Not everyone was happy: The Providence Journal’s editorial board argued Rhode Island lawmakers should cancel an existing holiday rather than add a ninth in the form of Victory Day. Veterans groups had been pushing the idea since as early as 1946, the year after the war ended, and Windsor’s bill quickly passed the House with bipartisan support on March 6, 1947. (The legislature changed the law in the late 1960s to set the holiday as the second Monday in August.) ![]() Richard Windsor, a long-serving East Providence Republican, to designate Aug. Rhode Island established Victory Day in March 1948, almost three years after the end of World War II, when the General Assembly passed a bill sponsored by Rep. 10 deserves special attention for its interplay of state, local, national, and even international politics.” Senate report on the topic.)Īs far back as the 1950s, The New York Times wrote that Victory Day – which, like many news outlets then and now, the paper referred to as “V-J Day” – was “always a big legal holiday in Rhode Island.” In the “Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days,” author Len Travers remarks, “The tenacity of Rhode Island in celebrating Aug. (Some websites claim Victory Day used to be a federal holiday, too, but that appears to be a myth – there is no evidence for it in an authoritative 1999 U.S. Rhode Island has apparently been on its own since the late 1960s or ’70s, when Arkansas dropped its version of Victory Day - known there as “World War II Memorial Day” - and reportedly gave state workers their birthdays off as a consolation. It has always been called “Victory Day” on the statute books, going back to its establishment in 1948. ![]() 14, when Japan’s surrender was announced here, but the holiday is now observed on the second Monday in August.Īnd no, despite what many residents believe, the legal name of Rhode Island’s holiday was never “V-J Day” (short for “Victory Over Japan”). The actual event it commemorates happened on Aug. ![]() Monday is Rhode Island’s 72nd annual Victory Day, continuing its custom of being the only state that observes a legal holiday to mark the end of World War II. (WPRI) – Like Del’s Lemonade or Saugy dogs, Victory Day is one of the Ocean State’s unique summertime traditions.
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