Synopses & Reviews
Though now a largely forgotten holiday in the United States, May Day was founded here in 1886 by an energized labor movement as a part of its struggle for the eight-hour day. In ensuing years, May Day took on new meaning, and by the early 1900s had become an annual rallying point for anarchists, socialists, and communists around the world. Yet American workers and radicals also used May Day to advance alternative definitions of what it meant to be an American and what America should be as a nation.
Mining contemporary newspapers, party and union records, oral histories, photographs, and rare film footage, America’s Forgotten Holiday explains how May Days celebrants, through their colorful parades and mass meetings, both contributed to the construction of their own radical American identities and publicized alternative social and political models for the nation.
This fascinating story of May Day in America reveals how many contours of American nationalism developed in dialogue with political radicals and workers, and uncovers the cultural history of those who considered themselves both patriotic and dissenting Americans.
Review
“Americas Forgotten Holiday details the long and proud history of May Day and compels us to recall both its contested meanings and wonder at the forces and motives of those who have obliterated our memory of it. Haverty-Stacke ties together the study of memory with that of public space while nimbly navigating the troubled, sectarian waters of communist and anti-communist history.”
-Daniel J. Walkowitz,New York University
Review
“Donna Haverty-Stackes Americas Forgotten Holiday offers a welcome reminder that not many generations ago, May Day brought more outbursts of idealism than new home construction, more social solidarity than consumerism, and the hopes for a democratic future that we need ever more urgently in the torrents of imperial wars today.”
-Paul Buhle,Brown University
Review
“Haverty-Stacke recounts how after WW II, American labor avoided contact with the communists and May Day celebrations. Instead, more workers and their unions became active in the new Labor Day holiday. This readable book, which blends US labor, political, and cultural history, can be used as a companion to any US history or labor history text.”
-Choice,
Review
“Haverty-Stacke recounts how after WW II, American labor avoided contact with the communists and May Day celebrations. Instead, more workers and their unions became active in the new Labor Day holiday. This readable book, which blends US labor, political, and cultural history, can be used as a companion to any US history or labor history text.”
- Choice
“Americas Forgotten Holiday details the long and proud history of May Day and compels us to recall both its contested meanings and wonder at the forces and motives of those who have obliterated our memory of it. Haverty-Stacke ties together the study of memory with that of public space while nimbly navigating the troubled, sectarian waters of communist and anti-communist history.”
- Daniel J. Walkowitz, New York University
“Donna Haverty-Stackes Americas Forgotten Holiday offers a welcome reminder that not many generations ago, May Day brought more outbursts of idealism than new home construction, more social solidarity than consumerism, and the hopes for a democratic future that we need ever more urgently in the torrents of imperial wars today.”
- Paul Buhle, Brown University
Review
"Haverty-Stacke offers a significantly more nuanced, complicated, and messier take on this trajectory, showing that radicalism has been an ongoing, endogenous part of American political culture and a vital component of twentieth-century politics and expressions of nationalism. She can make this argument so persuasively because of her focus on broad, vernacular politics, created as much in the street as in formal political processes... Forgetting the history of May Day is not just about forgetting earlier alternatives to the present day, but also about forgetting that radicalisms- of nearly every variety- are as American as apple pie." "Haverty-Stacke marches through the post-Haymarket U. S. history of May Day with a determined step. In the long march across a century and more, she doesn't allow her interpretive feet stray too far from her designated path... Like Marx's burrowing 'old mole', May day certainly digs its way into apparent oblivion in specific periods when the tide of history seems to turn against those who speak boldly against oppression. It has been buried in the past, as Haverty-Stacke shows, but it is unlikely to remain permanently underground."
“Haverty-Stacke recounts how after WW II, American labor avoided contact with the communists and May Day celebrations. Instead, more workers and their unions became active in the new Labor Day holiday. This readable book, which blends US labor, political, and cultural history, can be used as a companion to any US history or labor history text.”
“America’s Forgotten Holiday details the long and proud history of May Day and compels us to recall both its contested meanings and wonder at the forces and motives of those who have obliterated our memory of it. Haverty-Stacke ties together the study of memory with that of public space while nimbly navigating the troubled, sectarian waters of communist and anti-communist history.”
“Donna Haverty-Stackes America’s Forgotten Holiday offers a welcome reminder that not many generations ago, May Day brought more outbursts of idealism than new home construction, more social solidarity than consumerism, and the hopes for a democratic future that we need ever more urgently in the torrents of imperial wars today.”
Synopsis
Though now a largely forgotten holiday in the United States, May Day was founded here in 1886 by an energized labor movement as a part of its struggle for the eight-hour day. In ensuing years, May Day took on new meaning, and by the early 1900s had become an annual rallying point for anarchists, socialists, and communists around the world. Yet American workers and radicals also used May Day to advance alternative definitions of what it meant to be an American and what America should be as a nation.
Mining contemporary newspapers, party and union records, oral histories, photographs, and rare film footage, America’s Forgotten Holiday explains how May Days celebrants, through their colorful parades and mass meetings, both contributed to the construction of their own radical American identities and publicized alternative social and political models for the nation.
This fascinating story of May Day in America reveals how many contours of American nationalism developed in dialogue with political radicals and workers, and uncovers the cultural history of those who considered themselves both patriotic and dissenting Americans.
Synopsis
This essential reference book is must reading for mental health professionals who assess and treat children and adolescents. Comprehensive, detailed, clearly written, and innovative, it presents the approaches of the leading clinicians in their fields.
About the Author
Clarice J. Kestenbaum is Director of training , Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia Univerisity's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Daniel T. Williams is associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Director, Pediatric Nueropsychiatry Service, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.