Memorial Day is the first long weekend of summer and for many Americans, a chance to kick-off the summer season. The origins of Memorial Day, however, hearken back to a somber time in American history.

As the Civil War came to a close in April 1865, the nation mourned the loss of an estimated 620,000 war dead. Some were hastily buried in unmarked single or mass graves during the heat of battle. Soldiers didn’t carry official identification or dog tags, and many soldiers remained unidentified.

Shortly after the war ended, U.S. Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs ordered an assessment of the condition and location of graves of Union soldiers. Many were reinterred in newly opened national cemeteries. This federal program initially applied only to Union soldiers. Outraged citizens of the South organized a similar private effort, often led by women, to remember the Confederate dead.

As the first anniversary of the end of the war approached in April 1866, some women from the South made plans to honor the Confederate dead by decorating their graves with flowers and greens. The idea caught hold and spread until cities all over the south declared April 26^th as a day to honor the Confederate dead.

In 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization of Union veterans, established May 30thas Decoration Day, or a day to remember the war dead of the nation. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery. More than 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.

The tradition continued in following years and many northern states designated the day as a state holiday. Southern states continued to honor their dead on a separate day but the divide that separated North from South began to heal. In 1873, a little orphaned girl whose father died fighting the South placed flowers on a Confederate grave. “Would you decorate the grave of a rebel?” exclaimed a bystander. “Yes!” she replied. “Perhaps somebody in the south will drop a flower on papa’s grave.”

After WWI, Decoration Day gradually became known as Memorial Day and was expanded to honor the dead from all of America’s wars. Many cities boasted they were the first to hold Decoration Day observances. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson officially declared that Waterloo, New York, be designated as the “birthplace” of Memorial Day because of early observances held there. In 1971 Congress declared Memorial Day a federal holiday and designated that it be observed the last Monday in May, although some southern states still set aside an additional day of observance for the Confederate dead.

How do you plan to celebrate Memorial Day? To learn more about the history of Decoration Day, and what later became known as Memorial Day, search Newspapers.com today! Do you have ancestors that served in the Armed Forces? Honor their service this Memorial Day by creating a Fold3 Memorial or search the Honor Wall to learn more about those who have sacrificed for our freedom.

Do you have ancestors from New Jersey? We’re happy to announce that our New Jersey archives are expanding! We have 46 New Jersey papers from the Gannett Company that contain over eight million pages of content. Here are just a few of the titles:

The Record: Our issues date back to 1898 in the midst of the Spanish-American War. The Record covers news from Bergen, Hudson, Essex, and Passaic counties in New Jersey. You can also check for news from nearby New York counties like Rockland County.  The Record was initially published six days a week, but a Sunday edition was added in 1968. The Record archive also includes The Chronicle, a community weekly newspaper that started in 2005. The Record reported on one of the largest acts of foreign sabotage ever committed in the country when German spies attacked a huge munition depot in Kingsland (later renamed Lyndhurst) in 1917. The attack caused a massive explosion and contributed to America entering World War I.  

The Herald-News: With issues dating back to 1893, the Herald-News focuses on Passaic County. Our collection contains the archives of the Passaic Sunday Eagle, Daily News, Daily Herald, and The Item. Many of the county’s early residents worked in the metalwork industry and textile factories. The 1926 Passaic textile strike resulted in a work stoppage by more than 15,000 mill workers and lasted more than a year. At one point, the Workers (Communist) Party helped workers organize a “United Front Committee” to negotiate with mill owners. When the strike ended in 1927 it was the first Communist-led work stoppage in the United States.

The Montclair Times: We have issues of the Montclair Times that go all the way back to 1877, just a few years after the Montclair township was formed. This archive also includes issues of The Saturday Gazette from 1872-1873. Montclair became known as a desirable place for New York businessmen and their families to build a home outside the city. In the 1870s, as many as six-thousand Montclair commuters traveled to the city each day. In 1878, a huge fire destroyed an entire city block including the Jacobus Building that housed the press for the Montclair Times, but the paper managed still managed to publish the next edition. If you have ancestors from Montclair, search columns like Notes About Town for their names.

The News: Based in Paterson, New Jersey, our archives for The News go back to 1890 and include issues from The Morning Call and the Morning News. Paterson was the nation’s first planned industrial city, laid out in part by Alexander Hamilton in 1792. A 77-foot high waterfall called Great Falls provided power for mills and factories and helped Paterson become an important industrial center. Edward B. Haines founded The News and chronicled the city’s headlines including the great fire of 1902. The fire destroyed more than 450 buildings. Many of the town’s important court records survived because they were kept in a vault.

Get started searching these and other New Jersey newspapers today!