Plenty of Americans have the months of holidays memorized yet a growing number do not understand why our country’s special days are so significant. Did you know that the majority of the world celebrates Labor Day on May 1 while the United States celebrates it on September 7?
If you are like most people, you probably did not know this interesting factoid. The average American associates Labor Day with the end of the summer. This holiday serves as a day of leisure yet the spirit of the holiday is to pay respect to the hardworking individuals that make the American dream possible.
The Origins of Labor Day in the United States
Labor Day is the result of a 19 century labor movement. The United States’ hard workers insisted their contributions be honored with an official holiday. Labor Day became an official federal holiday merely six years before the turn of the 20 century, following a particularly dark time in American labor history. If you were able to rewind time back to the late 19 century, you would find American workers were working 12-hour days at the peak of the Industrial Revolution. Working double digit hours on a daily basis is taxing yet doing so across the entirety of the week is absolutely soul-crushing. Sadly, our country’s workers were subjected to such conditions prior to the creation of the Labor Day holiday.
In fact, kids as young as 6 years-old were forced to work in factories, mills and mines, earning significantly less than adults. Recent immigrants to the United States and impoverished individuals were subjected to especially grueling working conditions. Some of these laborers lacked access to sanitary facilities, clean air and midday breaks. These dehumanizing conditions made it quite clear America’s hardworking men, women and children were well-deserving of their own holiday. Hence, Labor Day was created as a federal holiday in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland officially made it the law of the land.
Who Founded Labor Day?
More than a century has passed since the creation of Labor Day and the day’s founder has not yet been identified. Perhaps this is appropriate as the spirit of Labor Day is to celebrate the unappreciated masses (as opposed to a single historical figure) who work hard to make the world a better place. However, historical documentation from the 1930s shows Peter J. McGuire, the man responsible for creating the New York City Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners about a decade prior to the official creation of Labor Day, is said to have suggested the general time frame for this holiday.
Documents show McGuire advised government officials to designate a date between the Fourth of July and the Thanksgiving holiday as Labor Day. However, research conducted by scholars in the 1970s shows a representative from a Machinists Union, Matthew Maguire, might be the true founder of the holiday. Maguire was fairly radical so it is likely the centrist media of the time gave the aforementioned Peter J. McGuire credit for launching the Labor Day holiday.
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