From Fertility Rites to Workers’ Strikes

Tracing the Dual Significance of May Day

By Viktor Lazić — Society for Culture, Art and International Cooperation Adligat, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97920731By Viktor Lazić — Society for Culture, Art and International Cooperation Adligat, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97920731

Happy May Day! Today is not only an ancient holiday of fertility stretching back into “pagan” history, but it’s also more recently International Workers’ Day.

There was a time when workers in the United States had virtually no rights and their employers functioned more like owners. There are many…