The Significance of Labor Day

Was Labor Day initially just another opportunity to get a day off? It seems not. It seems rather to have truly been an effort to espouse the unique nature of the American workforce.

Before Labor Day belonged to the federal government, it belonged to the states. Municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, and a movement developed to get state legislation passed for a Labor Day recognition.

New York was first in introducing a bill, but Oregon was the first to pass a law establishing February 21, 1887, recognizing Labor Day. Four more states - Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York - passed legislation to establish a Labor Day holiday during 1887. Before the decade was over, Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had Labor Day laws on their books.

By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday. Feeling the pressure from the states, the federal government passed an act on June 28, 1894 making the first Monday in September of the year a legal holiday.

Two men have a case to claim the “Founder of Labor Day” title. It was two men, both named McGuire, only spelled differently. So was it Peter McGuire or Matthew Mcguire?

Mr. McGuire had impressive credentials. He was the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor. He suggested a day for a “general holiday for the laboring classes” to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” He said this as early as 1882.

Matthew Mcguire was the secretary of the Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey. He too proposed a workers’ holiday in 1882 when he was secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

After President Cleveland signed the law creating a national Labor Day, the Paterson Morning Call featured an opinion piece stating "the souvenir pen should go to Alderman Matthew Maguire of this city, who is the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday." Both men had been in attendance at the county’s very first Labor Day parade in New York City on Tuesday, September 5, 1882.

Many Americans used to celebrate Labor Day with parades and parties. Many festivities were very similar to those outlined by the first proposal for a holiday, which suggested that the day should be observed with a street parade to exhibit "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community. This was 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 came 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.

It seems to now be a day off with pay that features a day of family togetherness. But:

American labor did raise the nation’s standard of living and contributed to the greatest production the world has ever known. The labor movement has brought the United States closer to the realization of its traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is then appropriate that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the people who made so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership. Then as now, that is the American worker (Source: the Department of Labor).