The History of Labor Day

As a nation we are celebrating Labor Day this weekend, which generally means we are celebrating with a day off of work over a nice long weekend. Not bad, because quite honestly the only day off of work is a day when EVERYONE takes a day off. So let's all enjoy.

I thought it would be cool to really understand what Labor Day is all about. To do that, we need to go back to the late-1800's, via history.com.

American workers were tired. Tired of the long hours every day, tired of working every day of the week, and even tired of seeing their children working too.  They had to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week just to make a basic living. They wanted to call attention to how off balance this all was.

It's unclear who the actual founder of Labor Day is.  It was probably a small group of people in all likelihood. The very first Labor Day was September 5, 1882 when 10,000 workers in New York marched from City Hall to Union Square to protest work conditions. They all took an un-paid day off from work, creating the first Labor Day parade. Over the following years, other cities followed suit and twelve years later Congress made it an official holiday.

Now in our day, Labor Day has come more to mean the end of summer than anything else. Although I bet we all feel like we are working too much, but that's another story.

Enjoy the weekend. Rest and relax, as is the intention of the holiday. I know that I'm looking forward to the fall, my favorite time of the year.

Hope this finds you well -- Jim.