What You Don’t Know About Labor Day

By Michelle Carr-Crowe, San Jose real estate agent specializing in Cupertino Schools homes for sale

Labor Day is all about enjoying a day off of work … while still getting a holiday paycheck, right? While Labor Day is certainly an all-inclusive holiday, acknowledging the importance of anyone who works, or has ever worked, regardless of race, creed, color or sex, there are quite a few things you may not know about Labor Day.

Take this quick survey, then read the article to see how much you know...or don't know...about Labor Day.

1. The first Labor Day was held in

a) 1900 in Chicago

b) 1929 in San Francisco

c) 1882 in New York

d) 1899 in Washington, DC

2. Labor Day was initiated by

a) Matthew Maguire

b) Peter McGuire

c) Tobey Maguire

d) Gilligan McGuire

3. The first Labor Day participants received the following for participating:

a) A full day’s paycheck

b) A kick in the pants

c) No paycheck

d) A half-day’s paycheck

4. Labor Day was first celebrated by

a) Drinking all day and getting paid for it

b) a parade and a picnic in the park

c) Listening to a speech about workers and the economy, a parade, and special coupons for laborers (the first “Labor Day sale”) given out at a picnic in the park

d) Attending the events in the morning and going back to work in the afternoon

(Results at the end of the story)

Did you know that celebrants at the first Labor Day in 1882 had to forego a either a half-day’s or full day’s pay to participate? That two different people with similar-sounding names “created” the initial Labor Day picnic? And that the event was almost a failure?

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday again one year later, again on September 5th.

McGuire or Maguire? Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first to suggest a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold."

However, recent research shows that Matthew Maguire, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. (He later became the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J.) The fact is the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal, appointed a committee for the event, and planned a demonstration and picnic in 1882, and again in 1883.

By 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as official holiday, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to join New York in celebrating a "workingmen's holiday" on that date.

With the spread of workers’ unions and joining together of disparate trade organizations, individual states began celebrating Labor Day. By 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country. According to US Dept. of Labor historian Linda Stinson,in 1887, New York, New Jersey and Colorado were among the first states to approve state legal holidays.

The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment.

By 1894, 23 of the then-38 United States had adopted the holiday in honor of workers,and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

The form of observance and celebration of Labor Day has remained remarkably similar to the original: a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, and a festival or picnic for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.

Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. In 1909, the American Federation of Labor convention voted to make the Sunday preceding Labor Day as Labor Sunday, and was dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

The U.S. labor force added materially to a high standard of living and production, bringing us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It’s only fair and right that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.

RESULTS:

After reading this article you probably already know them, but just in case: