Presidents Day isn’t a national holiday (but is a boon to car sales)
Millions of Americans will be honoring the legacy of
America’s presidents on Monday—even though a national Presidents Day holiday is
pure fiction.
The annual event is also pegged to a gigantic motor
vehicle sales push in neighborhoods across the country, which is definitely not
fictional.
To set the record straight, the third Monday in February
is a federal holiday, meaning that federal employees get the day off and
federal offices are closed.
Officially, the holiday is called Washington’s Birthday,
to honor the first American president, George Washington. The date for the
annual federal holiday was established by Congress with the Monday Holidays
Act, which went into effect in 1971.
But dozens of states celebrate the presidential legacy,
or the hope of getting a really great deal on a car, on the same day.
One website, Geometrx, went to the trouble of looking at
the official holiday calendars for all 50 states, in a quest to see who
actually calls the holiday “Presidents’ Day,” or “President’s Day,” or
“Presidents Day.” Or something else.
The tally shows that approximately 16 states celebrate
Presidents Day, and another 15 states observe Washington’s Birthday. Nine
states don’t observe a holiday on the third Monday in February. The other
celebrated a holiday that includes the words President, Washington, Lincoln,
Thomas Jefferson, and Daisy Gatson Bates, in some combination.
The real challenge is sorting through the varying
punctuation of “presidents”–it’s enough to make any copy editor dizzy. In 17
states it’s Presidents’ Day (plural possessive), in five states it’s Presidents
Day (plural), and in four states it’s President’s Day (singular possessive).
Much to the chagrin of copy editors, there is nothing close to national
consensus on the pseudo-holiday’s name.
Whatever it’s called, though, car dealers are all over
it. The industry latched onto the holiday in the 1970s and, through a
grassroots effort, promoted the name as synonymous with savings. Of course,
department stores and numerous other retailers have promoted sales over the
weekend, much like other three-day holiday weekends.
The holiday’s timing, after the Monday Holidays Act was
passed, was perfect. Mid-February was a good time for dealers to launch the
spring sales line, and people were off from work with some free time to spare.
While the advent of online car sales and fixed pricing
may have diminished some of the sales hype for Presidents Day (or President’s
Day or Presidents’ Day), it’s still a big deal for the industry.
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