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Here is a place to talk about the history of the George Washington Birthday Celebration in Alexandria. For those of you who are students of George Washington or Alexandria history, we hope you will contribute to this section articles, pictures, films, and links to other places to help put this unique celebration in context.
To the right is the first entry, the most recent edition of the Historic Alexandria Quarterly. We have taken the account of the George Washington Birthday Parade out of the wonderful article by Stephen Williams about growing up in Alexandria in the 1950’s. Click on the article or the title to read the entire piece, it is terrific! Click on the Historic Alexandria Quarterly logo to see all of editions on line. Thank you to the Office of Historic Alexandria (one of the very best friends of the Celebration) for continuing to publish engaging articles about the history of Alexandria
Washington Birthday Celebrations of the 19th Century often featured “reenactments” of historic events. This type of activity has faded away now. However, the reading of Washington’s Farewell Address was a long-standing feature on Parade Day up until a few years ago. Many looked forward to this 45-minute performance by Henry Morgan at the Lyceum. Although never actually given as a speech by Washington, it’s relevance may surprise you. We have posted the Farewell Address and hope you will spend a few moments and give it your attention; just click on the link to the left.
In the area of memorabelia, we have pictures of past Parade Patches, just click on the link to the left for that.
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