National Leave Us Alone Week

The first week of April was once set aside as "National Leave Us Alone Week," but observance of this week has fallen by the wayside.

The name suggests a celebration of anti-social curmudgeonliness. Unfortunately, the reason the week was invented was more prosaic.

It started in 1949 at the suggestion of PR consultant F. Lander Moorman of Douglas, GA. His idea was that, for one week, merchants should be left alone by solicitors.

Some details from the Congressional record of 1950:



Inevitably, the businessmen chose a Queen of Leave Us Alone Week.

Greenwood Commonwealth - Mar 20, 1950



Perhaps Leave Us Alone Week could be revived as a week in which all spammers and telemarketers have to leave us alone.

Update: Some more details below from the Atlanta Journal (Mar 19, 1950).





click to enlarge



     Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 31, 2025
     Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests | Business | Holidays | Curmudgeons and Contrarianism | 1940s





Comments
This Queen of "Leave Us Alone Week" smiles way too much. I'd rather elect a Queen who has a face that tells the world to leave her alone. Like Rosa Diaz's face in Brooklyn 99.
Posted by Yudith on 02/01/25 at 08:13 AM
An 18-year-old law student? Either she's a genius or the paper got it wrong.
Posted by ges on 02/01/25 at 07:06 PM
ges -- your skepticism prompted me to do more research, and I found an article from the Atlanta Journal that I posted above. Seems she was an 18-year-old law student. Perhaps she had somehow declared an undergraduate major in law? She was also the daughter of Georgia's assistant attorney general.
Posted by Alex on 02/02/25 at 02:54 PM
I can't say what the University of Georgia did in the 1950s, but in 1970 at UofM, freshmen could be taking the same classes but be labeled pre-law, pre-med, or liberal arts depending on their projected major. Some 'forgot' the "pre-" part and just referred to themselves as law students or med students.

If one of her parents had graduated from UofG's law school, she might have been a legacy student, pre-approved for admission. I can easily see the law school adopting such people as one of their own even before they complete the pre-law courses.
Posted by Phideaux on 02/02/25 at 03:42 PM









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