May Day: Making and Unmaking Radical History in the U.S.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper examines why and how May Day, which is celebrated worldwide as the International Workers’ Day on May 1 each year, has been forgotten in the U.S., the country of its origin, and written out of its history and what it implies. It examines the history of May Day in the U.S. as one of the prime instances of taming and breaking down radical class politics and narrowing down the political horizon in the country. It first briefly looks at May Day’s origin in the U.S. and its subsequent transformation into the International Workers’ Day in the late 19th century. It also examines how the holiday came to be associated with political radicalism during this period. Following this, the paper recounts May Day’s evolution in the U.S. in the early 20th century by focusing on how diverse groups including trade unionists and political radicals struggled and interacted to fix and control May Day’s symbolic meanings, to (un)make radical history, and to (re)shape popular memory. It then looks at how May Day’s heyday in the 1930s was ironically followed by its demise in the mid-20th century, as the holiday faced the heightened oppositions amid the viciousness of Cold War anti-communism.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. Introduction
• Ⅱ. The Origin of May Day
• Ⅲ. Contesting Meanings and Legacies of May Day
• Ⅳ. May Day’s Resurgence and the Beginning of the End
• Ⅴ. Conclusion
• WORKS CITED
• Abstract