May 8, 1882: Peter J. McGuire, at that time the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners… suggested the first Monday in September for the holiday he had in mind, “as it would come at the most pleasant season of the year, nearly midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, and would fill a wide gap in the chronology of legal holidays.”
Mr. McGuire’s resolution was adopted and a committee was appointed to plan a demonstration inline with his suggestion of a street parade, “which would publicly show the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations”, to be followed by “a picnic or a festival in some grove.”
Origin & Significance of Labor Day, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1936.
It’s Labor Day weekend, though unless you’ve been a member of the pipefitter’s union or the Wobblies, you may not realize that does not refer to doing household projects before the bad weather starts or going back to work after summer vacation. Labor Day has a very special history in the United States, even though the influence of organized labor is not what it was in 1882 when the holiday was designed. It’s worth a pause to remember why it’s there. What may be more interesting is why it’s then. Choosing an early day in September was a feature, not a bug, of the union organizers, nearly 150 years ago. Well-played, I say.
It is the end of summer in America, and I don’t know about you but my summer just flew by with teaching some classes on modern art and finance, rushing to meet a writing deadline, and having my knee chopped up and replaced more bits of metal. Shoulder last year, ankle back in the ‘oughts–eventually, I’ll set off metal detectors from afar. Maybe I should install a data center in there, who knows? There hasn’t been much time for blog writing, so I thought I ought to rectify that with at least one before the equinox.
Maybe you wondered, as I always did, why we bother calling this holiday Labor Day rather than Summersend or The Last Picnic or something more romantic. Plus, I thought that the international folks preferred May Day. In fact, the French led the charge in creating an multi-country day of protest on behalf of organized workers in 1889 , but there was some confusion over the date, and, by then, America had its Labor Day firmly fixed in September. Also, we wanted the picnic part.
Continue reading “Picnic & Protest, the Origins of Labor Day”
