"Texas Friendship Day" Revives Statewide Tradition of 1920s, 1930s, 1940s

The statewide "Texas Friendship Day" celebration this August revives and expands upon a people-friendly Texan tradition that was previously celebrated in early 20th Century Texas.

That annual tradition, known as a Texas "Friendship Day," was reportedly celebrated on March 7 of each year for several decades beginning in the 1920s.

The statewide "Texas Friendship Day" that was unanimously approved this year by the Texas House of Representatives has been scheduled by that governing body for Sunday, August 2, 2009. That Texas Friendship Day resolution, H.R. 3132, was authored by State Rep. Dawnna Dukes of Austin.

Official information about the 2009 "Texas Friendship Day" resolution (H.R. 3132) that was approved by the Texas House of Representatives on June 1, 2009, can be found at either or both of the following links:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/HR03132F.htm

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=81R&Bill=HR3132

Information about the previous Texas "Friendship Day" tradition is contained in an official March 5, 1947, gubernatorial proclamation by Texas Governor Beauford Jester. In that proclamation, Governor Jester declared that Friendship Day in our state had been annually celebrated on March 7 for many years.

The content of Texas Governor Jester's proclamation was cited on July 28, 2009, and July 29, 2009, by a spokesman for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in Austin.

Texas Governor Jester in his 1947 Texas "Friendship Day" proclamation reportedly praised Texan civic leader Eleanor Brackenridge of San Antonio for having initiated the annual statewide Texas Friendship Day idea on her 80th birthday in
1921.

It is not clear from historical archives when the statewide Texas "Friendship Day" tradition of the early and mid-20th Century was discontinued.

More information about that early 20th Century celebration of a "Friendship Day" or "Texas Friendship Day" in Texas can be obtained by contacting the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in Austin.