When I was growing up, Memorial Day was quite different from the way it is now. First of all, some people called it “Decoration Day,” though both names were common. (See the note on the name on Wikipedia.) And it was before they moved all the holidays to Mondays in 1968, so it was on May 30 every year, regardless of what day of the week it was.
But the biggest change involves what the holiday was all about. At that time, it was still considered to honor the dead of the Civil War, even though at that time three wars had been fought since, and a fourth, in Korea, was going on (although, by the time I was 11, it had ended). It was so much associated with the Civil War that several Southern states did not celebrate it, but had their own “Confederate Memorial Day” holidays (which were not on the same days in all states). (There is a site, at usmemorialday.org, that claims that Memorial Day was converted into a general day for honoring all the war dead of the nation after World War I. My memory says different. Since it only became an official Federal holiday in 1971, I suppose what it meant varied among different people, though.)
Anyway, it certainly has evolved during my lifetime, though it actually goes back to the 1860s.
But the biggest change involves what the holiday was all about. At that time, it was still considered to honor the dead of the Civil War, even though at that time three wars had been fought since, and a fourth, in Korea, was going on (although, by the time I was 11, it had ended). It was so much associated with the Civil War that several Southern states did not celebrate it, but had their own “Confederate Memorial Day” holidays (which were not on the same days in all states). (There is a site, at usmemorialday.org, that claims that Memorial Day was converted into a general day for honoring all the war dead of the nation after World War I. My memory says different. Since it only became an official Federal holiday in 1971, I suppose what it meant varied among different people, though.)
Anyway, it certainly has evolved during my lifetime, though it actually goes back to the 1860s.
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