It wasn’t always a holiday
In keeping with The Legal Genealogist‘s after-Christmas tradition, this post (a reprise from years past), has a question for you: Did you have a good Christmas holiday?
And, with apologies to all of our first responders and health workers and others who did have to go in over the holiday, wasn’t it terrific not having to work?
Well, all I can say is, you sure should be celebrating that day (or those days) off.
Because it certainly wasn’t always that way.
It hasn’t even been that way for very long.
First of all, forget the idea of Christmas Day as a federal holiday for most of our ancestors. The fact is, for a very long time, there weren’t any federal holidays at all. None. Nada. Zilch.1
It wasn’t until 1870 that a law was passed providing that New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Christmas Day, and “any day appointed or recommended by the President of the United States as a day of public fasting or thanksgiving shall be holidays within the District of Columbia.”2
And note that that law only said within the District of Columbia. It wasn’t until 1885 that federal employees outside of the federal enclave in which the capital city of Washington is located also officially got the day off.3 Oh, some departments had been closing unofficially before then4 but the law itself didn’t require it.
But, you say, surely the states recognized Christmas before then!
Well, yes, they did. But not all that much earlier. And not all of them — some didn’t come around until later.
The first law that can be identified as actually designating Christmas Day as a day off was adopted in Louisiana in 1837. It designated December 25th, among other days (including New Year’s Day, the Fourth of July and Sundays), as “day(s) of public rest and days of grace” — by which it meant a grace day for bill-paying.5
Arkansas followed in 1838, making debts otherwise payable on Sundays, Christmas Day and the Fourth of July payable one day earlier. By the Civil War, Christmas was recognized as an official holiday in most of the states.6 One of the last to name Christmas as an official holiday was Oklahoma, in 19077 — which may have been only because it wasn’t a state until then.8
Of course, this legislation was hardly the first mentioning Christmas, and some of the earlier laws even made it a day off. In Virginia, for example, in 1740, tobacco inspectors were given off on “Sundays, and the holydays observed at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide.”9
Then again some of the earlier references to Christmas were, well, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. As, for example, with the Massachusetts statute in 1659 that… well… why don’t I just let you read it for yourself:
For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offence of others, it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon such accounts as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the country.10
For the record, Massachusetts didn’t make Christmas an official holiday until 1856.11
So don’t be surprised if you come across an official document or court record well into the 19th century featuring some action involving your ancestor on Christmas Day that has nothing to do with gifts, reindeer or figgy pudding.
SOURCES
- Stephen W. Stathis, “Federal Holidays : Evolution and Application,” Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 8 Feb 1999; PDF version, Senate.gov (http://www.senate.gov/ : accessed 20 Dec 2015). ↩
- “An Act making the first Day of January, the twenty-fifth Day of December, the fourth Day of July, and Thanksgiving Day, Holidays within the District of Columbia,” 16 Stat. 168 (28 June 1870); digital images, “A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875,” Library of Congress, American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html : accessed 20 Dec 2015). ↩
- “Joint resolution (No. 5) providing for the payment of laborers in Government employ for certain holidays,” 23 Stat. 516 (6 Jan 1885). ↩
- Stathis, “Federal Holidays : Evolution and Application,” PDF at 2. ↩
- See Penne L. Restad, Christmas in America: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 96 and 194 n.12. The claim by James Barnett that Alabama was the first state does not appear to be accurate. See James Barnett, The American Christmas: A Study in National Culture, (New York: Arno Press, 1976), 19-20. ↩
- Ibid., 96. ↩
- §2979, “Holidays,” in Benedict Elder, ed., General Statutes of Oklahoma, 1908 (Kansas City, Mo. : Pipes-Reed Pub., 1908), 688; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 20 Dec 2015). ↩
- See Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “List of U.S. states by date of statehood,” rev. 16 Dec 2015. ↩
- “An Act, for prolonging the time for bringing Tobacco to the public Warehouses; and for the sale of Transfer Tobacco,” 1740, in William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the first session of the Legislature in the year 1619, vol. V (Richmond : 1819), 98. ↩
- Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., editor, Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, vol. 4, part 1 (Boston: William White, public printer, 1854), 366; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (www.hathitrust.org : accessed 20 Dec 2015). ↩
- “An Act concerning the Observance of Certain Days,” Chapter 113, 1856, in Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court in the Year 1856 (Boston : William White, public printer, 1856), 59; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 20 Dec 2015). ↩
Along with the first responders and health workers are the farmers who seldom had a “day off,” and my father was one of those until I was 11 1/2! Most of the rest of the family on both sides were farmers as well. At least they worked “at home” so they could do their chores and join the celebration as well. The celebrations at our house were very low key and we seldom had family there because of the great distances they lived from us and the amount of snow in the Colorado mountains!!
Oh yes… farmers and farm families had no choice, did they? Self-sufficiency was the name of that game!
Not surprising the Puritans aka the “Grinch Party” would fine people for celebrating Christmas. I note in my research in Virgina that Christmas as a popular day to have a wedding. Also, in the Rawleigh Downman (of Lancaster County, Virginia) letterbook of the 1760s and 1770s he and his wife are sending Virginia hams to their friends, relations and business partners in London for the Christmas holidays. Not everybody was a grinch.
I suspect there were more than a few celebrating by the 1760s and 1770s in Massachusetts too, Craig (the cited statute was an awful lot earlier…).
Dear Legal Genealogist. I suppose one point here, aside from the Puritanicals, is that while Christmas was not a “legal federal or state holiday” it was still celebrated and I doubt many people were at work that day.
No, just all the farmers and dairy workers and police and soldiers and hospital workers and… 🙂
Judy,
I live in a retirement home, and every department has to be staffed on Christmas and every other holiday. Some departments have skeleton staff, but the kitchen, clinic, reception desk and maintenance staff have to be represented. Almost all of them manage to do their jobs cheerfully, too! They celebrate after work, the day before or after. But they know we need them. We’re grateful, too, for their presence, on holidays and every day.
Doris
In truth there are huge cadres of people at work each and every day without whom the rest of us would not be so comfortable, Doris. We owe them all our thanks, each and every holiday, each and every day.
My entire life I have spent as the daughter of a farmer/volunteer firefighter, the wife/mother of a fire fighter, the mother/sister of a fire fighter/police officer and/or EMT. Not to mention my brother who was a semi-truck driver and my son-in-law who works in a hospital lab. I’m not sure we would have known what to do if everyone showed up on Christmas for Christmas. We had and have celebrations when we could, and we were and are proud of each and every one of our family who served and serves others including farm animals who are hungry on Christmas same as any other day. My family members still have these professions, and we still have holidays around their schedules. In fact, we’ve done it so long, it’s a tradition now:)
And we whose lives and property have been saved and enriched by folks like yours are grateful!!