May 1, 1886, saw national strikes in the United States and Canada, which resulted in blood shed. Sophomores and seniors join the staff to quaff champagne before breakfast is served and doughnuts are passed.Ī very different celebration on May Day evolved from the struggle for the eight-hour day in 1886. The beginning of the May Day festivities is marked by a traditional breakfast of fresh strawberries and cream followed by dried chipped beef on toast served in the students’ building. The first such revelry was held on May 1, 1900, and has continued ever since. It was decided to organize an Elizabethan festival to be held on May Day. And so the gals fell into line, wearing virginal white, merrily dancing around the maypole while scattering flowers and extolling purity and innocence.įast forward to 1900 when students at Bryn Mawr College devised a project to raise money for a students’ building. Instead of being a celebration of fertility, May Day turned into a more restrained celebration reflecting the values of Merry Old England. And so it was no surprise, when in the 19th century, the Victorians insisted on a much more moral tone for the festival, emphasizing its innocence. It had the same old image, but the elements of sexual license and lacking any inhibitions went underground. Emerging from the cold, damp winter also inspired licentious urges in those early folk and while in the woods collecting the trees and greens boughs would enter into all sorts of temporary sexual liaisons which even that primitive society did not sanction.įor 16 years our English cousins no longer celebrated May Day until Charles II once again sanctioned the holiday. Yes, there was a maypole, which in reality, was a growing tree from the forest brought to villages to mark the oncoming of summer. During pagan times the day marked an important seasonal transition. In truth the origin of celebrating on the first of May marked a rite of passage from the bleakness to winter to the joys of spring and summer. While the dedicated femmes at Bryn Mawr are dancing around the maypoles dolled up in diaphanous dresses and the booted and uniformed members of various armed forces are on display, the true history of May Day is ignored. I ask only that you keep an open mind for I am about to rain on that parade and reveal the secrets behind those May Day rituals.
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