Labor Day Fun Facts
If you’re
like most people, you celebrate Labor Day every year by doing
something
fun before summer ends. But how much do you really know about Labor
Day?
Labor Day – a Canadian import?
In the
United States, we tend to think of Labor Day as a thoroughly American
holiday, but Labor Day actually has its roots in Canada.
The
movement to
shorten the average workday from 12 hours to nine started in
Hamilton,
Ontario, but quickly spread to Toronto, where it became a central
demand of
the Toronto Printer’s Union.
When did Labor Day become a national holiday?
On June 28, 1894, Congress passed a bill that designated the first Monday
in
September as
an annual federal holiday to celebrate the social and economic
achievements
of American workers and their contributions to the strength and
prosperity
of the nation.
When was the first observance of Labor Day?
The first
observance of Labor Day was a parade on September 5, 1882, in New York
City,
probably organized by Peter J. McGuire, a Carpenters and Joiners Union
secretary.
Giving workers an eight-hour day
Workers and
labor unions had been calling for an eight-hour work day for many
years, and
various legislative attempts had been made to establish shorter
shifts, but
without much widespread success. It wasn’t until 1916, when Congress
passed the
Adamson Act, that the eight-hour work day gained a foothold in U.S.
law as well
as American culture. The Act established an eight-hour work day,
with
additional pay for overtime, for employees who operated trains for
interstate
railway carriers. The Adamson Act was the first federal legislation
in the
United States that regulated the hours of workers in private companies.
Three-day weekend
When Congress created Labor Day in 1894, and decreed that it would fall on the
first Monday
in September every year, it was also creating what would eventually
become a
three-day weekend for most Americans. At the time, most U.S. workers
still toiled
at least six days per week, so at best the new Labor Day holiday
gave them
only two consecutive days off.
How is Labor Day different from other holidays?
According
to Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of
Labor (AFL),
Labor Day is the only holiday that celebrates the common man (and
woman)—not
religion, a war anniversary, or the birth or death of a famous
person. As
he wrote in The New York Times on September 4, 1910: “Among all the
festive days
of the year, of all the days commemorative of great epochs in the
world’s
history, of all the days celebrated for one cause or another, there is
not one
which stands so conspicuously for social advancement of the common
people as
the first Monday in September of each recurring year—Labor Day.”
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