May Day (short story)

"May Day" is a short story by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald published in The Smart Set in July 1920. The story was included in his 1922 short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. The plot follows a blithe coterie of privileged Yale alumni who meet for a social dance during the May Day riots of 1919. The riots erupted in multiple cities including New York City and Cleveland when thousands of socialists protested the conviction of Eugene Debs and mounted police suppressed the large rallies.

Fitzgerald based the story on events that occurred in New York City. He recalled that mounted police brutally attacked demobilized World War I veterans peacefully listening to socialist orators. This excessive force led Fitzgerald to question whether the country was any better than despotic regimes in Europe. In his 1931 essay, "Echoes of the Jazz Age," Fitzgerald ascribed this event as triggering a wave of political cynicism among younger Americans and ushering in the hedonism of the Jazz Age.