LABOR DAY SEPT. 7

Labor Day, falling on the first Monday in Sept., was founded by the labor movement in the late 19th century. It is dedicated to the social and economic accomplishments of American workers.

Labor Day also signifies the end of summer for several Americans and the beginning of school for others. Often it is celebrated with gatherings and parades.

To this day there is still some doubt as to who first proposed this holiday. According to History.com, an article written about Labor Day says that “many credit Peter J. McGuire, cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, while others have suggested that Matthew Maguire, a secretary of the Central Labor Union, first proposed the holiday.”

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City. By 1894, 23 more states had embraced this holiday, and on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed it into law, rendering it a federal holiday.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 ensured that several holidays be shifted so that they would continually be observed on Mondays. This enabled federal workers to have more three-day weekends. This Act was signed into law on June 28, 1968, moved Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington’s Birthday and Columbus Day to an allocated Monday each year.

During the peak of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, the ordinary American worked 12-hour days and seven days a week in order to make a necessary living. In spite of limitations in various states, children as young as five or six years old frequently labored in plants, factories and mines throughout the country. The lower class and the recent immigrants often encountered tremendous unsafe working conditions with inadequate fresh air and a sanitary work environment.

Therefore, it is appropriate that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creators of so much of the nation’s strength, liberty, success and well-being – the American worker.