Sept. 2, 2024—The first Monday in September has been designated a federal holiday called Labor Day.

It began as a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers and the contributions they have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of the United States.

Founder of Labor Day

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. 

Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. 

What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

The first Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later on Sept. 5, 1883.

In 1884, the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow New York’s example and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date.

The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations and in 1885, Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

Labor Day legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day.

The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. 

The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on Feb. 21, 1887.

During the year four more states—Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York—created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania followed suit. 

By 1894, 23 other states adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

A nationwide holiday

How Labor Day should be observed and celebrated was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday—a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.

This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations.

Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later as more emphasis was placed on 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.

The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. 

Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio and television.

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought the United States closer to the realization of traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. 

It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom and leadership—the American worker.

Department of Labor