{{Short description|American socialist (1865–1960)}} {{Use American English|date=May 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = May Walden | image = May Walden, 1885.jpg | caption = Walden in 1885 | other_names = May Walden Kerr | birth_name = Lillie May Walden<ref>{{Cite web |title=Metamora High School Alumni 1894-1920, Woodford county, Illinois |url=https://genealogytrails.com/ill/woodford/MetHSAlumni1894-1920.htm |access-date=2026-05-12 |website=Genealogy Trails}}</ref> | birth_date = {{Birth date|1865|9|3}} | birth_place = Metamora, Illinois, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1960|05|06|1865|9|3}} | death_place = Avon Park, Florida, U.S. | alma_mater = University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | occupation = {{Hlist|Activist|writer|speaker}} | political_party = Socialist Party of America | spouse = {{Marriage|Charles H. Kerr|1892|1904|end=divorced}} | children = 2 | signature = May Walden signature.png | known_for = Socialist writing and organizing }}
'''Lillie May Walden''' (September 3, 1865 – May 6, 1960), also known by her married name '''May Walden Kerr''', was an American socialist activist, writer, and speaker. She was active in the Socialist Party of America in Chicago and Florida, and wrote pamphlets, articles, and speeches on women's rights, social justice, peace, and socialism.
== Early life == Walden was born in Metamora, Illinois, on September 3, 1865, the daughter of Theoron Walden and Elizabeth Walden ({{Nee|Gribling}}).<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> Her father was an American Civil War veteran who opened a general store and watch repair shop in Metamora in the early 1860s after being discharged from the army because of disability.<ref name="Obit 1960">{{cite news |date=2 June 1960 |title=Obituary of Native Metamoran, Mrs. M. Walden, Received |url=https://illinoisprairielibrary.advantage-preservation.com/viewer/?k=%22may%20walden%22&i=f&by=1960&bdd=1960&d=05011960-06301960&m=between&ord=k1&fn=metamora_herald_usa_illinois_metamora_19600602_english_5&df=1&dt=2&cid=2713 |newspaper=Metamora Herald |location=Metamora, Illinois |page=5}}</ref>
Walden became involved in social activism at sixteen, when she joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> She was educated in the Metamora schools and was a member of the first class to graduate from Metamora High School, in 1884.<ref name="Obit 1960" /><ref name="Moore 1960">{{cite news |last=Moore |first=M. Maxon |date=12 May 1960 |title=Mrs. Mary Walden suffered a fatal heart attack Friday, May 6 |url=https://illinoisprairielibrary.advantage-preservation.com/viewer/?k=%22may%20walden%22&i=f&by=1960&bdd=1960&d=05011960-06301960&m=between&ord=k1&fn=metamora_herald_usa_illinois_metamora_19600512_english_5&df=1&dt=2&cid=2713 |newspaper=Metamora Herald |location=Metamora, Illinois |page=5}}</ref>
She entered the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but returned home after her family moved to Highlands, North Carolina.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> According to her obituary, she attended the university for one year and wanted to continue to graduation, but was prevented from doing so by her parents; it added that she retained "an insatiable thirst for knowledge" throughout her life.<ref name="Obit 1960" /> In 1885, she returned to Metamora with her mother.<ref name="Ruff 2001">{{cite book |last=Ruff |first=Allen M. |editor-last1=Schultz |editor-first1=Rima Lunin |editor-last2=Hast |editor-first2=Adele |title=Women Building Chicago 1790–1990: A Biographical Dictionary |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-253-33852-5 |pages=470–472 |chapter=Kerr, May Walden |url=https://archive.org/details/womenbuildingchi0000unse |via=Internet Archive |access-date=2026-05-12 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/womenbuildingchi0000unse/page/470/mode/1up}}</ref>
Walden later moved to Chicago. She worked briefly at the public library in Peoria and then at the U.S. Pension Office. Through a co-worker at the pension office, she met Charles H. Kerr, a publisher associated with liberal and socialist circles.<ref name="Ruff 2001" />
== Marriage and publishing circles == Walden and Kerr married at Jenkin Lloyd Jones's All Souls' Church on April 2, 1892. Through Kerr, Walden became connected with Unitarianism, reform publishing, and later socialism. In 1893, the couple moved to Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Their first child, Althea, was born in November 1892 and died at age four; their daughter Katharine was born in 1894.<ref name="Ruff 2001" />
Kerr began publishing the monthly magazine ''New Occasions'' in 1893, which was later replaced by the socialist periodical ''The New Time''. Walden wrote columns and essays on the home, marriage, and the social position of women.<ref name="Ruff 2001" />
== Socialist activism == thumb|''Woman and Socialism'' (1909)
Walden joined the socialist movement shortly before 1900, influenced in part by Algie M. Simons and May Wood Simons. She contributed to socialist periodicals and published pamphlets through Charles H. Kerr & Company, including ''Woman and Socialism'' and ''Socialism and the Home''.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> ''Socialism and the Home'' was issued in 1900 as number 28 in the company's ''Pocket Library of Socialism'' series.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Socialism and the home / by May Walden Kerr |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/202686 |access-date=2026-05-12 |website=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
Walden's socialist writing linked women's domestic position to economic dependence. In ''Socialism and the Home'', she argued that women could not be emancipated while they remained economically dependent on men, and presented socialism as a means of changing domestic life.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> Her writing criticised patriarchal marriage and connected women's subordination with legal and economic structures within the household.<ref name="Ruff 2001" />
Thomas Frederick Jorsch identifies Walden as one of the American socialists who adapted Marxist ideas about class struggle and historical development to American reform politics. Jorsch writes that Walden described Marx's material conception of history, class struggle, and surplus value as the "principles of international socialism".<ref name="Jorsch 2004">{{cite thesis |last=Jorsch |first=Thomas Frederick |title=Modernized Republicanism: American Socialists During the Progressive Era |date=2004 |type=PhD |publisher=Oklahoma State University |url=https://openresearch.okstate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/71b8573e-cae8-40af-8022-62646c575cfd/content |pages=34, 127–128}}</ref> He also cites Walden's writing as an example of socialist arguments that a cooperative commonwealth would provide more time for education, recreation, and physical development, and would reduce crime by removing poverty and private control of property.<ref name="Jorsch 2004" />
Walden spoke for the Socialist Party of Illinois and elsewhere. She also wrote for socialist newspapers and periodicals, including the ''Worker's Call'', the ''Chicago Socialist'', the ''Chicago Daily Socialist'', and ''The Socialist Woman''.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> During the spring and autumn of 1913, she travelled through southern and central Illinois speaking on behalf of the Socialist Party in contested elections.<ref name="Ruff 2001" />
== Later life and death == thumb|Walden in 1912
Walden and Charles H. Kerr divorced in 1904. Their separation followed political and personal tensions within Chicago socialist circles.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> According to Hester L. Furey, Kerr introduced Mary Marcy to another attendee at the May 1904 Socialist Party convention as his wife before his divorce from Walden had been finalised; Furey also notes that Walden continued to blame Marcy for the breakdown of the marriage decades later.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Mary Marcy |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Literary Biography |url=https://www.academia.edu/21880310/Mary_Marcy |access-date=2026-05-12 |last=Furey |first=Hester L. |author-link=}}</ref>
After the divorce, Walden remained in contact with socialist and reform writers. Donna L. Davey states that she became one of J. Howard Moore's closest friends and that the two corresponded for many years; Moore and his family also sometimes spent holidays with Walden and her daughter.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davey |first=Donna L. |title=Dictionary of Literary Biography |publisher=Gale |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-7876-8163-0 |editor-last=Furey |editor-first=Hester Lee |series=American Radical and Reform Writers: Second Series |volume=345 |location=Farmington Hills, Michigan |pages=226 |language=en |chapter=J. Howard Moore |oclc=241304990 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americanradicalr0000unse/page/223/mode/1up |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Walden assumed primary responsibility for raising Katharine.<ref name="MTM">{{Cite web |title=May Walden, 1908–1954 |url=https://digital.newberry.org/time-machine/mayWalden/ |access-date=2026-05-12 |website=Midwest Time Machine}}</ref> She continued to write and lecture on women's rights, social justice, peace, and socialism, and remained active in socialist circles. For several years she travelled as a speaker for the Socialist Party and became known among women's groups.<ref name="MTM" /> She worked on projects including the Political Refugee Defense League.<ref name="Ruff 2001" />
In December 1913, Walden left Chicago for the last time to assist her mother in Avon Park, Florida.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /> She remained there for the rest of her life while continuing to write and correspond with socialist and reform circles.<ref name="Ruff 2001" /><ref name="MTM" />
Walden died suddenly of a heart attack on May 6, 1960, in Avon Park; she was 94.<ref name="Moore 1960" /> She was cremated, with arrangements made in Orlando, Florida.<ref name="Obit 1960" />
== Archives == The Newberry Library holds the May Walden papers, a collection of 3.3 linear feet covering 1869–1972, with most of the material dating from 1892 to 1959. The collection includes correspondence, writings, diaries, clippings, photographs, memorabilia, and publications relating to the socialist movement.<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection: May Walden papers |url=https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/1284 |website=Modern Manuscripts & Archives at the Newberry |publisher=Newberry Library |access-date=2026-05-12}}</ref>
== Publications == * ''Socialism and the Home'' (1901) * ''Woman and Socialism'' (1909)
== See also == * History of socialism * Socialist feminism * Progressive Era
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == * {{Cite book |last=Ruff |first=Allen |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/We_Called_Each_Other_Comrade/e7dHEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title="We Called Each Other Comrade": Charles H. Kerr & Company, Radical Publishers |date=2011-07-01 |publisher=PM Press |isbn=978-1-60486-572-1 |language=en}}
== External links == * {{Wikisource author-inline|May Walden}} * [https://digital.newberry.org/time-machine/mayWalden/ May Walden] at the Midwest Time Machine * [https://collections.newberry.org/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=2KXJA4795C9SO&SMLS=1&RW=1920&RH=919 May Walden Papers] at the Newberry Library
{{Socialism}} {{Feminism}} {{J. Howard Moore}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walden, May}} Category:1865 births Category:1960 deaths Category:19th-century American non-fiction writers Category:19th-century American women writers Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:20th-century American women writers Category:Activists from Florida Category:Activists from Illinois Category:American feminist writers Category:American anti-war activists Category:American pamphleteers Category:American socialist feminists Category:American women activists Category:American women non-fiction writers Category:Florida socialists Category:Illinois socialists Category:Members of the Socialist Party of America Category:Public orators Category:People from Avon Park, Florida Category:People from Metamora, Illinois Category:Temperance activists from Florida Category:Temperance activists from Illinois Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Category:Women political writers Category:Writers from Florida Category:Writers from Illinois