The History of Labor Day

Where and when was the first Labor Day parade?

The first Labor Day was held in New York City on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, organized by the city's Central Labor Union ^[1]. It was not yet a holiday in any law. Workers who marched were taking an unpaid day off, and the Labor Department's own account of the day says it "was almost a disaster" ^[2].

That account describes a tense morning. Police surrounded City Hall by 9 a.m. in case of trouble. At 10 a.m. the grand marshal, William McCabe, was ready with his aides and police escort, but only a few marchers had arrived and there was no music. Onlookers urged him to call it off. Then about 200 members of a jewelers' union from Newark arrived with a band, and the parade turned onto lower Broadway ^[2].

The march went up through lower Manhattan to Reservoir Park, which it reached at noon. Final reports put the marchers at "10,000 to 20,000 men and women." The day ended with speeches, a picnic and kegs of beer at Wendel's Elm Park, at 92nd Street and Ninth Avenue, where nearly 25,000 union members and their families gathered ^[2]. National Geographic also dates what is "now considered the nation's first Labor Day parade" to September 5, 1882 ^[6]. The Central Labor Union held a second Labor Day exactly a year later, on September 5, 1883 ^[1].

How did Labor Day spread from New York to the states?

Labor Day spread state by state for seven years before Congress acted. New York was the first state to introduce a Labor Day bill, but Oregon was the first to pass one, on February 21, 1887 ^[1]. National Geographic gives the same year for Oregon ^[6].

Four more states passed Labor Day laws later in 1887: Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. By the end of the decade, Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed, and by 1894 another 23 states had adopted the holiday ^[1]. Added together, the Labor Department's figures come to 31 states before the federal law. Popular accounts give somewhat different totals, so treat the exact count as the department's tally rather than a settled number.

Stage	When	What happened
City	September 5, 1882	Central Labor Union parade and picnic in New York City
City	September 5, 1883	Second New York Labor Day
First state	February 21, 1887	Oregon passes the first state Labor Day law
More states	Later in 1887	Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York
More states	By end of 1889	Connecticut, Nebraska, Pennsylvania
More states	By 1894	23 more states, per the Department of Labor
Nation	June 28, 1894	Federal act: first Monday in September

Why did Grover Cleveland sign the Labor Day law in 1894?

Congress passed an act on June 28, 1894, "making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday," and President Grover Cleveland signed it ^[1]. The statute still survives in the federal holiday law, whose notes trace it to the act of June 28, 1894, chapter 118, 28 Stat. 96 ^[4].

The reason most often given is the Pullman Strike. George Pullman's company, which built railroad sleeping cars near Chicago, had cut jobs and wages and lengthened hours without lowering rents in its company town. The newly formed American Railway Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, backed the strikers, and on June 26 Pullman cars were cut from trains across the country. When violence broke out, Pullman won President Cleveland's support for the use of U.S. troops. By the end of July, 34 people had been killed, and Debs was later jailed for contempt of court ^[3].

The National Park Service describes the holiday as an effort "to conciliate organized labor after the strike" ^[3]. The order of the dates makes the story less tidy: the act is dated June 28, 1894, two days after the boycott spread and before the deadliest clashes in July. A University of Massachusetts Boston history blog makes the same point, noting that Cleveland "had just signed, in June, a bill declaring a new holiday to honor workers" before the July violence ^[5]. The Park Service page itself says the bill was pushed through "six days after the strike ended," which does not match the June 28 date given by the Labor Department.

So the safest reading is this. The holiday had been growing for twelve years and, by the Labor Department's count, was already law in 31 states. Congress and Cleveland made it national at the height of a bitter national strike, and many accounts read the timing as an attempt to win back workers' goodwill. What the documents do not show is that Labor Day was invented as an apology for the deaths, since the law came first.

Who really founded Labor Day: Peter McGuire or Matthew Maguire?

Nobody can name a single founder with certainty. Two union men with nearly identical names both have a claim, and the U.S. Department of Labor presents both ^[1].

The traditional answer is Peter J. McGuire of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. In 1882, according to the long-told story, he suggested a "general holiday for the laboring classes" to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold" ^[1].

The challenger is Matthew Maguire, a machinist. The Labor Department says recent research supports the view that Maguire "proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York." After the 1894 law was signed, the Paterson Morning Call, a New Jersey newspaper, called him "the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday" ^[1]. Maguire was also on the scene on the first day: the department's account of the 1882 parade has him telling the grand marshal that the Newark jewelers and their band had arrived ^[2].

The fairest answer is that Labor Day was a Central Labor Union project, and both a McGuire tradition and a Maguire record have a place in its story. The quotations attributed to McGuire come down through later retellings; the case for Maguire rests partly on an 1894 newspaper. Neither settles the matter alone.

Why is Labor Day in September instead of May 1?

Labor Day was in September from the start. The New York parades of 1882 and 1883 were both held on September 5 ^[1], years before May 1 had any special meaning for workers.

May Day as a labor holiday grew out of later events. On May 1, 1886, unions staged a nationwide strike for the eight-hour day, which a 1929 TIME piece put at "some 200,000" workers. A strike at Chicago's McCormick Reaper plant turned violent on May 3, and a meeting at Haymarket Square followed the next day. In 1889 an international socialist conference declared that "May 1 would be an international holiday for labor," in memory of the Haymarket affair, and in many countries the day is now known as International Workers' Day ^[7].

Some historians argue the American choice was also political. National Geographic reports the view of historian Charles Tilly that Cleveland feared May Day "would become a memorial to the Haymarket radicals" and pressed state legislatures to pick the September date instead ^[6]. That is one interpretation, not a documented order, and it has to fit with the fact that New York unions were already marching in September in 1882. Later, during the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a resolution in July 1958 naming May 1 "Loyalty Day" in the United States ^[7].

	U.S. Labor Day	May Day (International Workers' Day)
Date	First Monday in September	May 1
Earliest event	New York parade, September 5, 1882	Eight-hour strikes, May 1, 1886
Made official	State laws from 1887; federal act June 28, 1894	Declared by a socialist conference in 1889
Where	United States	Many other countries

How is Labor Day observed today?

Labor Day is a federal holiday set by law on "the first Monday in September," one of 11 legal public holidays listed in the federal code ^[4]. Because it is tied to a Monday, it always creates a three-day weekend, unlike the first two New York celebrations, which fell on September 5 whatever the weekday.

The early pattern was a street parade followed by a festival or picnic for workers and their families. Speeches by public figures came later as the holiday took on civic weight, and in 1909 the American Federation of Labor named the Sunday before Labor Day "Labor Sunday," set aside for the spiritual and educational side of the labor movement ^[1]. Many towns still hold parades. For many Americans, though, Labor Day weekend now signals the end of summer and a chance to host a barbecue ^[6].

It sits in a calendar of American holidays that each began with a fight over meaning, from Memorial Day to Juneteenth and Thanksgiving. For the wider period, see our Civil War and Reconstruction era page, or browse what happened on this day.