Join in the May Day Celebration!  Order your May Day Baskets to be delivered to neighbors, friends, co-workers, or that special someone!  Special Delivery options or pick up the basket at the museum!  See our May Day Basket under the Events page for all the details and form.  You can also call the office or email us an order.

With a long and varied history dating back to before the Druids of the British Isles and the Romans, the most common acceptance of May Day is the welcoming in a change of the season–winter to spring.  The Romans celebration of Floralia, a devotion to their goddess of flowers, combined with the British celebration of Beltane, a festival between the light and dark periods of the year, another addition to this event was the maypole.  Tracing back to Medieval times, villagers would enter the woods to find a tree that would be cleaned and set up in the village centers to dance around as part of a fertility ritual.  However in the United States, May Day celebrations were discouraged by the Puritans. The May Basket, during the 19th and 20th century instead was celebrated, and were created with flowers, candies, and other treats and hung on the doors of friends, neighbors and loved ones on May 1st.

In an attempt to end inhumane working conditions in the United States, May Day is associated with the labor rights strike that began with the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, later known as the American Federation of Labor, who held a convention in Chicago in 1884, proclaiming “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.”  However, strikes, demonstrations and protests in 1886, along with prison and death sentences, hanging, suicide in America, and riots in the socialist and labor parties of Europe marred the history of May Day.  While recognized in many European countries, this labor event is ironically rarely recognized in the United States, and in President Grover Cleveland moved the US celebration of Labor Day to the first Monday in September.  President Dwight Eisenhower, in 1958, declared May 1st as “Law Day” celebrating this aspect in the creation of the United States.

At the Tecumseh Museum, we want you to enjoy May 1st as the celebration of spring time with our “May Basket” filled with goodies. Contact us with your order and surprise someone special or enjoy the basket for yourself.  Happy May Day!