Around 1990 I went to work for an engineering firm that had started in construction testing and branched into environmental assessment. This was in NC.
Memorial Day was not a company holiday at the time, but the office manager made sure we had a nice company provided picnic lunch in observance.
And so I learned Memorial Day was a Northern holiday and there was still contention over it's observance. Within a couple of years it did become a paid day off.
Perhaps it remained so for people in the south. I think certainly by the 1960’s people in the Northeast had forgotten it started with the civil war entirely and instead associated it with more recent conflicts.
Having grown up in the South during the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, I agree that Memorial Day is a very minor thing. In part this was because school usually ended before Memorial Day. I don’t remember cookouts or anything special about Memorial Day. When I moved north, I was surprised for many years that people looked at it like a big holiday.
The last Monday in May is a traditional holiday in England too (English and Scottish public holidays are very different because of the religious divide between Anglican and Presbyterian).
It was originally the day following Whit Sunday (ie Pentecost), seven weeks after Easter, but was fixed as the last Monday in May in 1972. The shared date with Memorial Day is purely coincidental.
Very few perceive it as a religious observance (Christians who observe Whitsun do so on the Easter-related date) and it's origins are mostly forgotten.
It's main significance is as the beginning of Summer (which the present heatwave here is emphasising) and also as the start of the end-of-(high)-school examinations season, with GCSEs and A levels generally starting tomorrow.
A typical GCSE student (at the end of Year 11, ie 10th Grade) may take 25-30 exams, typically around two to two and a half hours, while an A level student Y13 / 12th Grade) will take fewer, perhaps 10, but they will be three hours each. These will be long hard weeks of work sitting in uncooled sports halls, answering challenging questions on which university entry will depend. For most educated English people these are an experience burned deep into the psyche.
"It's main significance is as the beginning of Summer..."
Same in the US, at least as a practical matter. Memorial Day and Labor Day (on the first Monday of September) are the bookends for cultural summer, if not exactly meteorological summer.
Indeed. For example, my A levels were two long exams in each of Physics and Chemistry, plus a practical lab test in each and then two three hour exams in each of Maths, Further Maths and History. The science/maths papers were all long series of problems to solve.
The History exams were very short question papers: "Answer any four of these 12-15 questions" (3 hrs) and they would be one sentence essay titles, like "compare and contrast the choices of legislation passed by Gladstone's First and Disraeli's Second Ministries" (one I answered and scored well on). This means handwriting four 45 minute essays entirely from memory, and then doing it again on European History three days later.
I got a B in History, so I missed my first choice school (Cambridge) but went to my safety school (Imperial College, London).
As someone with a [nearby date] birthday that's always close to Memorial Day, I've never really had any reason to enquire as to the actual meaning behind the holiday. Seems like good old patriotic Americana. I can get behind that! Yay patriotism - skew it on the BBQ, we ain't trying to lose the spirit of this great Nation, conceived in library.
(Though the Union won all the battles that mattered, the Confederacy had all the good songs. Why, they didn't even care if Jimmy cracked corn...)
"On January 1, 1942 (coinciding with the signing of the Declaration by United Nations), Churchill and Roosevelt attended a National Day of Prayer service at Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia. During the service, the congregation sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Seated in the historic pew once used by George Washington, Churchill was deeply moved and wept as he joined in singing the verses."
That was the interpretation of Reconstuction that I was taught in HS, but that was E.Texas in the '50's. Was even the corruption under Grant not exaggerated to discredit Reconstruction?
Unfortunately the corruption was pretty real. The attempt to corner the gold market involving Grant's brother in law and the Whiskey tax evasion ring involving his personal secretary, all real.
Around 1990 I went to work for an engineering firm that had started in construction testing and branched into environmental assessment. This was in NC.
Memorial Day was not a company holiday at the time, but the office manager made sure we had a nice company provided picnic lunch in observance.
And so I learned Memorial Day was a Northern holiday and there was still contention over it's observance. Within a couple of years it did become a paid day off.
In 1990 Memorial Day was a “Northern Holiday”?
Perhaps it remained so for people in the south. I think certainly by the 1960’s people in the Northeast had forgotten it started with the civil war entirely and instead associated it with more recent conflicts.
How interesting.
I, personally, would not be opposed to commemorating a butt kicking if it got me more days off work.
Having grown up in the South during the 80s and 90s and early 2000s, I agree that Memorial Day is a very minor thing. In part this was because school usually ended before Memorial Day. I don’t remember cookouts or anything special about Memorial Day. When I moved north, I was surprised for many years that people looked at it like a big holiday.
The last Monday in May is a traditional holiday in England too (English and Scottish public holidays are very different because of the religious divide between Anglican and Presbyterian).
It was originally the day following Whit Sunday (ie Pentecost), seven weeks after Easter, but was fixed as the last Monday in May in 1972. The shared date with Memorial Day is purely coincidental.
Very few perceive it as a religious observance (Christians who observe Whitsun do so on the Easter-related date) and it's origins are mostly forgotten.
It's main significance is as the beginning of Summer (which the present heatwave here is emphasising) and also as the start of the end-of-(high)-school examinations season, with GCSEs and A levels generally starting tomorrow.
A typical GCSE student (at the end of Year 11, ie 10th Grade) may take 25-30 exams, typically around two to two and a half hours, while an A level student Y13 / 12th Grade) will take fewer, perhaps 10, but they will be three hours each. These will be long hard weeks of work sitting in uncooled sports halls, answering challenging questions on which university entry will depend. For most educated English people these are an experience burned deep into the psyche.
"It's main significance is as the beginning of Summer..."
Same in the US, at least as a practical matter. Memorial Day and Labor Day (on the first Monday of September) are the bookends for cultural summer, if not exactly meteorological summer.
We just figure the end from when they schools reopen, which is the first week of September.
Now that’s a high stake exam!
Indeed. For example, my A levels were two long exams in each of Physics and Chemistry, plus a practical lab test in each and then two three hour exams in each of Maths, Further Maths and History. The science/maths papers were all long series of problems to solve.
The History exams were very short question papers: "Answer any four of these 12-15 questions" (3 hrs) and they would be one sentence essay titles, like "compare and contrast the choices of legislation passed by Gladstone's First and Disraeli's Second Ministries" (one I answered and scored well on). This means handwriting four 45 minute essays entirely from memory, and then doing it again on European History three days later.
I got a B in History, so I missed my first choice school (Cambridge) but went to my safety school (Imperial College, London).
In the "symbols change meaning over time" category, the goddess of Peace on the Logan monument is holding a fasces.
As someone with a [nearby date] birthday that's always close to Memorial Day, I've never really had any reason to enquire as to the actual meaning behind the holiday. Seems like good old patriotic Americana. I can get behind that! Yay patriotism - skew it on the BBQ, we ain't trying to lose the spirit of this great Nation, conceived in library.
(Though the Union won all the battles that mattered, the Confederacy had all the good songs. Why, they didn't even care if Jimmy cracked corn...)
Battle Cry of Freedom is a fantastic Union song.
Battle Hymn of the Republic is a banger, though. I'm taking that over Dixie any day of the week
A banger indeed, and a favorite of Churchill's:
"On January 1, 1942 (coinciding with the signing of the Declaration by United Nations), Churchill and Roosevelt attended a National Day of Prayer service at Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia. During the service, the congregation sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Seated in the historic pew once used by George Washington, Churchill was deeply moved and wept as he joined in singing the verses."
https://www.perfectlytruestory.com/newsletter/winston-churchill-and-the-american-civil-war
My immediate thought. I saw that statement and was like "this claim is just false."
"Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel."
That was the interpretation of Reconstuction that I was taught in HS, but that was E.Texas in the '50's. Was even the corruption under Grant not exaggerated to discredit Reconstruction?
Unfortunately the corruption was pretty real. The attempt to corner the gold market involving Grant's brother in law and the Whiskey tax evasion ring involving his personal secretary, all real.
Was he an apologist for corruption?
A visit to Logan Circle anyone?