Presidents’ Day Math: The Case for an October Presidents’ Month

This blogpost originally appeared on February 18, 2011.

February is an excellent month to host President's Day because it is the month in which George Washington (February 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809) were born. February also claims William Henry Harrison on the ninth day (1773) and Ronald Reagan on the sixth (1911).

However, October could easily call itself “Presidents’ Month.” Six presidents were born in October—John Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Jimmy Carter. November is second on the list of presidents born within its days, with a total of five. Like February, the months of January, March, April, July, and August each host the birthdays of four presidents.

Seasonally, the distribution of presidential births is as follows: winter, thirteen; spring, eight; summer, ten; autumn, twelve. Why does the total number of that seasonal birthday distribution only come to forty-three when there have been forty-four presidents? Grover Cleveland was president twice, but he was not born twice. The last three presidents—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—were all summer babies. The only other time three consecutive presidents were born in the same season was in the string of Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, and Chester Arthur who all arrived in the autumn.

Coincidences and anomalies: Andrew Johnson and Woodrow Wilson share the same birthday (December 29) as do James K. Polk and Warren G. Harding (November 2). Jimmy Carter is the only president born of the first day of the month (October). George H. W. Bush is the only president born in June, while William Howard Taft was the only president born in September.

As the crow flies, George Washington, the first president, was born closer (Pope's Creek, Virginia) to Washington, D.C., than any other president; Barack Obama, was born farthest away (Hawaii). The irony is that Washington never lived in Washington, D.C. It is also interesting to note that the birthplaces of the presidents have marked American expansion westward since the nation's birth, and that the current president was born in both the westernmost state and the most recently admitted state.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

Special thanks to Nadia Mahmassani for her assistance in preparing this article.