I just want to wish everyone a wonderful and
fun Labor Day.
Labor
Day in the United States is a public holiday. More than a century after the first Labor Day
observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for
workers. Peter J. McGuire, general
secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder 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.
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 1887
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 more
states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1884, Congress passed an act
making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the
District of Columbia and the territories.
