May Day: The Original Labor Day and Welcoming of Spring

Happy May Day! Do you know the origins of the May Day holiday? If you are in the United States, you are probably saying "huh? what holiday?", because this day is not very recognized in the US. Or you may vaguely remember dancing around a maypole in elementary school [I did!], or know that it has something to do with workers and labor, or even that it is somehow associated with Communism [probably the reason it's been shoved aside, since anything connected to Communism or Socialism was evil in America after World War II]. And, to this day, May 1 remains a big holiday in Russia, commemorating the Bolshevik Socialist movement.

May Day actually has its origins as a pagan holiday in the British Isles, even before the birth of Jesus Christ. In celebration of the coming of spring, With the Roman occupation of Britain, came the Roman tradition of feasting in reverance to Flora, the goddess of flowers. For many, May was the time of bathing after the long winter. Yes, they hadn't bathed since the weather turned cold. And, yes they smelled; so the May bathing was a time of cleansing after several months of not bathing. It was also a celebration of fertility, and the start of the wedding season. And now that everybody smelled sweet again, romance blossomed with the flowers.

In the Middle Ages, a tradition started whereby every village would bring a long wooden pole out of the forest and decorate it with brightly-colored ribbons. Children would dance around the pole while holding onto the ribbons. Their dancing around the pole while weaving the ribbons with the other dancers in intricate patterns soon became a tradition. Village competed with other neighboring villages in displays and contests to see who had the most beautiful dances and festive displays. Thus, the tradition of the "maypole" was born. The maypole festivals were stopped in 1644 by the Puritan Parliament, but restarted twenty years later with the return of the Stuarts to the throne. In America, the colonists continued the tradition of children dancing around a be-ribboned maypole, as well as the choosing of a may-queen, and the hanging of flower-baskets on the doorknobs of house-entrances.

But in the 20th century, May Day took on a whole different meaning, which would seem opposite to the happy frolicking nature the holiday had always represented. In the 1880s, the Knights of Labor, then the dominant labor union, called most of their labor strikes on May 1. One such strike, against the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in May of 1886, ended in tragic deaths. Perhaps as a way to distance themselves from this May Day catastrophe, the US labor movement established the American Labor Day the first Monday in September. Russia, France, and most of Europe recognized May 1 as a day to recognize workers, as a result of a declaration by the International Socialist Congress in Paris in 1889. In most of the world, May 1 is the day to honor labor's contributions.