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Friday, May 26, 2017

Memorial Day and Our Veterans


Memorial Day is celebrated this weekend. Although decorating soldiers graves is an ancient custom, the custom became a national mourning ritual, known as Decoration Day in the U.S., during the Civil War. It was a ritualized, recognized day to decorate the war dead because of the unprecedented numbers of dead at the time, most of whom died far from home. Many families could not visit faraway graves, or even know for sure where their loved ones where buried. Memorial Day is documented in some of the collections in the Clarke.


What the day is all about- rows of honored, decorated U.S. soldiers graves in France, World War I
This image and others are in Nurse Mary Bourgeoise's gorgeous WWI A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Forces] photograph album 


Closeup of Nurse Mary Bourgeoise's clever photographic cover
 



Mary and her nursing unit in France, WWI
 
Within Clarke holdings are many primary source collections documenting veterans of wars, mostly the Civil War and World War I, although there is some material from World War II and Vietnam, and one collection mentioning the Korean War. These collections also document veterans' organizations and the women's organizations that supported the veterans. There are posters, official government records of war, postcards, scrapbooks, photograph albums, photographs, letters, pins, radio addresses, printed speeches, as well as secondary sources, published books, music, newspaper articles, and films.
 
Clarke Historical Library Archivist Marian Matyn would like to start documenting more of the Michiganders who have served our nation since World War II. If you are or have the materials of Michigan veterans or Michigan organizations that supported our troops since World War II, please consider donating to the Clarke. There are Michiganders making history right now serving our nation today.

 
Patriotic 1907 postcard in our Display Items

 
 

An assortment of GAR pins Civil War Veterans wore to parades, meetings and gatherings honoring fallen veteran comrades, also in our Display Items
 
 
 
To learn more about any of these collections, go to the Clarke Historical Library webpage