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[[File:DecorationDayMcCutcheon.jpg|thumbnail|left|Figure 1. An early sketch of Decoration Day.]]
Memorial Day is a US holiday honoring those who died for their country during its armed conflicts. The holiday began after the Civil War, but for decades it was not a holiday. Its Over time, its meaning has also shifted and has become signified the unofficial start to summer in the United States.
====Origins of Memorial Day====
In the first few years after the Civil War in the 1860s, the sheer number of dead people who died during the conflict was still a difficult experience for many American families. The war had led to many people taking time to remember their dead, during spring as flowers blossomed, and lay small floral commemorations on their fallen loved ones. People would also gather, often entire communities, to clean the graves of fallen loved ones and make sure the graves were looked after from the conflict. The practice of laying flowers on graves had originated is a very ancient tradition and, by May, all across the United States flowers were ever present. This began to make May a type of unofficial commemoration of the dead in times of war, at least for some communities, particularly in remembering the Civil War. Most likely, not one single community started the practice of celebrating their loved ones in the spring, but it was likely widespread. Some have said that this is when the commemorative day began to be called Decoration Day. In fact, it could be an originally Southern tradition, where it meant you would clean and decorate the graves with flowers for fallen soldiers. However, it was not celebrated on a specific day (Figure 1).<ref>For more on the origins of Memorial Day, see: Ansary, M. T. (1999).<i> Memorial Day</i>. Des Plaines, Ill.: Heinemann Library.</ref>
A key turning point in making the end of May, and eventually the last Monday of May, the official holiday was General John Logan's directive. A prominent Union Civil War general, he established May 30th as the day to remember fallen soldiers in the military. He did this in 1868, by which time many had already been decorating graves of fallen loved ones during May. General Garfield, another general from the Civil War and later 20th president who was assassinated in office, made the first semi-official speech in 1868 on May 30th at Arlington Cemetery. Over 5,000 people came who were relatives for both sides of the conflict to commemorate the 20,000 soldiers buried there.<ref>For more on how General Logan helped establish the date of May 30th as Decoration Day, see: Schauffler, R. H. (2013). <i>Memorial Day (Decoration Day) Its Celebration, Spirit, and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse, with a Non-Sectional Anthology of the Civil War</i>. Nabu Press, pg. 10.</ref> While already many Northern states celebrated the early celebrations of what initially became called Decoration Day were celebrated by many Northern states, the celebration of May 30th did not catch on as prominently in the South. In fact, Southern states often had similar celebrations , but they held them on different days. Some of the traditions in Southern states that differed, such as communal decoration and cleaning of graves, continue to this day. In the North, individual states adopted May 30th as an official state holidaysholiday, but at a federal level , it was not recognized. Perhaps this was due to lingering bitterness between the North and South, where states in the South preferred to have their own Decoration day.The bitter years of Reconstruction and white bitterness towards freed slaves did not help, and animosity such as derision of so-called Carpetbaggers from the North moving to the South reflected the years after the Civil War were difficult, where socially the country was still divided. Decoration Day, nevertheless, developed as a specific holiday devoted to the lost in the Civil War rather than other conflicts, as that war because it was by far the bloodiest in the United States' history at that point.<ref>For more on the early traditions of Decoration Day, see: Jabbour, A., & Jabbour, K. S. (2010). <i>Decoration day in the mountains: traditions of cemetery decoration in the southern Appalachians</i>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.</ref>
====Later Development====
[[File:Scollay's square, parade on Decoration Day, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg|thumbnail|left|400px|Figure 2. Decoration Day soon began to change to celebrating all war dead at the time of World War I.]]
What began to change the meaning of what was then called Decoration Day were the events of World War I (Figure 2). Once again, a bloody conflict consumed the United States. While World War I was not a very long war for the United States, it did endure relatively heavy casualties in the tumultuous last year of the conflict. Many families endured great loss, with over 116,000 deathsoverall, although many of those were due to disease, including the pandemic flu that had struck during the war. The That a large number of dead in a short period, where were soldiers were from throughout the United States, in a way did help the country come together after the the Civil War had led to bitterness. People began to celebrate not just those who died in the Civil War but also World War I and other conflicts, including more minor ones such as the Spanish-American War, where all fallen soldiers began to be remembered. Decoration Day on May 30th began to be celebrated across the United States and not just the North.<ref>For more on the role of World War I on Memorial Day, see: Margaret, A., & Margaret, A. (2002). <i>Memorial Day (1st ed)</i>. New York: PowerKids Press, pg. 12. </ref> <dh-ad/> With the growing popularity of celebrating the war dead on May 30th, the holiday became official at the state level in many places. The holiday gained even more popularity after World War II, when another great conflict had consumed so many individuals. As nearly every state had adopted May 30th, this made the holiday fixed for many. One problem, however, is May 30th often fell on different days throughout the week, where individuals, particularly those who began to travel for work, found it disruptive. For many, it was an important day to come to specific graves to remember the fallen.
====Modern Meaning====
In the 1968, Congress moved to make what was now becoming called Memorial Day a uniform holiday. The last Monday of May was chose chosen as it was the closest date to May 30th that also made , the holiday timing would give workers a three-day weekend, and ample time to celebrate their departed loved ones. In some ways, the act by Congress could have been prompted by what was becoming an unpopular war in Vietnam. Nevertheless, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which was the act passed by Congress that made the day a federal holiday, took some years before it went into effect. In 1971, the first federally recognized Memorial Day occurred on the last Monday of May.<ref>For more on Congress declaring the official federal holiday of Memorial Day, see: Dean, S. (2011). <i>Memorial Day</i>. New York: Gareth Stevens Pub. </ref> For many, Memorial Day has continued to be an occasion to visit departed loved ones. City parades, which had already developed in the years after the Civil War with military-style affairs, continued and were elaborated on the tradition now that it was a federal holiday. Chicago, New York, and Washington often have had the biggest parades. The tradition of having an official commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery, which was a cemetery established in the Civil War, included the president making a speech. Now, it has become almost expected for the president to visit Arlington National Cemetery to make a Memorial Day speech to remember fallen soldiers from past and often, these days, current conflicts.<ref>For more on Arlington National Cemetery's history and role in Memorial Day, see: Poole, R. M. (2013). <i>On Hallowed Ground The Story of Arlington National Cemetery</i>. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA. </ref>
====Summary====
The nature of conflict, from the Civil War to World War I and then the Vietnam War, in some way , changed the character of Memorial Day. It is true that the core celebration of the dead who served their country has never changed, but conflicts also began to also be known for those who went missing, particularly the Vietnam War. Others also began to see the holiday as a time to reflect on their departed loved ones. What began as an unofficial spring time springtime tradition for remembrance transformed into a widespread public holiday and celebration after General Logan's declaration. The years after World War I finally saw the holiday gaining greater significance to in some Southern states and beginning to reflect the remembrance of the dead in all conflicts.
====References====
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[[Category:Holiday History]] [[Category:United States History]][[Category:19th Century History]][[Category:20th Century History]]