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Monday, September 1st - CLOSED
THE HISTORY OF LABOR DAY
(We opened our store 6 years ago
on Labor Day)
"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the
other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers,
founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor.
"All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with
conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and
discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over
another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no
sect, race, or nation."
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a
creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and
economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly
national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the
strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
More than 100 years after the first Labor Day
observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the
holiday for workers.
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 in
suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved
and carved all the grandeur we behold."
But Peter McGuire's place in Labor Day history has
not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a
machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research
seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the
secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of
Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while
serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is
clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal
and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.
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 just a year later, on September 5, 1883.
In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as
the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union
urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of
New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The
idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885
Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.
Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis
to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through
municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them
developed the movement to secure state legislation. 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
the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had
followed suit. By 1894, 23 other 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 that the observance and celebration of Labor
Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday —
a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de
corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community,
followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the
workers and their families. This became the pattern for the
celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were
introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and
civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of
the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday
preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the
spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
The character of the Labor Day celebration has
undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial
centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem.
This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of
expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials,
industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are
given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.
The vital force of labor added materially to the
highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has
ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our
traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is
appropriate, therefore, 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.
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