Will the Alachua County Library District be open on President's Day? Yes, we will be open for President's Day.
President's Day is a federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February. It is officially known as Washington’s Birthday. Each state may call it what they want and has the choice of making it a state holiday or not. George Washington died in 1799 and his birthday was unofficially celebrated by many for years. In 1879, President Hayes signed a proposed law to make Feb. 22 a national holiday. At the time it only applied to the District of Columbia, but in 1885, President Arthur made it a national holiday. Washington’s Birthday became the fifth federal holiday, the other four being: New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. It was the first federal holiday to celebrate an individual American. There wasn’t another such federal holiday until 1983, when President Reagan signed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day into law, to begin in 1986.
In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act went into effect. It moved some holidays to Mondays to create three-day weekends and made Columbus Day a federal holiday. The Bill was backed by businesses and labor unions to boost retail sales and stem absenteeism. Since Lincoln’s birthday is Feb.12, it was proposed that Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays be celebrated together and the holiday be renamed Presidents’ Day. That measure did not pass, so it remained Washington’s Birthday, but was moved to the third Monday of February. The Act also included moving Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day to Mondays. In 1978, due to widespread criticism, Veterans Day was moved back to its original date of Nov. 11. By the 2000s, half of the states had changed the name to Presidents’ Day. While each state may celebrate just one president or several, Presidents’ Day is known for patriotic celebrations, special sales, and the closing of the post office, banks, and federal buildings.
Want to learn more about our chief executives? Click on a president’s name or visit Gale in Context: Biography.
- Presidents #1-15
- Washington, George (1789-1797)
- Adams, John (1797-1801)
- Jefferson, Thomas (1801-1809)
- Madison, James (1809-1817)
- Monroe, James (1817-1825)
- Adams, John Quincy (1825-1829)
- Jackson, Andrew (1829-1837)
- Van Buren, Martin (1837-1841)
- Harrison, William Henry (1841)
- Tyler, John (1841-1845)
- Polk, James Knox (1845-1849)
- Taylor, Zachary (1849-1850)
- Fillmore, Millard (1850-1853)
- Pierce, Franklin (1853-1857)
- Buchanan, James (1857-1861)
- Presidents #16-30
- Lincoln, Abraham (1861-1865)
- Johnson, Andrew (1865-1869)
- Grant, Ulysses S. (1869-1877)
- Hayes, Rutherford Birchard (1877-1881)
- Garfield, James Abram (1881)
- Arthur, Chester Alan (1881-1885)
- Cleveland, Grover (1885-1889)
- Harrison, Benjamin (1889-1893)
- Cleveland, Grover (1893-1897)
- McKinley, William (1897-1901)
- Roosevelt, Theodore (1901-1909)
- Taft, William Howard (1909-1913)
- Wilson, Woodrow (1913-1921)
- Harding, Warren Gamaliel (1921-1923)
- Coolidge, Calvin (1923-1929)
- Presidents #31-46
- Hoover, Herbert Clark (1929-1933)
- Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1933-1945)
- Truman, Harry S. (1945-1953)
- Eisenhower, Dwight David (1953-1961)
- Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1961-1963)
- Johnson, Lyndon Baines (1963-1969)
- Nixon, Richard Milhous (1969-1974)
- Ford, Gerald Rudolph (1974-1977)
- Carter, James Earl Jr. (1977-1981)
- Reagan, Ronald Wilson (1981-1989)
- Bush, George Herbert Walker (1989-1993)
- Clinton, William Jefferson (1993-2001)
- Bush, George Walker (2001-2009)
- Obama, Barack Hussein (2009-2017)
- Trump, Donald John (2017-2021)
- Biden, Joseph Robinette Jr. (2021-present)
Try these titles to compare and contrast presidents:
- Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America by Jared Cohen
- Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford by Clint Hill
- The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency by John Dickerson
- The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe by Kevin R. C. Gutzman
- Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Nine Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Barack Obama by Brion T. McClanahan
- The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America’s Best – and Worst – Chief Executives by Brian Lamb
- Presidents of War by Michael R. Beschloss
- Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump by Kate Andersen Brower
- The Virginia Dynasty: Four Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation by Lynne V. Cheney
Try these titles to learn about the people (and pets) that surround a president:
- All-American Dogs: A History of Presidential Pets from Every Era by Andrew Hager
- First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents by Ronald Kessler
- First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents by Gary Ginsberg
- First Ladies and American Women: In Politics and at Home by Jill Abraham Hummer
- First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies by Kate Andersen Brower
- The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple
- The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media – From the Founding Fathers to Fake News by Harold Holzer
- The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
- Sex with Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor Herman
- The West Wing and Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency by Pete Souza
Factual information from History. Images of presidents from The White House.