Presidents That Established National Holidays

Presidents can’t just create a new national holiday on their own. Most of the time, it starts with pressure from the public, activists, states, or members of Congress. Then a bill has to pass through both the House and Senate before it reaches the president’s desk. If the president signs it, that holiday becomes part of federal law.

That process has shaped some of the most familiar days on the American calendar. 

Grover Cleveland signed Labor Day into law in 1894 after years of organizing by the labor movement. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the law that fixed Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November in 1941, decades after Abraham Lincoln helped turn it into a national tradition during the Civil War. 

Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, which moved several holidays to Mondays and helped create the long weekend system Americans still know today.

More recent holidays went through the same system, but only after long political fights. 

Ronald Reagan signed Martin Luther King Jr. Day into law in 1983, fifteen years after King was assassinated. 

Joe Biden signed Juneteenth into law in 2021, making it the first new federal holiday since MLK Day. 

Each one started as a cause, became a bill, survived the politics, and ended with a president’s signature.

From Instagram historyistimeless