Abraham Lincoln's Birthday | |
---|---|
Official name | Birthday of President Abraham Lincoln |
Observed by | Various U.S. states |
Type | Local |
Significance | To honor Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States |
Date | February 12 |
Next time | February 12, 2025 |
Frequency | Annual |
Related to | Presidents' Day |
Lincoln's Birthday is a legal, public holiday in some U.S. states, observed on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth on February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville (Hodgensville, Hodgen's Mill), Kentucky. [1] Connecticut, [2] Illinois, [3] Indiana, [4] Michigan, [5] Ohio, [6] California, [7] Missouri, [8] and New York [9] observe the holiday.
In many other states, Lincoln's birthday is not celebrated separately, as a stand-alone holiday. Instead, Lincoln's birthday is combined with a celebration of President George Washington's birthday (also in February) and celebrated either as Washington's Birthday or as Presidents' Day on the third Monday in February, concurrent with the federal holiday.
The earliest known observance of Lincoln's birthday occurred in Buffalo, New York, in either 1873 or 1874. Julius Francis (d. 1881), a Buffalo druggist, made it his life's mission to honor the slain president. He repeatedly petitioned Congress to establish Lincoln's birthday as a legal holiday. [10]
The day is marked by traditional wreath-laying ceremonies at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville, Kentucky, and at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The latter has been the site of a ceremony ever since the Memorial was dedicated. Since that event in 1922, observances continue to be organized by the Lincoln Birthday National Commemorative Committee and by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). A wreath is laid on behalf of the President of the United States, a custom also carried out at the grave sites of all deceased U.S. presidents on their birthdays. Lincoln's tomb is in Springfield, Illinois.
On February 12, 2009, the annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial commemorated Lincoln's 200th birthday in grand fashion. An extended ceremony, organized by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) and with help from MOLLUS, featured musical performances from four-time Grammy-nominated singer Michael Feinstein and the U.S. Marine Corps Band. The morning celebration also featured remarks by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin; Lincoln scholar and ALBC Co-chair Harold Holzer; recently retired Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice – and ALBC Commissioner – Frank J. Williams; and author Nikki Giovanni reciting her newest work, which was written especially for the Bicentennial.
As part of Lincoln's birthday bicentennial, the U.S. Mint released four new Lincoln cents. The commemorative coins have new designs on the reverse showing stages of his life. The first went into circulation on September 12, 2009. The standard portrait of Lincoln's head remains on the front. The new designs include a log cabin representing his birthplace, Lincoln as a young man reading while sitting on a log that he was taking a break from splitting, Lincoln as a state legislator in front of the Illinois Capitol, and the partially built dome of the U.S. Capitol. [11]
New Jersey started observing the holiday on May 23, 2008, with the enactment of the Public Employee Pension and Benefits Reform Act of 2008. [12]
Black History Month has its origin in 19th-century celebrations of Lincoln's Birthday by African-American communities in the United States. [13] By the early 20th century, black communities were annually celebrating Lincoln's birthday in conjunction with the birthday of former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass on February 14. [13] The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced that the second week of February would be "Negro History Week" to coincide with the traditional Black commemorations of both men's birthdays. [13] By the 1970s, "Negro History Week" had become "Black History Month". [13] Black History Month has expanded further to Canada, where it is also celebrated in February, and to the United Kingdom, which celebrates it in October.
Lincoln's Birthday was never a U.S. Federal Government holiday. The third Monday in February remains only "Washington's Birthday" in federal law. [14] However, many state governments have officially renamed their Washington's Birthday state holiday as "Presidents' Day", "Washington and Lincoln Day", or other such designations which explicitly or implicitly celebrate Lincoln's birthday. Regardless of the official name and purpose, celebrations and commemorations on or about the third Monday often include honoring Lincoln.
In Connecticut, Missouri and Illinois, while Washington's Birthday is a federal holiday, Lincoln's Birthday is still a state holiday, falling on February 12 regardless of the day of the week. California still lists Lincoln's Birthday as a holiday, [1] but as of 2009 no longer gives State employees a paid holiday on February 12. [15] However, it is considered a "Court holiday" and state courts are closed. [16]
In the following states, the third Monday in February is an official state holiday and known as:
Using "president"
Washington and Lincoln
Washington alone
Washington and another person
Unspecified
Several states honor presidents with official state holidays that do not fall on the third Monday of February. In New Mexico, Presidents' Day, at least as a state-government paid holiday, is observed on the Friday following Thanksgiving. [25] In Georgia, Presidents' Day, at least as a state-government paid holiday, is observed on Christmas Eve. (Observed on the prior Thursday if Christmas falls on Saturday; observed on the prior Friday if Christmas falls on a Sunday. If December 24 is a Wednesday, then this holiday is observed on Friday December 26.) [26]
Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman, who served as the 16th president of the United States, from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the insurgent Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Its name is a portmanteau of the words "June" and "nineteenth", as it is celebrated on the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when as the American Civil War was ending, Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas. Originating in Galveston, Juneteenth has since been observed annually in various parts of the United States, often broadly celebrating African-American culture.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday in the United States observed on the third Monday of January each year. King was chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which protested racial discrimination in federal and state law and civil society. The movement led to several groundbreaking legislative reforms in the United States.
Confederate Memorial Day is a holiday observed in several Southern U.S. states on various dates since the end of the American Civil War. The holiday was originally publicly presented as a day to remember the estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers who died during the American Civil War.
National holidays in the United States are 11 calendar dates designated by the U.S. federal government as official holidays. On these days non-essential national offices are closed although the employees receive pay.
In the United States, public holidays are set by federal, state, and local governments and are often observed by closing government offices or giving government employees paid time off. The federal government does not require any private business to close or offer paid time off, as is the case for most state local governments, so employers determine which holidays to observe.
Casimir Pulaski Day is a local holiday officially observed in Illinois, on the first Monday of March in memory of Casimir Pulaski, a Revolutionary War cavalry officer born in Poland as Kazimierz Pułaski. He is praised for his contributions to the U.S. military in the American Revolution and known as "the father of the American cavalry".
After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, a three-week series of events was held to mourn the death and memorialize the life of the 16th president of the United States. Funeral services, a procession, and a lying in state were first held in Washington, D.C., then a funeral train transported Lincoln's remains 1,654 miles (2,662 km) through seven states for burial in Springfield, Illinois. Never exceeding 20 mph, the train made several stops in principal cities and state capitals for processions, orations, and additional lyings in state. Many Americans viewed the train along the route and participated in associated ceremonies.
Native American Day is a holiday observed in several US states in celebration of Native American culture. In California and Nevada, the holiday is designated on the fourth Friday of September, whereas in South Dakota and Wisconsin, it falls on the second Monday of October. Within each of these states, Native American Day honors the cultural contributions of Native American communities to the respective state's history, as well as to the overall country. The state of Washington celebrates Native American Heritage Day on the Friday immediately following the fourth Thursday in November. The state of Tennessee observes a similar American Indian Day each year on the fourth Monday of September. President George W. Bush signed into law legislation introduced by Congressman Joe Baca (D-Calif.), to designate the Friday after Thanksgiving as Native American Heritage Day.
The Uniform Monday Holiday Act is an Act of Congress that moved permanently to a Monday two federal holidays in the United States — Washington's Birthday and Memorial Day — and that made Columbus Day a federal holiday, also permanently on a Monday. This created long weekends with three days off ending with the holidays, such as Memorial Day Weekend.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil, Germany and the Philippines. It is also observed in the Dutch town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
The Day of Valor, officially known as Araw ng Kagitingan, is a national observance in the Philippines which commemorates the fall of Bataan to Japanese troops during World War II. The day is officially celebrated every April 9, the start of the Bataan Death March, although the date was moved on several occasions to avoid it from coinciding with the observance of the Holy Week in the country, especially the Easter Triduum and Easter Sunday, such as in 2009 and 2023.
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) was the congressionally created, 14-member federal commission focused on planning and commemorating the 200th birthday of the United States' 16th president on February 12, 2009. The commission served for ten years, from 2000 to 2010. Its official successor organization, announced in 2011 with an expanded board and broadened mission, is the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation.
Harold Holzer is a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the American Civil War Era. He serves as director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Holzer previously spent twenty-three years as senior vice president for public affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before retiring in 2015.
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation is the successor organization of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC), which was created by Congress and the President of the United States to plan the commemoration of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday in 2009. The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission sunset on April 30, 2010
Presidents' Day, officially Washington's Birthday at the federal governmental level, is a holiday in the United States celebrated on the third Monday of February. It is often celebrated to honor all those who served as presidents of the United States and, since 1879, has been the federal holiday honoring Founding Father George Washington, who led the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was the first U.S. president.
Barack Obama Day refers to two days of recognition in the United States in honor of Barack Obama, who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Abraham Lincoln:
In the United States there are a number of observed holidays where employees receive paid time off. The labor force in the United States comprises about 62% of the general population. In the United States, 97% of the private sector businesses determine what days this sector of the population gets paid time off, according to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management. The following holidays are observed by the majority of US businesses with paid time off: New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, the day after known as Black Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas. There are also numerous holidays on the state and local level that are observed to varying degrees.
{{cite web}}
: Cite uses generic title (help)