Memorial Day: where does the tradition of decorating graves come from?

Monday, May 27, 2019 is Memorial Day, a time for honoring the men and women who gave their lives while serving in the United States military.

Many Americans across the country observe this solemn occasion by visiting cemeteries and decorating veterans’ graves with flags and flowers. In fact, Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day.

Decoration Day began several years after the Civil War ended; a conflict that claimed more American lives than any other war in history and led to the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.

Though it’s unclear where exactly the tradition of adorning soldiers’ graves with flowers originated, the city that gets the credit is Waterloo, New York. (The town was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day in 1966.)

Starting in May 1866, Waterloo began hosting an annual community celebration honoring fallen soldiers. During the event, businesses closed and citizens decorated soldiers’ graves with flowers.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan called for a national day of remembrance at the end of May to honor soldiers who lost their lives in the war. On May 30, 1868, the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield — later our 20th president — made a speech to a crowd of over 5,000 people at Arlington National Cemetery where 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were buried.

After the First World War, Decoration Day was renamed Memorial Day and became a time to honor the American lives lost in all military conflicts, not just the Civil War. In 1968, Congress passed a law declaring Memorial Day a federal holiday to be celebrated each year on the last Monday of May.