The History of Labor Day

By Jay L. Zagorsky, The Conversation, adapted by Newsela staff on 09.01.17

Word Count 954
Level 1120L

The first Labor Day was hardly a national holiday. Workers had to strike to celebrate it. This illustration ran in Frank Leslie's
Weekly Illustrated Newspaper on September 16, 1882. Photo from public domain.

Labor Day is a U.S. national holiday and is always held the first Monday of September. Unlike
many other U.S. holidays, it is a celebration without customs or traditions, except for maybe
shopping and barbecuing. For most people, Labor Day just marks the last weekend of summer
and the start of a new school year.

The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different. To them, Labor Day
was an occasion to unify union workers and reduce their work time.

History of Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was in 1882 in New York City under the direction of that city’s Central
Labor Union. A union is an organized group of workers who have formed to protect their rights.

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In the 1800s, unions covered only a small fraction of workers and were not that powerful. The
organizers of the first Labor Day were interested in creating an event that brought different types
of workers together.

However, no government or company recognized the first Monday of September as a day off

work. This problem was solved temporarily by declaring a one-day strike in the city, during which
workers were expected to march in a parade and then eat and drink at a giant picnic. A New York
Tribune article said the day was like one long political barbecue with “rather dull speeches.”

Why was Labor Day invented?

Labor Day came about because workers felt they were spending too many hours and days on the
job.

In the 1830s, manufacturing workers were putting in 70-hour weeks on average. This is almost
double what is considered full-time work today, which is 40 hours a week.

By 1890, the average manufacturing worker toiled in a factory 60 hours a week. These long
working hours caused many union organizers to focus on getting a shorter, eight-hour
workday. Unions also focused on getting workers more days off and reducing the workweek to
just six days.

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Surprisingly, many politicians and business owners were actually in favor of giving workers more
time off. That’s because workers who had no free time were not able to spend their paychecks on
traveling, entertainment or dining out.

The U.S. economy was expanding beyond farming and basic manufacturing in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. So, it became important for businesses to find consumers interested in buying the
products and services that were being produced in larger amounts. Shortening the work week
was one way for the working class to spend its money.

Common misconceptions

The idea of a special holiday for workers was easy for politicians to support. It was easy because
proclaiming a holiday, like Mother’s Day, costs lawmakers nothing and helps them seem likable
to voters.

In 1887, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey all declared a special
legal holiday in September to celebrate workers. Within 12 years, half the states in the country
recognized Labor Day as a holiday. President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a national
holiday in 1894.

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Most people interpreted this as recognizing a national vacation, but the proclamation
by Congress covered only federal employees. An official holiday does not require private
employers and some government agencies to give their workers the day off. It is ultimately up to
each state to declare its own holidays.

Many stores are open on Labor Day, as well as some government services in police,
transportation and national parks. Union workers as recently as the 1930s were being urged to
stage one-day strikes if their employers did not give them the day off.

As president, Barack Obama encouraged Americans “to honor the contributions and resilience of
working Americans.” This did not officially declare that anyone got time off, though.

Controversy: Militants and founders

Today most people in the U.S. think of Labor Day as a noncontroversial holiday, but 100 years
ago this was not the case. Some groups disagreed on how workers should act, given that the day
was designed to honor workers themselves.

Socialist unions supported a day of demonstrations, street protests and even violence. Socialists
tend to support more active governments and less power for employers and private businesses
over their employees' working conditions. Socialists and communists often have similar beliefs.

However, more moderate trade union members advocated for a September Labor Day of
parades and picnics. In the U.S., it was picnics, rather than street protests, that won the day in
the end.

There is also a dispute over who suggested the idea of Labor Day, though this will likely never be
known. The earliest history from the mid-1930s credits Peter J. McGuire, who founded the New
York City Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, a union. Other sources point to Matthew
Maguire, a representative from the Machinists Union, as the founder of Labor Day.

Have we lost the spirit of Labor Day?

The original Labor Day holiday was meant to handle a problem of long working hours and no time
off. Although the battle over these issues would seem to have been won long ago, this issue is
starting to emerge again.

Many different types of workers are constantly connected to work. Perhaps it could be Labor Day
tradition to shut off phones, computers and other electronic devices and celebrate having at least
one day off from work during the year!

Jay L. Zagorsky is an economist and research scientist at Ohio State University.

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