{"id":7752,"date":"2014-09-01T07:14:27","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T11:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=7752"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"labor-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/labor-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"labor<\/a>Labor Day means different things to different people, just as many holidays do.\u00a0 It seems that to most people, most holidays mean a day off of work — and little more.\u00a0 I know very few people who actually spend any time reflecting on, much less celebrating the meaning of, most holidays.\u00a0 But Labor Day has some unique qualities that bear looking at and at least acknowledging.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country, said Samuel Gompers, founder and long time president of the American Federation of Labor.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Labor Day…is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Founder of Labor Day<\/h3>\n

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.<\/p>\n

The First Labor Day<\/h3>\n

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.\u00a0 The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.<\/p>\n

Labor Day Legislation<\/h3>\n

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day.\u00a0 The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886.\u00a0 From them developed the movement to secure state legislation.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 During the year four more states \u2014 Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York \u2014 created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment.\u00a0 By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

A Nationwide Holiday<\/h3>\n

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday \u2014 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.\u00a0 This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.\u00a0 Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression.\u00a0 Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 the American worker.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Source:<\/h3>\n

U.S.\u00a0 Department of Labor
\nFrances Perkins Building
\n200 Constitution Avenue, NW
\nWashington, DC 20210<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Labor Day means different things to different people, just as many holidays do.  It seems that to most people, most holidays mean a day off of work — and little more.  I know very few people who actually spend any time reflecting on, much less celebrating the meaning of, most holidays.  But Labor Day has … Continue reading “Labor Day”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-7752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19736,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions\/19736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}