weekends and saw it as a means of helping the economy.

“Americans will be able to travel farther and see more of this beautiful land of ours. They will be able to participate in a wider range of recreational and cultural activities,” stated Johnson in 1968.

“The private employer will enjoy similar gains in efficiency. The Monday holiday will stimulate greater industrial and commercial production, sparing business and labor the penalty of midweek shutdowns.”

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