An American town and its way of life, Southington, Connecticut. The Memorial Day parade moving down the main street. The small number of spectators is accounted for by the fact that the town's war factories did not close. The town hall is in the left foreground: photo by Fenno Jacobs, May 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Tanners Mollett of Canton, Ohio, rests while cleaning a family grave on Memorial Day Weekend, Graveyard Hill, Shumate's Branch, West Virginia. Graveyard Hill is the site of an African American cemetery on the hillside above the sludge pond ("coal refuse impoundment") now filling Shumate's Branch. Each year former residents of the African American settlement at the mining town of Edwight return with their children and grandchildren to tend the graves of their relatives and hold a family reunion at the former home of Belle Wilson, a family ancestor. This is the one weekend of the year that Performance Coal Company (a subsidiary of A.T. Massey) opens the road into the mountains around Shumate's Branch to allow public access to this cemetery: photo by Terry Eiler, May 1996 (Coal River Folklife Collection/Archive of American Folk Culture, Library of Congress)
Felix Mollett of Canton, Ohio, cleaning a family grave on Memorial Day Weekend, Graveyard Hill, Shumate's Branch, West Virginia: photo by Terry Eiler, May 1996 (Coal River Folklife Collection/Archive of American Folk Culture, Library of Congress)
Two farmers talking outside of a main street bank, Roxboro, North Carolina, Memorial Day: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Children at the Memorial Day ceremonies, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
One small boy at the ceremonies was the only representative of the Canadian war dead, Memorial Day, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Girl scout at the Memorial Day ceremonies, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Even with gasoline rationed, many people attended the Memorial Day ceremonies in cars, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Marching from the cemetery at the conclusion of Memorial Day ceremonies, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
At the Memorial Day ceremonies, Gloucester, Massachusetts: photo by Gordon Parks, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Washington, D. C. service department cleaning up after the Memorial Day parade: photo by John Ferrell, May 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
