Today : Sept. 5th = Labor Day in the US.

Posted on | septembre 5, 2011 | No Comments

The First Labor Day

Labor Day parade,
Main St., Buffalo, N.Y., ca. 1900.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

On September 5, 1882, some 10,000 workers assembled in New York City to participate in America’s first Labor Day parade. After marching from City Hall, past reviewing stands in Union Square, and then uptown to 42nd Street, the workers and their families gathered in Wendel’s Elm Park for a picnic, concert, and speeches. This first Labor Day celebration was eagerly organized and executed by New York’s Central Labor Union, an umbrella group made up of representatives from many local unions.  Debate continues to this day as to who originated the idea of a workers’ holiday, but it definitely emerged from the ranks of organized labor at a time when they wanted to demonstrate the strength of their burgeoning movement and inspire improvements in their working conditions.

Miners with Their Children, at the Labor Day Celebration, Silverton, Colorado,
Russell Lee, photographer, September 1940.
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1933-1945
The FSA/OWI collection has more than 60 photographs documenting Silverton, Colorado’s 1940 Labor Day celebration. To see this mining community’s parade and other festivities, search on Silverton.

New York’s Labor Day celebrations inspired similar events across the country. Oregon became the first state to grant legal status to the holiday in 1887; other states soon followed. In 1894, Congress passed legislation making Labor Day a national holiday.

For many decades, Labor Day was viewed by workers not only as a means to celebrate their accomplishments, but also as a day to air their grievances and discuss strategies for securing better working conditions and salaries. Nowadays, Labor Day is associated less with union activities and protest marches and more with leisure. For many, the holiday is a time for family picnics, sporting events, and summer’s last hurrah.

• Read about other significant days in the history of labor. Search the Today in History Archive on labor to find features such as the history of the eight-hour workday.
• For images and documents pertaining to labor unions, search across the American Memory collections on the term labor union.
• American Memory contains an extensive array of materials related to  parades and processions. Search the collections of photographs and prints using the keyword parades, or the name of a specific parade.  The collections of motion pictures also document many different kinds of parades including a small Massachusetts town’s celebration of Labor Day.

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