
Holidays embody multiple calendars, memories and agendas within contemporary
American society. Many formal national holidays tend to reinforce shared civic and
historic values, yet they also have become foci of protest, illustrated in the anti-Vietnam
book and movie
Born on the Fourth of July
(1989). Other celebrations are divided by
religion,
ethnicity region and political meanings. Moreover, holidays vary in scope and
seriousness. Thanksgiving produces national respite (and the heaviest travel of the year as
families re-unite), while President’s Day (combining Washington’s and Lincoln’s
birthdays) is generally marked only by
department-store
sales, school lessons and post
office closings.
An annual cycle of patriotic festivities has emerged since the founding of the nation,
celebrated on Independence Day (July 4), usually outdoors with picnics, political rallies
and fireworks. Other holidays remember the war dead (Memorial Day, last Monday in
May) and workers (Labor Day, first Monday of September). These also delineate the
summer/vacation season, underscored by the 1971 movement of Independence Day and
Memorial Day, among other holidays, to Monday to create three-day weekends.
Thanksgiving, chartered by stories of pilgrims and Indians celebrating their friendship
and survival at Plymouth Rock with a meal of turkey squash and potatoes, was
roclaimed a national holiday by George Washington in 1789. It was fixed on the fourth
Thursday in November by Lincoln; Franklin Roosevelt moved it a week earlier to
romote shopping. Here, diverse family traditions of food and fellowship blend with
charity (meals at soup kitchens), commercial events (parades mark the beginning o
holiday
consumerism
) and sports. While Thanksgiving evokes criticism by Native
Americans, it remains the most widely celebrated expression of united national identity.
Other national public holidays include Columbus Day (October 12 or the second
Monday in October), Veteran’s Day (November 11) and presidential birthdays. A holiday
honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (third Monday in January) was added to national
and state calendars amid intense polemics in the 1980s.
S
ecial national commemorations have included massive celebrations of the American
Bicentennial
in 1976, and similar anniversaries of wars and battles, sometimes with re-
enactments or political opportunities/speeches. The presidential inauguration celebrated
on January 20 every four years has also taken on trappings of a national festival. In
addition, whole months (Black History Month (January), Women’s History (February),
etc.) and days for specific causes and celebrities are recognized at the national, state and
local level.
New Year’s Eve, while not a patriotic holiday, inscribes the nation through shared
media coverage of the crystal ball dropping in New York’s
Times Square,
as well as
urban festivals like First Night and many private parties. January 1 has become the day
for parades and
football
bowl games deciding the rankings of the college season.
African
American
communities have also celebrated January 1 as Emancipation Day.
In addition to civic celebreation, holidays of Christian origin are widely shared and
secularized. Halloween (October 31) has been transformed from a feast of the dead to a
night celebrating
children
and
neighborhoods,
as costumed kids roam from door to door
Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 548