When I was a kid they shifted a bunch of holidays to Monday. (Not all the holidays: they kept New Year’s, Christmas, and July 4th on fixed dates, they kept Thanksgiving on a Thursday, and for some reason the shifted Veterans Day didn’t stick. But they successfully moved Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, and Columbus Day.
It makes sense to give people a 3-day weekend. I have no idea why they picked Monday rather than Friday, but either one would do, I suppose.
My question is: if this Monday holiday thing was such a good idea, why did it take them so long to do it?
One thought: many people didn't _have_ the two-day weekend we are used to now if you go back to the early 20th century. Henry Ford was revolutionary in that he gave his workers Saturday off, rather than just Sunday (or even just Sunday morning for church) as many other workplaces and factories did.
Perhaps it took a generation of having "Saturday off" before the two-day weekend sunk in to the point that adding a third day made sense?
Monday is MUCH better than Friday! It's better to have a 3 day weekend and then know that the following week is not as terrible because it's only 4 days long. :)
They seemed to all get changed around the same time period 1968 – 1971, so maybe it was a particular philosophy of the Nixon administration.
On a farm it didn't matter so much. As more people moved into organized jobs, 3 day holidays were more valued?
That's a bit like the old economist joke: if that's a real twenty dollar bill, why is it lying there in the street?
I think this has as much to do with politics as it has to do with cultural norms. having moved from Scotland to Australia in the 80s, one of the things that surprised me were the frequency of changes to institutions. We have had three referendums on daylight saving (summer time in Scottish parlance) We've stopped the morning only shopping on Saturday, we still do not have 24 hour shopping (only 1.8 million people live in Perth) but it is almost a constant barrage of opinion on TV that tells us we must have it despite widespread opposition from consumers.
The haphazard nature appears to me to be the result of a clash between business and culture. Culture appears to often be the winner in the short term.
The point is that the lobbying is constant, but they only need to change it once. The discourse is generated in a sustained voice over a period of time, (and now I realise what I think) until a tipping point is reached and government enacts the legislation. I assume this can only be done when the government is unlikely to get a big backlash.
So I assume that the move to Mondays was opportunistic.