New York May Day Parades and the Photographic Rhetoric of Early 20th-Century Labor Rights Activism

Abstract

This article investigates American visual culture in the form of news photographs and its engagement with social (in) justice and labor legislation during the first two decades of the 20th century. Press photographs of the annual May Day parades in New York City, taken for and distributed by Bain News Service, depict immigrant workers as they march through Manhattan both to celebrate their labor and demand more rights. In contrast to many contemporary images of immigrant workers as downtrodden and in need of bourgeois charity, in these photographs the workers appear as proud, confident, and capable agents in the struggle for labor rights.