September 2, 2022 – Labor Day

It’s Labor Day weekend, so today on the Wiki Corner we’re talking about the history of the holiday and the reason we get a nice long weekend every September!
Labor Day was created at a time when working conditions here in America weren’t great to say the least. It was the height of the Industrial Revolution, and many people worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in extremely dangerous and unsafe conditions just to make a basic living. It was around this time that labor unions started to become more active and more vocal. They started to organize strikes and rallies to protest awful working conditions and unfair wages. On September 5, 1882, the very first Labor Day parade took place, when 10,000 workers took unpaid time off and marched from City Hall to Union Square in New York City.
The idea of a holiday for the working people caught on and spread across the country. Oregon was the first state to make it an official public holiday. By the time it was officially made a federal holiday in 1894, there were already 30 states celebrating Labor Day. Canada also signed the holiday into law that year, and they also celebrate on the first Monday of September. Most countries, however, celebrate International Workers Day on May 1 instead.
The question of who founded Labor Day is still up for debate. It was either Peter McGuire, who was a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, or Matthew Maguire, a secretary for the Central Labor Union. McGuire said he suggested the first Monday in September as the ideal date for the holiday because it falls right between the 4th of July and Thanksgiving.
In the fashion world, Labor Day has been considered the last day that it is acceptable to wear white. This idea originated with society’s upper crust in the late 19th century. There was a huge clash at the time between respectable families with old money and those who had found recent success and had new money. Proper society ladies started creating fashion rules that everyone who was in the know would follow, making it easier to tell the difference between old and new money.
Not everyone followed this rule. Famously, designer Coco Chanel wore white all year long. But in the 1950s, women’s magazines made it clear that white was only to be worn between Memorial Day and Labor Day. These days, the fashion rules are much more relaxed, of course.
Labor Day weekend is a very popular time for travel. In fact, 53% of Americans are expected to travel this weekend, with 14% planning to fly and 35% driving. Learn more here.