Tomorrow Is Labor Day!

Labor Day for most Americans is the symbolic end of the summer. In high society, Labor Day was considered the last day of the year when it is fashionable for women to wear white.

The day following has been the beginning of a new school year. That has changed and many schools are already in session.

The sports world also gets involved. Labor Day marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons. NCAA teams usually play their first games the week before Labor Day, wit the NFL traditionally playing their first game on the Thursday following Labor Day.

Then there is the Southern 500 NASCAR auto race that was held on Labor Day from 1950 to 1983 in Darlington, South Carolina. At Indianapolis, the National Hot Rod Association holds their finals to the U.S. Nationals drag race.

Even though there are many instances of relaxation for the day, its very beginning was not a day of relaxation.

This date was, at the time, more widely observed as a “labor day” than the actual Labor Day itself, which was first observed on September 5, 1882, by the Central Labor Union of New York.

But there was a big change in 1894.
Millions of workers were left jobless or with marked pay cuts due to the recession of 1893, causing the May Day labor demonstrations of 1894 to be especially sizeable. Chicago, again, was at the epicenter of the rallies.

The combination of striking workers from the Pullman Palace Car Company and Eugene Debs’ American Railroad Union effectively stopped all rail traffic out of Chicago. President Grover Cleveland took notice, and his reaction wasn’t pleasant: he declared the strike a federal crime and deployed 12,000 troops to break it up.

Days after the strike was put down, Cleveland, seeking to diffuse labor anger over his austere reaction to the strikes, pushed for a nationally recognized Labor Day. It passed Congress unanimously, and was declared officially on June 28th, 1894, only six days after the end of the strike.

Although, as most should be aware, the date chosen as “Labor Day” by Cleveland was not May 1, but opted for the lesser observed date of the first Monday in September. The reason for this choice should be apparent: Cleveland wanted to disassociate the memory of May 1’s Haymarket Affair from any future labor celebrations/protests.

Cleveland was largely successful-- not only is knowledge of the Haymarket Affair limited, known mainly to historians and labor activists, but Labor Day is primarily observed with barbeques and vacation.