Where do we come from and where are we going? By looking at what has happened in the past, we can begin to understand how we have arrived where we are today, and what the future may hold. The events and people we celebrate in our nation’s major holidays shaped our world and still help form our future.

What Primary Sources Can Tell Us about Learning from the Past
Items from the past can be fascinating! Just by reading, touching, or looking closely at them we can gain a sense of what life was like during another time period. 

• Written Forms – Stories and songs from long ago offer clues about what mattered to people in other eras. Books and other written documents explain how our national holidays got started and how they were once celebrated. Calendars allow us to keep track of special days, both past and present.
• Physical artifacts - Gadgets from long ago provide insight into how people accomplished tasks. We can compare them with tools that help us today.
• Images – By looking at old photographs and pictures we can see how people once dressed, how their communities looked, and ways in which holidays were once celebrated. 

 Primary Sources 

A Memorial Day Poster (circa 1937)

Memorial Day Poster honoring veterans (circa 1937)

Memorial Day

Memorial Day, a legal holiday in most of the United States, is a date set aside to honor military personnel who died in service to our country during wartime. It was originally known as Decoration Day, because it was the day people decorated soldiers’ graves with flags and flowers. Though there is evidence that towns and communities across the country had local observances to honor their fallen soldiers before 1868, the holiday was first officially observed in that year on May 30, by order of General John Logon. On that date, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. In 1873 New York became the first state to officially recognize the holiday. By 1890 all northern states began observing the holiday. In the South, however, the holiday was not acknowledged until after World War I when it was no longer used to solely honor those who had died during the Civil War. Today Memorial Day is celebrated in almost every state on the last Monday in May. In addition, several southern states continue to honor the memory of their Confederate war dead on separate dates.

National Iwo Jima Memorial Monument

 

 Background Information 

More about Holidays in the United States 

Technically the United States does not have national holidays—days set aside by official government proclamation to celebrate important dates in the nation’s history. That’s because in this country it is up to each state or territory to determine which dates to honor within its own borders. The president and Congress only have the right to declare legal public holidays for the District of Columbia and, nationwide, for federal employees. Those holidays observed on a national scale—such as Thanksgiving and Independence Day—occur because each state individually has decided to honor the date. In addition, many states also have other holidays they celebrate commemorating important people and events in their own history.

In 1968, a Monday Holidays Act was passed by the federal government which went into effect in 1971. In order to give federal employees three-day weekends, it moved the official date honoring Washington’s Birthday (President’s Day), Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veteran’s Day to the Monday closest to the actual date. New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas continue to be honored on their traditional observance dates, no matter the day of the week.  Individual states later adopted the Monday holidays that the federal government did. The latest federal holiday approved by Congress, signed into law in 1983 and first celebrated in 1986, is also on a Monday. The holiday marking the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is observed on the third Monday of January each year.

 Classroom Activity 

Creating “How We Celebrate Our Holidays” Posters

1. Display a copy of the Memorial Day poster for the class. Read the words on the poster aloud. Then ask the children what they think is going on in the scene, using questions like these:

• Who do you think the boy and girl are talking to? What makes you think so?
• Look at the man’s clothes and what he is carrying. What do these things say about him?
• Why do the boy and the man have their hands on their forehead? What are they doing?
• What is the girl holding out to the man? Why do you think she is giving these to him?

Be sure the children understand that the man is a former soldier and the children are honoring him by saluting and offering him flowers.

2. Review with the children other holidays they learned about in this unit. These include Thanksgiving, Independence Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, and President’s Day. Assign groups of children to each of these holidays, or allow the children to decide which one they will focus on. Then, distribute art supplies (crayons, markers, and drawing paper), and ask the children to draw a picture of something they might do with others to celebrate that holiday.

3. Invite children to explain what they drew to the rest of the class. Then display the children’s work on a classroom bulletin board titled “Celebrating our Country’s Special Days.”