May Day
May Day has competed with Labor Day as a workers’ holiday in the United States since the late nineteenth century. Both celebrations have deep roots in the struggle for the eight-hour day in the 1880s, though May Day’s origins go back to European agricultural spring festivals.
Most of the images in this sampling of posters and photographs are from New York City, where Union Square played a central role for both holidays. Tens of thousands of people marched in the annual May Day parades in Union Square in the 1930s, though by accident of history we have a larger number of photographs and pamphlets here from 1948, when the numbers were greatly diminished.
The black and white photographs evoke the events, but they hide the predominance of the color red in the banners, the hats, and at times the clothing worn by May Day celebrants.
The images above are all from the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and the Tamiment Library at New York University. They give a taste of celebrations over the twentieth century; please contact us if you can contribute information about any of these items.
For a terrifically comprehensive bibliography of labor history resources, and terrific image of Walter Crane’s “Labour’s May Day” illustration from 1889, see the Labor and Working-Class History website.
May is Labor History Month—see the New York Labor History Association calendar of events for May 2024.
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