May Day and Women's Week, 1882-1940
Until the 1940s, May celebrations and rituals were organized by and revolved around the women of Northwestern. Through a few different iterations these events were central to university social life, but they also reflected the efforts of women students to expand their roles.
May Day participants in the 1910s. Photo by Edward L. Fowler, a portraitist with a studio in Evanston at the time.
Northwestern’s Original May Day
A page from the 1913 yearbook describing the recent May Fete celebrations. Courtesy of Syllabus Yearbook.
The earliest of Northwestern’s spring celebrations focused on May Day, with the crowning of a May Queen and festivities and pageantry in the field now known Deering Meadow or in Patten Gymnasium. Some form of this observance was held as early as 1882 (with a brief mention in the student paper that May), and it may have continued informally as a women’s spring pageant. North by Northwestern found mention in an early student publication, the Tripod, that in 1875 students paid ten cents to vote for a May Queen. May Day did not become a formal annual event, though, until after the Women’s League organized it to great success in 1910, with the first selection of a May Queen and court. These celebrations were in the tradition of a European May Day festival, which marks the beginning of summer.
The event sponsored by the Women’s League (which became the Women’s Self-Government Association in 1923) was the climax of Women’s Week and took on a consistent form until the mid-1940s. Generally held in the second half of May and called the “May Fete” or “May Festival,” it revolved around the crowning of a member of the junior class as the May Queen.
Starting in 1940, May Day was combined with an honors ceremony and overseen by the local chapter of Mortar Board, the national senior women’s honorary society.
“May week, the busiest week in a co-ed’s life
at Northwestern University…”
The Daily Northwestern, 1930
The selection of a May Queen and court was a consistent feature throughout. A nominating committee appointed by the Women’s Self-Government Association (WSGA) announced a list of nominees, from whom all women students would vote for a queen, in some years explicitly on the basis of “beauty alone.” The May Queen’s six attendants were nominated on the basis of their activities as well. A 1929 article in in the Daily (courtesy of The Daily Northwestern) called this the selection of Northwestern’s “First Lady” and reported that over 500 students “nearly created a riot” when they turned out to vote. The winners were kept secret until May Day, and were the subject of much gossip and anticipation each year. The process was one of the leading social events for the year. Clippings and other mementos found their way into students’ personal scrapbooks, especially when their friends were the subjects.
A page from student Alice King Garrison’s scrapbook with clippings from several area newspapers on the crowning of 1928 May Queen Jane Olson.
In 1929, a Daily report on the gossip (courtesy of The Daily Northwestern) confidently declared that Muriel Onsrud would be the new queen, only for Gertrude Eberhardt to be revealed as the winner. The results each year were a topic of local conversation even outside of Northwestern, with press coverage from the Chicago Tribune and Herald and Examiner.
1929 clippings of photos from the Tribune and Herald and Examiner of Eberhardt and her attendants.
After her announcement, the winner was carried on a flower-decorated litter by her attendants and crowned by the previous year’s May Queen. The ceremony also featured honors for the seniors and other roles for the women of each class. The sophomores performed the winding up of the Maypole.
Spring Pageants
Each year pageantry class of the School of Oratory (later the School of Speech and then School of Communication) put on an original “dance drama” in the queen’s honor, often with dancers performing as elements of the seasons and involving the discovery of the new queen. In some years the freshman dancing class presented short numbers, or in other cases the Orchesis dance sorority held a pageant on a separate day. The 1915 pageant (spread courtesy of Syllabus Yearbook) presented a “Fairy Realm” inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. During World War I, the students put on an allegorical pageant depicting figures of “War,” “Death,” and “The Enemy,” with “Peace” arriving in the person of the May Queen. In 1926, characters in the dance included the Moon, Stars, Mortals, Owl, Bats, Night Clouds, Brambles, Briars, and Moon Plants.
A spread from the 1918 yearbook with photos from the 1916 May Fete at left. Courtesy of Syllabus Yearbook.
A program for the 1916 May Day pageant captured in the photos above.
A page from the May 1927 issue of The Purple Parrot.
Members of Orchesis, 1929. Top: Genevieve Wheeler Simpson; below, left to right: Gladys Bezezien, Agnes Beismeir, an an unidentified student, and Eleanor Bittler. Photo courtesy of Simpson.
Even as early as the 1920s, some thought of the May Day festivities as old-fashioned. The May 1927 issue of The Purple Parrot, the school humor magazine at the time, included a cartoon of a May Queen, “the most typical modern N.U. coed,” who “asserted that she didn’t think automobiles would ever be safe to ride in.” The Maypole dance had been done away with by 1937, and the sentiment in The Purple Parrot hinted that there might not have been as much appetite for that type of tradition any more. “Give us back the may pole dance,” the editors wrote in the “Fanfare” column that May. “We haven’t had a laugh around here in months.”
Other yearly elements of May Day included announcement of elections to Mortar Board and Shi-Ai (the junior honorary society), announcement of new WSGA officers, and the awarding of Women’s Athletic Association (WAA) final emblems in recognition of athletic accomplishment as well as “spirit” and scholarship. The women held a lantern light parade, after which each class Lantern organization performed original choral songs then passed their lanterns onto the next class. A supper was typically held on the beach for all Northwestern women. The men held their first intrafraternity sing in 1921, and soon after the women began organizing an annual intersorority sing for the end of May Day.
The broader “Women’s Week-End Festival,” as in the 1928 program, included the WAA field day from 1920 onward, with track meets and championship baseball games.
Women's Expanding Roles on Campus
The May 1926 issue of The Purple Matrix.
May Day and the broader Women’s Week were opportunities for women to highlight their expanding roles on campus. Beginning in 1925, the week opened with the Matrix banquet, sponsored by the Northwestern chapter of Theta Sigma Phi, a national sorority devoted to honoring women in journalism and recognizing student ability in the field. The banquet honored women prominent in school activities and women celebrities from on and off campus. A 1929 article in the Daily (courtesy of The Daily Northwestern) about a week of “Coed Reign” reported that “three hundred and fifty prominent Northwestern women and noted women from outside fields” were expected, with speakers such as Winnifred Mason Huck, a former congresswoman and newspaper editor. The sorority chapter each year published The Purple Matrix, a bulletin about the banquet with commentary about women in letters. The May 1926 issue remarked about the gathered group that “the energy, talent and ability of this group of women applied to any world problem would result in immeasurable good.”
The 1909 “Woman’s Edition” of The Northwestern. Courtesy of The Daily Northwestern.
That issue also highlighted that women would have their “fling” at the Daily that week. With staff selected by Theta Sigma Phi, each year an issue of the Daily was edited entirely by women, including women who worked as regular staff on the paper. The 1929 Daily article on the “Coed Reign” went on to say that the editors that year took as their motto “an issue untouched by the hand of man.” This “Woman’s Edition” was generally published on May Day.
While women had worked on the staff of the original student newspaper, The Northwestern, from its beginning in the early 1880s, an edition entirely written, edited, and illustrated by women became an annual spring event starting in 1896. A “women’s section” began to appear regularly in the Daily in 1915. Women then took over regular production of The Northwestern Weekly when many men left campus to serve in World War I, and again ran the Daily editorial board during World War II.
Sources
These pages draw on archival collections and other resources from Northwestern University Libraries, in addition to some external publications. Visit the Resources page for more information about these sources. Certain library resources may only be accessible online to those with Northwestern University credentials. All library resources are accessible for on-site research at the McCormick Library of Special Collections & University Archives. For assistance with access or reference questions, please contact specialcollections@northwestern.edu.