May Day

This is an old photo, taken on May Day in a small village in Piedmont (Italian western Alps). Every year in this village was held a wine fair where people could taste the local production of wines, almost for free (this tradition stopped when a mudslide partially destroyed the whole place). My friend Matteo was obviously enjoying his time at the fair. As you can guess, he was not drinking milk in his cup.

By the way, there is an ironic fact about May Day. In Italy, as in most of the world, the first day of May celebrates the social and economic achievements of the labour movement (Labour Day). The tradition was spurred by a resolution of the American Federation of Labour (AFL), to commemorate the repression of the labour movement after the bombing of a labour rally in Chicago in 1886 (Haymarket Martyrs), and rapidly spread through the world. Singularly enough, in the US the Labour Day is not celebrated in the same date. In the US, Labour Day is held the first Monday of September. The US national holiday was conceded by President Cleveland as an attempt to appease the labour movement in the election year of 1892, after federal troops where used to break the Pullman Strike and imprison the Strike leaders. Differently from the rest of the world, Labour Day in US is a patriotic holiday, that celebrates the contribution that the US workers have given to their country, and does not focus on the international class struggle as the original May Day.