11/9/2017 Memorial Day - Wikipedia Memorial Day Memorial Day or Decoration Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in Memorial Day the country's armed forces.[1] The holiday, which is currently observed every year on the last Monday of May, was held on May 29, 2017. The holiday was held on May 30 from 1868 to 1970.[2] It marks the start of the unofficial summer vacation season,[3] while Labor Day marks its end. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries. Memorial Day is not to be confused with Veterans Day – Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving, whereas Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans.[4] The gravestones at Arlington Contents National Cemetery are 1 History decorated by U.S. flags on 1.1 In the North 1.2 In the South Memorial Day weekend in 1.3 At Gettysburg 2008. 2 Name and date 3 20th century Official name Memorial Day 3.1 Poppies 4 As civil religious holiday Observed by United States 5 In film, literature, and music Type National 5.1 Films 5.2 Music Observances Remembrance 5.3 Poetry 6 Observance dates (1971–present) of American 7 See also war dead 8 References Date Last Monday 9 Further reading 10 External links in May 2016 date May 30 History 2017 date May 29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day 1/12 11/9/2017 Memorial Day - Wikipedia The practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers is an ancient 2018 date May 28 custom.[5] Soldiers' graves were decorated in the U.S. before[6] and during the American Civil War. 2019 date May 27 Some believe that an annual cemetery decoration practice began Frequency Annual before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea.[7] Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are still held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountain areas. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather, put flowers on graves and renew contacts with relatives and others. There often is a religious service and a picnic-like "dinner on the grounds," the traditional term for a potluck meal at a church.[7] On June 3, 1861 Warrenton, Virginia was the location of the first Civil War soldier's grave ever to be decorated, according to a Richmond Times­Dispatch newspaper article in 1906.[8] In 1862 women in Savannah, Georgia decorated Confederate soldiers' graves oer the Savannah Republican.[9] The 1863 cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead soldiers. On July 4, 1864, ladies decorated soldiers' graves according to local 1870 Decoration Day historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania.[10] and Boalsburg promotes itself as the parade in St. Paul, Minnesota birthplace of Memorial Day.[11] In April 1865, following President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, commemorations were ubiquitous. The more than 600,000 soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead.[12] A decoration day observance on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina led historian David W. Blight to claim that "African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina",[13] based on accounts in the Charleston Daily Courier and coverage by the New York Tribune. In 2012 Blight stated that he "has no evidence" that the event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country.[14] Accordingly, Snopes labeled the claim that the holiday began in Charleston "false."[15] In 1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the Union war dead with flowers.[16] By the 20th century, various Union and Confederate memorial traditions, celebrated on different days, merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service.[1] On May 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson designated an "official" birthplace of the holiday by signing the presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, as the holder of the title. This action followed House Concurrent Resolution 587, in which the 89th Congress had officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day had begun one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York.[17] The village credits druggist Henry C. Welles and county clerk John B. Murray as the founders of the holiday. Snopes and Live Science discredit the Waterloo account.[18][19] In the North https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day 2/12 11/9/2017 Memorial Day - Wikipedia On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for "Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide; he was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans' organization for Union Civil War veterans.[7] With his proclamation, Logan adopted the Memorial Day practice that had begun in the Southern states three years earlier.[20][21][22] The first northern Memorial Day was observed on May 30, 1868. One author claims that the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle.[23] According to a White House address in 2010, the date The Tomb of the Unknowns located was chosen as the optimal date for flowers to be in bloom in the North.[24] in Arlington National Cemetery The northern states quickly adopted the holiday. In 1868, memorial events were held in 183 cemeteries in 27 states, and 336 in 1869.[25] In 1871 Michigan made "Decoration Day" an official state holiday and by 1890, every northern state had followed suit. The ceremonies were sponsored by the Women's Relief Corps, the women's auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), which had 100,000 members. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 Union dead had been reinterred in 73 national cemeteries, located near major battlefields and thus mainly in the South. The most famous are Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.[26] Memorial Day, Boston by Henry Sandham Memorial Day speeches became an occasion for veterans, politicians, and ministers to commemorate the Civil War and, at first, to rehash the "atrocities" of the enemy. They mixed religion and celebratory nationalism for the people to make sense of their history in terms of sacrifice for a better nation. People of all religious beliefs joined together and the point was often made that the German and Irish soldiers had become true Americans in the "baptism of blood" on the battlefield.[27] Since 1868 Doylestown, Pennsylvania has run annual Memorial Day parades which it claims to be the nation's oldest continuously running; however, the Memorial Day parade in Rochester, Wisconsin predates Doylestown's by one year.[28][29] In the South The U.S. National Park Service[30] and numerous scholars attribute the beginning of a Memorial Day practice in the South to the ladies of Columbus, Georgia.[31][32][33][34][35][36][37] On April 25, 1866, women in Columbus, Mississippi laid flowers on the graves of both the Union and Confederate dead in the city's cemetery.[38] The early southern Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the dead and tend to local cemeteries.[39] Historians acknowledge the Ladies Memorial Association played a key role in these rituals of preservation of Confederate "memory."[40] Various dates ranging from April 25 to mid-June were adopted in different Southern states. Across the South, associations were founded, many by women, to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for the Confederate dead, organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor appropriate monuments as a permanent way of remembering the Confederate dead. The most important of these was the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which grew from 17,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day 3/12 11/9/2017 Memorial Day - Wikipedia members in 1900 to nearly 100,000 women by World War I. They were "strikingly successful at raising money to build Confederate monuments, lobbying legislatures and Congress for the reburial of Confederate dead, and working to shape the content of history textbooks."[41] In 1868, some southerners appended the label "Confederate" to what they originally called "Memorial Day" after northerners co-opted the holiday.[42] The tradition of observances were linked to the South, they served as the prototype for the national day of memory embraced by the nation in 1868.[30][43] By 1890, there was a shift from the emphasis on honoring specific soldiers to a public commemoration of the Confederate south.[39] Changes in the ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, David Blight argues, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with the Confederate Memorial Monument in Confederate.[44] Montgomery, Alabama At Gettysburg Starting in 1868, the ceremonies and Memorial Day address at Gettysburg National Park became nationally known.