With a timeline spanning centuries, and geographically stretching around the northern hemisphere, the holiday of May Day, observed on May first to celebrate the arrival of spring, has had different meanings, although traditions such as dances around a Maypole, crowning a May queen and gathering flowers for decorating and bestowing on friends and neighbors, remained remarkably consistent. Last week’s column examined 19th- century May Day celebrations in Bossier Parish. This week’s column examines local May Day celebrations in the first-half of the twentieth century.
From about 1870, with the industrialization of the country, May Day’s popularity grew from
two related yet divergent movements concerned with the well-being of workers. One movement was initiated by labor leaders who lobbied for reforms such as reducing the common 16-hour workday to 8 hours. This movement was world-wide and especially prominent in Europe. The other movement was less radical for the time and initiated by members of the American upper class who were concerned about the “teeming masses” of immigrants and city dwellers who might be lured by so-called low-class, commercial entertainment such as arcades and carnivals. To their minds, immigrants and workers were in need of “Americanization” and the purifying and healthful influences of nature.
A 1932 editorial in the Bossier City newspaper, the “Planters Press” emphatically stated that it was not the former movement that popularized May Day celebrations here in Bossier Parish, but the latter:
“In this country May Day is celebrated to officially welcome the Spring, the blooming of the flowers, and the renewed productiveness of the fields. Custom has made various celebrations popular, among the most delightful of which is that of the May Day pageant, the Maypole, and other items of a like nature. Taken all in all, it is a festival of joy and happiness, and (as) such it is welcomed by everyone.
For some reason unknown to the writer at the present time, May Day has also been selected for political displays by Communists the world over. In Europe, the day is always associated with more or less severe riots in which citizens and police engage in battles resulting in injuries and sometimes death…Although the economic condition of thousands of people in our great cities is extremely pitiful, we trust that violence will not arise and that May Day will be for us rather a day of joy than one of blood and destruction.”
Accounts of 20th-century May Day commemorations in Bossier supported the social reform trend of promoting healthful living, especially among workers and their children, with May Day celebrations in the parish’s public schools. In the 1930’s, these celebrations were held in conjunction with “Health Week” or “Child Welfare Day.”
The April 23, 1931, “Bossier Banner Progress” listed that “Child Welfare Day” is to be observed throughout the parish on May Day. The “Banner’s” May 7th account of that year’s festivities in Haughton does not directly mention child welfare, but it does report the wholesome, decorous activities approved by social reformers. The paper announced that Haughton High School’s 1931 “May Day fete,” “was a success in every way.” (The high school encompassed all grades). Miss Eloise Wyche was chosen queen, along with train bearers and maids. The court members were pupils of the intermediate grades, dressed as “Fairies, elfs, brownies, [and] Japanese children in a drill and dance…” Girls dressed in pastel colonial costumes presented “the ever-charming minuet.” There were songs and presentations such as the “Awakening of the Flowers,” complete with “little Margaret Erickson representing the sun,” and of course, a Maypole dance.
In 1939, a “Banner” article on May 11th titled, “Health Week Will be Observed by Pupils at the Elm Grove School,” outlined programs for the first week of May, culminating in a May festival with every pupil participating. A play, “The Queen’s Visit,” was presented on May first by the youngest grades, while the
3 – 5th grades made posters and performed plays on original stories of health and safety. The sixth and seventh grades performed the play, “The Health City.” The festival held on May 12th echoed May Days from times past and countries far away. There were European and American dances, a flag drill and a maypole dance, “the crowning event of the celebration.”
Mrs. Fabol Powell Durham, who grew up in the Taylortown/Elm Grove area of rural south Bossier Parish, remembered happily in an oral history interview in the History Center’s collection, “On May Day, our mothers would make us these beautiful little costumes, and we went to what was called Old River, then part of Red River. And we had a maypole dance.” Mrs. Betsy Bryant Trammell recalled in her interview that during the 1920’s, the Bossier City school for African Americans “wrapped a Maypole” and had special programs during the first week of May.
The Bossier Parish Libraries History Center collection has photographs showing the festive costumes school girls would wear for these May Day galas. We are always looking for photos and other mementos from gatherings and special days (and ordinary days, too) in Bossier Parish. If you can't bear to part with treasured originals, we'd love to have the chance to scan your photos and paper documents. We can add the copies to our collection. The History Center is located at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. We are open: M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org
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