May Day Parade with onlookers cheering, New York City

During the 1930s, left-led labor unions and other organizations joined with the Communist Party in huge May Day marches in which marchers always completed their trek at Union Square. A great number of people gathered to cheer on the tens of thousands of people, including this contingent carrying a banner reading, “Communist Party…”

Image by union photographer Daniel Nilva from the Tamiment Library, New York University.

View the exhibit Five Photographers for related images.