Bill Petro

HISTORY OF PRESIDENTS’ DAY

During my lifetime, two American holidays got consolidated into one. In 1971, both Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12) and Washington’s Birthday (February 22) became a single Federal holiday, Presidents’ Day to be observed on the third Monday in February, to honor all the past presidents of the United States. Both Washington’s and Lincoln’s pictures were typically displayed prominently in school rooms. School children in many states have felt cheated out of an extra day off of school ever since.

George Washington was known even during his lifetime as “the father of his country” though between him and Lincoln, Abraham looked more like the father and George’s long hair made him look more like the mother. Nevertheless, George was a natural leader, standing 6′4″ amongst troops that stood 5′9″. He appeared at the Continental Congress in uniform, the natural choice for military leader. He had experience in battle in the French and Indian War in America, fighting for the English King George III, but the American Revolutionary war saw him fighting for independence against the same King that he had earlier served.He served only two terms as President of the new United States of America, though many would have supported his rule for life. Napoleon of France was amazed that Washington would step down when he didn’t need to.

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most popular, best remembered, and most oft written about Presidents in American history. He too served during a time of bitter warfare, again with brother fighting brother and neighbor fighting neighbor, this time though during the American Civil War, or what became known in the South as the War Between the States. While this great conflagration had many economic and political causes, Lincoln’s name remains associated with the abolition of slavery.

Two great wars, one for freedom of independent government, one for a different kind of freedom. More Americans died in that second war than all other wars Americans were ever involved in… because the dead were counted on both sides. Two great Presidents. The first remembered for selfless deeds who served as first President when he might have been king. The other for his great words that began to heal a nation after the largest battle ever fought on American soil. As he remembered those who fought and died at the Battle of Gettysburg he concluded:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr

Born on January 15, 1929, we celebrate a holiday in honor of a man who was not a president, nor an explorer, nor a saint, rather he was a Baptist minister and an American leader of the 1960s civil rights movement who was named after the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther. Though he was awarded by President Carter the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1977, it was not until 1986 that a day was established on his birthday as a federal holiday.

The only other American federal holidays that honored individuals have been for Jesus, Presidents Washington and Lincoln, and Christopher Columbus.

Though Martin Luther King, Jr. had an earned doctorate degree, he was also an ordained minister, the son and grandson of ministers. From his biblical roots came many of the metaphors of his talks, the text of his presentations, and the cadence of his speech. He served as a minister starting in 1954 in Alabama, where after he led the boycott against segregation on buses that lasted 382 days. During this time he was arrested, his house was bombed, and he suffered personal abuse.

It was his involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement that gave him his greatest visibility, as he began in 1957 non-violent civil disobedience, not unlike Ghandi’s in India. Marches and protests were an effective means of accomplishing many of his goals, culminating in 1963 with the the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” and his most famous speech, entitled “I Have A Dream” which he delivered from the Lincoln Memorial in the Mall of Washington, DC.

The following year, in 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest recipient. Though initially successful in the South, King also brought his movement to the North, specifically Chicago in 1966, out of which grew equal opportunity programs.

1967 saw King deliver a comprehensive statement against the Vietnam War in his speech in New York City’s Riverside Church entitled “Beyond Vietnam.” This was met with criticism from many activists and newspapers, though he argued that he was not merging the civil rights and peace movements.

Nevertheless, he continued in speaking out against the Vietnam War and in 1967 he spoke in Sproul Plaza at the school I would later attend, the University of California at Berkeley where he told students,

“You, in a real sense, have been the conscience of the academic community and our nation.”

In 1968, King gave a prescient speech called “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” in which he said about God that:

“He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain! And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord!”

The next day, on April 4, 1968, King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee. National riots followed until five days later President Johnson declared a national day of mourning for King. 300,000 people attended his funeral. Since his death he has become a symbol of protest in the pursuit of racial justice, and as he said in his seminal speech “I Have A Dream” the majestic spiritual “soul force” rather than physical force.

As I write this on a snowy day from Colorado Springs, I am reminded of his charge at the end of that same speech,

“…from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado… let freedom ring.”

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF THANKSGIVING

The origin of Thanksgiving Day has been attributed to a harvest feast held by the Plymouth Colony. In 1621, Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony proclaimed a day of “thanksgiving” and prayer to celebrate the Pilgrims’ first harvest in America the year after their arrival on the merchant ship Mayflower. The picture you usually see of a few Native American men joining the Pilgrims at the feast is a bit inaccurate however. From original settler Edward Winslow in a letter to a friend in 1621, we know that some 90 men accompanied the Wampanoag Chief, Massasoit, to visit at Plymouth for three days of fish, fowl, and venison. But of the roughly 100 English settlers who had spent their first year on the Massachusetts coast, about half had died by this time. This would have left about half the 52 survivors as English men. So the Native men outnumbered the Pilgrim men by over three to one!

The idea of a day set apart to celebrate the completion of the harvest and to render homage to the Spirit who caused the fruits and crops to grow is both ancient and universal. The practice of designating a day of thanksgiving for specific spiritual or secular benefits has been followed in many countries.

One of the first general proclamations was made in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1676. President George Washington in 1789 issued the first presidential thanksgiving proclamation in honor of the new constitution. During the 19th century an increasing number of states observed the day annually, each appointing its own day. President Abraham Lincoln, on October 3, 1863, by presidential proclamation appointed the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day, due to the unremitting efforts of Sarah J. Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

Each succeeding president made similar proclamations until Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1939 appointed the third Thursday of November, primarily to allow a special holiday weekend for national public holiday. This was changed two years later by both congress and the President to the fourth Thursday of November. Thanksgiving Day remains a day when many express gratitude to God for blessings and celebrate material bounty.

P.S. The British also celebrate a day of Thanksgiving. But they mark it on July 4th.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HALLOWEEN

Halloween (Allhallows Even) is the evening of October 31. In its strictly religious aspect this occasion is known as the vigil of Hallowmas or All Saints’ Day, November 1, observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. In the fourth decade of the 8th century, Pope Gregory III moved this holiday to this date (from May 13) for celebrating the feast when he consecrated a chapel in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome to all the saints. Gregory IV extended the feast to the entire church in 834. In Latin countries the evening of October 31 is observed only as a religious occasion, but in Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States, ancient Halloween folk customs persist alongside the ecclesiastical observance.

Halloween is the second most popular holiday in the U.S. after Christmas, at least according to retailers. Not only are candy and costumes popular purchases, but houses are being decorated with “Halloween lights.” Parties are popular and are increasingly being celebrated the weekend before. In Boston, for example, Salem is a popular location for these with its month-long Haunted Happenings celebrations — due to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 — and the Massachusetts Turnpike traffic signs point out that Salem can be reached from Boston via Route 1A North. Young people in Tokyo dress up in costumes during Halloween.

Students of folklore believe that the popular customs of Halloween show traces of the Roman harvest festival of Pomona and of Celtic Druidism. These influences are inferred from the use of nuts and apples as traditional Halloween foods and from the figures of witches, black cats, and skeletons commonly associated with the occasion.

In pre-Christian Ireland and Scotland, the Celtic year ended on October 31, the eve of Samhain, and was celebrated with both religious and harvest rites. For the Druids, Samhain (pronounced: SOWin) was both the “end of summer” and a festival of the dead. The spirits of the departed were believed to visit their kinsmen in search of warmth and good cheer as winter approached. It was also an occasion when fairies, witches, and goblins terrified the populace. The agents of the supernatural were alleged to steal infants, destroy crops, and kill farm animals. Bonfires were lighted on hilltops on the eve of Samhain. The fires may have been lighted to guide the spirits of the dead to the homes of their kinsmen or to kill and ward off witches. In the City Center of modern day Dublin one can find signs advertising “Samhain Halloween” parties. Samhain is also the name for November in the modern Scots Gaelic and Irish languages.

During the middle ages when the common folk believed that witchcraft was devoted to the worship of Satan, this cult included periodic meetings, known as witches’ Sabbaths, which were allegedly given over to feasting and revelry. One of the most important Sabbaths as held on Halloween. Witches were alleged to fly to these meetings on broomsticks, accompanied by black cats who were their constant companions. Stories of these Sabbaths are the source of much folklore about Halloween.

In 17th century Puritan New England the celebration of Halloween was banned, along with any special celebration of Christmas and Easter, though in Catholic Maryland and Anglican Virginia retained some Halloween customs. During 19th century Victorian times, Halloween was generally tame and devoid of occult overtones. Instead of pulling pranks or haunting neighborhoods, young people chatted and flirted in festooned parlors.

By the early part of the 20th century, Halloween became almost a civic affair with block parties and parades. Pranks and mischief were common on Halloween. Wandering groups of celebrants blocked doors of houses with carts, carried away gates and plows, tapped on windows, threw vegetables at doors, and covered chimneys with turf so that smoke could not escape. In some places boys and girls dressed in clothing of the opposite sex and, wearing masks, visited neighbors to play tricks. These activities generally resembled the harmful and mischievous behavior attributed to witches, fairies, and goblins.

The contemporary “trick or treat” custom resembles an ancient Irish practice associated with Allhallows Eve. Groups of peasants went from house to house demanding food and other gifts in preparation for the evening’s festivities. Prosperity was assured for liberal donors and threats were made against stingy ones. These contributions were often demanded in the name of Muck Olla, an early Druid deity, or of St. Columb Cille, “dove of the Church” (also known as St. Colomba) who was an Irish missionary to Scotland during the 6th century. In England some of the folk attributes of Halloween were assimilated by Guy Fawkes day celebrated on November 5. Consequently Halloween lost some of its importance there.

Immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland brought secular Halloween customs to the U.S., but the festival did not become popular in this country until the latter part of the 19th century. This may have been because it had long been popular with the Irish, who migrated here in large numbers after 1840. In America, though some churches observe Halloween with religious services, many people regard it as a secular festival. Other Protestant churches celebrate it as “Reformation Day” in commemoration of the date in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the northern wooden door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

THE WAR: TV MINISERIES

In January I wrote about my conversation with Ken Burns, award winning producer of The Civil War documentary, about his upcoming miniseries about World War II called simply The War. This presentation took place at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. He was at that time previewing his 7-part, 14.5 hour series — that he has been working on for some 6 years — at military academies around the country. I wrote three articles at that time about:

• Questions I asked Ken Burns
• The making of the new documentary
• The content of this series

Now the series is finally going to be shown. It debuts this Sunday, September 23, 2007 on your local PBS station. Already the companion book is on the market, as is the sound track which I have been listening to for the last week, featuring not only a modern piece by Nora Jones called American Anthem, but also music from the 1940 period before, during, and after The War.

This is television worth watching, and I recommend it to you. Check your local television listing.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF PATRIOT DAY

With the following words and many others, President George W. Bush designated September 11 to be regarded as Patriot Day, or America Remembers:

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

On this first observance of Patriot Day, we remember and honor those who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. We will not forget the events of that terrible morning nor will we forget how Americans responded in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in the skies over Pennsylvania — with heroism and selflessness; with compassion and courage; and with prayer and hope. We will always remember our collective obligation to ensure that justice is done, that freedom prevails, and that the principles upon which our Nation was founded endure.

The President inaugurated this observance on September 4, 2002 and repeated it the next year, following a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001 along with the US Congress, intending that it be firmly planted into the consciousness of the American people, and each year recalled to our memory “that more than 3,000 innocent people lost their lives when a calm September morning was shattered by terrorists driven by hatred and destruction.”

As the sixth anniversary of what most people call September 11th or just 9-11, I am reminded of the article I wrote in the wake of it, and the one I wrote a year following. Should we remember these kind of events, recalling history? The words of the Oxford don C.S. Lewis are particularly relevant.

Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

- from “Learning in War-Time” (The Weight of Glory)

Lest we forget

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF LABOR DAY

Labor Day is the day we celebrate the process our mothers went through in order to deliver us at birth. Sorry, wrong holiday. Labor Day is the day we celebrate the achievements of the American labor movement. While it is still disputed whether the holiday was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire, the leader of the Brotherhood of Carpenters, or Matthew Maguire, a machinist — observances of the holiday go back over a century.

The first Labor Day celebration was September 5, 1882 in New York City and was organized by the Central Labor Union. The legislature of New York first deliberated a bill to establish a regular holiday, but Oregon was the first to pass it on February 21, 1887. It was first proposed as “a street parade to exhibit to the public the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.”

But it was on June 28, 1894 that Congress made the first Monday in September an official Labor Day holiday. In 1909 the Sunday preceding was designated as Labor Sunday, dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF THE 4th OF JULY: THOMAS JEFFERSON

Perhaps no one person is more associated with the 4th of July in American History than Thomas Jefferson, probably because it was his hand that penned the immortal Declaration of Independence.

As my friend Clay Jenkinson — who has been portraying Jefferson for over 20 years — says in his book Thomas Jefferson: The Man of Light:

“The Third President is the Muse of American life, the chief articulator of our national value system and our national self-identity. Jefferson was a man of almost unbelievable achievement: statesman, man of letters, architect, scientist, book collector, political strategist, and utopian visionary. But he is also a man of paradox: liberty-loving slaveholder, Indian-loving relocationist, publicly frugal and privately bankrupt, a constitutional conservative who bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803.”

Even by 1782, as an admiring French visitor observed, Jefferson, “without having quitted his own country,” had become “an American who … is a musician, draftsman, astronomer, natural philosopher, jurist and a statesman.” He knew about crop rotation, Renaissance architecture, could dance a jig, play the fiddle, or tie an artery.

Though friends in their youth, disagreements separated Thomas Jefferson and our second President John Adams in later years. They were eventually reconciled toward their twilight years and though they never saw each other again after Adams left the White House to be replaced by Jefferson, in the last 14 years of their lives they exchanged 156 letters, some of them quite warm. This correspondence is generally regarded as the intellectual capstone to the achievements of the revolutionary generation and the most impressive correspondence between prominent statesmen.

They both died on the same day, July 4th, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, two of the last three signers. At the age of 91 John Adams collapsed in his favorite reading chair and died that afternoon, his last words were, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.” But Jefferson would have said “wrong, as usual.” In his last days his health had failed and he passed in and out of consciousness. On the 4th of July, 1826 just a few hours before Adams died — in his home in Monticello, Virginia — surrounded by his daughter and some special slaves, shortly after noon, at the age of 83, Thomas Jefferson died. His last words were, “Is it the 4th?”

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF INDEPENDENCE DAY

Independence Day, or the Fourth of July celebrates the adoption by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, of the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the severance of the allegiance of the American colonies to Great Britain. It is the greatest secular holiday of the United States, observed in all the states, territories and dependencies.

Although it is assumed that the Continental Congress unanimously signed the document on the 4th of July, in fact not all delegates were present and there were no signers at all. Here is what really happened.

The congressional delegate from Virginia, Richard Henry Lee, introduced in the Continental Congress, on June 7, 1776, a resolution

“that…body declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from allegiance to or dependence on the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain…”

On June 10 a committee of five, headed by Thomas Jefferson (the actual writer), was appointed to prepare a declaration suitable to the occasion in the event that the Virginia resolution was adopted. Jefferson’s version was revised by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams before it went to the Congress where they did some editing of their own.

Congress approved the resolution July 2; the declaration composed by Jefferson and amended by his committee was adopted July 4. That evening John Hancock ordered Philadelphia printer John Dunlap to print 200 broadside copies of the agreed upon Declaration that was signed by him as President and Charles Thomson as Secretary. These were distributed to members of the Congress and distributed to the 13 colonies and elsewhere. The Declaration was read in the yard of the state house July 8. New York did not even vote on it until July 9. The signing was even more gradual, and it is somewhat misleading to speak of the “fifty-six original signers of the Declaration of Independence”.

By August 6, most of those whose names are on the document had signed, but at least six signatures were attached later. One signer, Thomas McKean did not attach his name until 1781! Some of those who signed were not even in Congress when the Declaration was adopted, and some who voted for it in Congress never did get around to signing it. Robert R. Livingston was one of the committee of five; he helped to frame it; he voted for it; and he never signed it.

The first anniversary of the declaration was observed only in Philadelphia, Pa., by the adjournment of Congress, a ceremonial dinner, bonfires, the ringing of bells and fireworks. In 1788, after the requisite number of states had adopted the constitution, Philadelphia celebrated July 4 by elaborate festivities, including a grand procession.

Boston, Mass., first observed the day in 1783, and thereafter this celebration replaced that of the Boston Massacre, March 5. The custom spread to other cities and states, where the day was marked by parades, patriotic oratory, military displays and fireworks. In present time, games and athletic contests, picnics, patriotic programs and pageants, and community fireworks of pyrotechnic expertise are characteristic of the 4th of July.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF FATHERS DAY

The celebration of Father’s Day goes back all the way to the beginning, actually to the Garden of Eden when Abel gave his father Adam a razor while his brother Cain gave his father a snake-skin tie. This was the beginning of Cain’s downward slide.

Scholars have debated for ages why Mother’s Day seems to be more honored than Father’s Day. A parallel has been drawn between this phenomenon and that of the difference in popularity between the Irish patron saint and the Italian patron saint. The noted scholar, Father Guido Sarducci, papal legate and gossip columnist for the Vatican has pointed out that for St. Patrick’s Day, we have lots of festivities, lots of green, celebrations and major parades. But for St. Joseph, a very good saint, there is nothing. The only thing he is known for is children’s aspirin. Dr. Les Capable of Stanford University confirmed this research by saying “Ditto”. Professor Illinois Smith, of the Department of Redundancy Department at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California said much the same thing by repeating the same thing over and over again many times in a redundant and repetitive fashion.

The holiday was first canonized by Pope Hallmark in 1582 in the Papal Bull Quando Ipso Facto Volare FTD Que Sera Sera which translated means “When you care enough to send the very best”. This was confirmed years later in the United States when one of the founding matriarchs, Ma Bell ordained and established both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in an attempt to help bolster the fledgling nation’s telecommunication coffers. It is well known that Mother’s Day generally posts the highest volume of long-distance telephone calls of any single day of the year. It is not as well known that Father’s Day posts the highest volume of long-distance collect calls.

Everyone has had a father, but not everyone can be a father, especially if you are a woman. But there are few challenges in the world that are more rewarding than being a father. It is a special joy and a great honor.

It is noteworthy, as we celebrate Father’s Day, that the Bible refers to the Almighty as Father.

Happy Father’s Day!

Children’s children are the crown of old men;
and the glory of children are their fathers

Proverbs 17:6

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com