- Compiled by Betty Jane Wilson, society president
Remembering and honoring Black History Month, the mega portrait of Martin Luther King, and the veterans will dominate the Valley Falls Historical Society's museum throughout February.
The seasonal window of the museum features equally mega portraits of Presidents Washington and Lincoln, commemorating the Presidents Day holiday.
Revered as our founding father and our first president, George Washington was born Feb. 22, 1732. In 1796, his birthday was known as Washington's birthday, but it was not observed as a holiday until 1832.
Abraham Lincoln's birthday was the next to be so celebrated. Born Feb. 12, 1809, his birthday was first celebrated in 1865, a year after his assassination by southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth. Although not celebrated as a federal holiday, in many states, his birthday was observed as a legal holiday.
Congress passed legislation in 1968 placing all federal holidays on Monday, including Washington's birthday. Thus was born the three-day weekend. In 1971, during Richard Nixon's term Washington and Lincoln's birthdays were combined into Presidents Day. It is now celebrated on the third Monday in February regardless of the date on which it falls.
Presidents Day now honors all who have served as president.
The museum scene includes an unidentified landscape painting by the late Kansas painter, Howard Hamm, bordered by magazine cover replicas of paintings of Washington at Valley Forge by J.D. Leyendecker (Feb. 25, 1935, Saturday Evening Post) and Lincoln at Independence Hall by J.L.G. Ferris showing the president in 1861 raising the flag bearing the 34th star honoring Kansas as the newest state (Kansas History, Autumn 2001) Presidents Day Information Source.
And all under the watchful eye of a Lincoln silhouette created by local artist Susan Phillips.
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