The first Labor Day Parade was held in lower Manhattan in 1882. The first state to recognize Labor Day as a holiday was Oregon in February 1887. During that same year, the holiday was recognized by four more states: Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.
There is some debate as to whom first proposed the holiday, but it is agreed that it was the result of early leaders of Unions. They were Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and/or Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, NJ. It is not clear who first suggested the celebration.
It was the hard-fought protection of laborers which culminated in a bloody, almost "a revolution" of railroad workers who went on strike in sympathy when the Pullman Car Company cut wages by 25%. Nearly 125,000 railroad workers quit rather than handle Pullman cars. The strike culminated in a violent and deadly end on July 7th, when the National Guard shot into a crowd of 6000, killing as many as 30 people.
A short time later in 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the Labor Day Law making the first Monday of September a Federal holiday, possibly in hopes of trying to make peace following his ordering of the National Guard into Chicago. The law is just 83 words long and was rushed through Congress following the end of the strike on July 20th.
So just to remind you, Labor Day has not always been the official end of summer vacation or a day just to barbeque on. Labor Day was created through the labor movement to recognize the importance and accomplishments of labor and the American worker.
