18701776 Club
Congress gives federal workers four official holidays; Christmas was never guaranteed before today
The law covers only District of Columbia employees, not the country at large, but it names New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas as protected days off.
For nearly a century, the federal government had no official days off — workers in Washington bureaus labored on Christmas, New Year's Day, and the Fourth of July unless a supervisor happened to be generous. In 1870, Congress changed that, codifying four holidays for federal employees in the District of Columbia: New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It was a narrower act than it sounds — these protections applied to federal workers, not the country at large — but it set the template the nation eventually followed…
