| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Matthew Dennis. Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2002. Pp. xii, 338. $35.00.

This book is the most recent entry in a growing list of works analyzing the origins and meaning of American holidays. Eschewing Christmas, Easter, and the other greeting-card holidays, Matthew Dennis concerns himself with celebrations and/or observances of patriotic, political fetes, including the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. 1

Some of these are simply Monday holidays—long weekends for the weary, or days on which no mail is delivered. But those of us who can remember back wistfully to the 1940s and 1950s are sometimes, I think, a little saddened by the disappearance of the quaint and curious ways in which these occasions were once observed. Libraries used to be filled with kiddie biographies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, each entitled to his own special day marked by cardboard hatchets, cherries, stovepipe hats, and costumed pageantry at school. Grandpas marched proudly in Labor Day parades that went on for hours. The Memorial Day parade was a great Cold War spectacle, with tanks rumbling along, Gold Star mothers resplendent in white uniforms, and souvenir flags to wave. The "Glorious Fourth" meant gala picnics in the park with sack races, free peanuts and hot dogs, and orators of various persuasions waving their arms and sweating mightily in the sun. It is hard to blame Dennis for feeling that something important has drained away from these celebrations when they become just one more day at Disney World or the local mall. . . .

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