Thursday, May 30, 2019

May 30, 1919. This Was Memorial Day

Casper's newspaper for May 30, 1919 featured Memorial Day themes, but they were Civil War oriented.  A celebration that had been planned for Casper was postponed.  New wars remained on the front page of the paper.

I've touched on Memorial Day here plenty of times before. As noted in those prior posts, May 30 was originally Memorial Day, so the day fell more often than not a a day other than a Monday.  In 1919, it fell on a Friday, giving people the three day weekend we're accustomed to.

Memorial Day Commemoration in France.

The day was a poignant one for Americans with fresh memories of the recent war dominating the day.

President Wilson delivering an address at a cemetery in France.

The recent war of course dominated in the minds of servicemen who were still serving overseas, as made plane by their newspaper, The Stars and Stripes.
The entire May 30, 1919, Paris edition of the Stars and Stripes, which was heavily focused on Memorial Day. Some of the news, and some of the advertisements are a bit of a shock to read a 100 years later.

Everywhere in the U.S. the day was being noted in some fashion.

 The Cheyenne Leader had a variety of news on the front page, including an auto race in Cheyenne, and a resurgent Villa in Mexico.


Even with the war news, however, the front pages were returning to news that was less war oriented, even though the official peace was yet to come.

That included the Lusk Standard, which featured the recent Lusk businessman, Lusk schoolgirl, scandal on its front page.




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