50+ Lifestyles

Labor Day – a day set aside to not labor!

By Eloise Graham
Editor-in-Chief

Labor Day
What is Labor Day? Why do we have it? Who started it?

    Labor Day is a national holiday, the first Monday of September. It is known by many as the last three-day-weekend of the summer. Many families load up the car or camper with camping gear and head off to the great out-of-doors for one last “Hurrah.” Until the past few decades, it was the official “unofficial” end of summer vacation and meant it was time to go back to school. Now, many communities have already two or three weeks of school under their belts before this last farewell to summer.
Labor Day is a time set aside to think about those that labor in the workforce to keep our economy going. What does it mean? According to the United States Department of Labor: “Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”

Labor Day was started by… well, you decide. One hundred and thirty 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 that 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.

So the first Monday in September is full of picnics and parades, cook-outs and camping, fire pits and friendships all to the honor of the American laborer.