From Workers’ Parades to Backyard Cookouts: How Labor Day Began

For many Americans, Labor Day means one last long summer weekend.

There are cookouts, trips to the lake, store sales, and the start of football season. For generations, it has also been known as the unofficial end of summer.

But Labor Day began with a much different purpose.

The federal holiday, observed on the first Monday in September, grew out of the American labor movement of the late 1800s. It was created to recognize the work and contributions of American laborers at a time when unions were becoming an increasingly important force in the country.

The first major Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882.

Illustration of the first American Labor parade held in New York City on September 5, 1882, as it appeared in the September 16, 1882 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

Thousands of workers took part in a parade organized under the Central Labor Union of New York. The idea was to create a public demonstration of the strength and solidarity of organized labor, followed by a celebration for workers and their families.

Even today, however, there is some disagreement over exactly who deserves credit for creating Labor Day.

Peter J. McGuire (July 6, 1852 – February 18, 1906)

One account credits Matthew Maguire, secretary of the Central Labor Union, with proposing a national holiday following the successful 1882 demonstration.

Another credits Peter J. McGuire, a prominent labor leader who later became a vice president of the American Federation of Labor. According to that version, McGuire proposed a “general holiday for the laboring classes” in the spring of 1882.

McGuire envisioned a street parade followed by a picnic and suggested September as a good time for the celebration. The date fell between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and offered the prospect of pleasant weather for an outdoor event.

Regardless of which man first came up with the idea, the celebration caught on.

Labor Day observances spread across the country during the following years. Oregon became the first state to officially recognize Labor Day as a public holiday in 1887.

By 1894, 30 states were observing it.

That same year, Congress passed legislation making the first Monday in September Labor Day, and President Grover Cleveland signed the measure into law on June 28, 1894.

The timing was significant.

The country was experiencing serious labor unrest, including the Pullman Strike, a nationwide railroad conflict that turned violent. The period was marked by difficult disputes over wages, working hours, and working conditions.

There was also another question: Why September?

Much of the rest of the world recognizes workers on May 1, known as International Workers’ Day or May Day.

That date has American roots as well.

In the 1880s, organized labor was pushing for an eight-hour workday. May 1, 1886, became a date for coordinated labor action. Several days later, a labor demonstration in Chicago became the site of the deadly Haymarket affair.

May 1 eventually became closely associated internationally with labor movements and, later, socialist and communist political movements.

In the United States, the September celebration became the preferred alternative.

Over the decades, Labor Day changed along with the country.

The parades and speeches did not disappear, but the holiday gradually took on another identity. It became a three-day weekend and a dividing line between summer and fall.

Schools traditionally opened around Labor Day. College football arrived. The NFL season followed close behind. Families squeezed in one more vacation, picnic or afternoon at the pool.

Virginia once had its own unusual connection between Labor Day and the end of summer.

For years, state law generally required public schools to wait until after Labor Day to begin classes. The requirement became widely known as the “Kings Dominion law” because of the amusement park industry’s support for keeping schools closed through the important final summer weekend.

Virginia repealed that requirement in 2019, allowing school divisions greater freedom to begin classes before Labor Day.

Labor Day also became connected to an old-fashioned rule: Don’t wear white after the holiday.

That custom has largely faded, but it reflected the holiday’s place as the traditional end of the summer social season. Summer clothes were put away as families returned home and prepared for fall.

More than 140 years after that first New York parade, Labor Day can mean very different things to different people.

For some, it is a paid day off. For others, particularly those in restaurants, stores, hospitals, public safety, and other occupations that continue operating on holidays, it may be another day at work.

For families, it can mean a final cookout or trip before fall routines take over. For sports fans, it signals the return of football. For retailers, it has become a major sales weekend.

But behind all of those modern traditions is the reason the holiday was created in the first place.

Labor Day was set aside to recognize the people whose work helped build and sustain the country — from factory workers and tradespeople to teachers, farmers, nurses, drivers, office workers, and countless others.

The cookouts, sales, and long weekend came later.

It started with workers marching through the streets of New York and asking the country to recognize the value of their labor.