|
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Memorial Day )〕 The holiday, which is observed every year on the last Monday of May, originated as Decoration Day after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois — established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.〔http://www1.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp〕 By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service.〔 It typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, 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. Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are 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 on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with relatives and others. There often is a religious service and a picnic-like "dinner on the ground," the traditional term for a potluck meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea.〔 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, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. ==History of the holiday== The practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers' graves were decorated in the U.S. before〔In 1817, for example, a writer in the Analectic Magazine of Philadelphia urged the decoration of patriot's graves. E.J., "The Soldier's Grave," in The Analectic Magazine (1817), Vol. 10, 264.〕 and during the American Civil War. A claim was made in 1906 that the first Civil War soldier's grave ever decorated was in Warrenton, Virginia, on June 3, 1861, implying the first Memorial Day occurred there. Though not for Union soldiers, there is authentic documentation that women in Savannah, Georgia, decorated Confederate soldiers' graves in 1862.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title="A Beautiful Tribute," Savannah Republican, July 21, 1862 )〕 In 1863, the cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead soldiers. Local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claim that ladies there decorated soldiers' graves on July 4, 1864.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sophie Keller Hall, in The Story of Our Regiment: A History of the 148th Pennsylvania Vols., ed. J. W. Muffly (Des Moines: The Kenyon Printing & Mfg. Co., 1904), quoted in editor's note, p. 45 )〕 As a result, Boalsburg promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Following President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, there were a variety of events of commemoration. The sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War, more than 600,000, 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. The first widely publicized observance of a Memorial Day-type observance after the Civil War was in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865. During the war, Union soldiers who were prisoners of war had been held at the Hampton Park Race Course in Charleston; at least 257 Union prisoners died there and were hastily buried in unmarked graves.〔Blight, David W. ''Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory'' (2001), ch. 3, "Decoration Days", pp. 67-70〕 Together with teachers and missionaries, black residents of Charleston organized a May Day ceremony in 1865, which was covered by the ''New York Tribune'' and other national papers. The freedmen cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled "Martyrs of the Race Course". Nearly 10,000 people, mostly freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the war dead. Involved were about 3,000 school children, newly enrolled in freedmen's schools, as well as mutual aid societies, Union troops, black ministers and white northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to lay on the burial field. David W. Blight described the day: This was the first Memorial Day. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution. However, Blight stated he "has no evidence" that this event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country.〔(David Blight, cited by Campbell Robertson, "Birthplace of Memorial Day? That Depends Where You're From," New York Times, May 28, 2012 ) - Link is first of two web pages - Blight quote from 2nd web page: "He has called that the first Memorial Day, as it predated most of the other contenders, though he said he has no evidence that it led to General Logan's call for a national holiday."〕 On May 26, 1966, President Johnson signed a presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Earlier, the 89th Congress had adopted House Concurrent Resolution 587, which officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day began one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York. Other communities claiming to be the birthplace of Memorial Day include Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, Carbondale, Illinois, Columbus, Georgia, and Columbus, Mississippi.〔Robertson, "Birthplace of Memorial Day? That Depends Where You're From"〕 A recent study investigating the Waterloo claim as well as dozens of other origination theories concludes that nearly all of them are apocryphal legends.〔(Daniel Bellware and Richard Gardiner, ''The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America'' (Columbus State University, 2014). )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Memorial Day」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|