Sadly, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Labor Day Parade had to be canceled and 2020 will be the first in 74 years that Garland residents will not celebrate the holiday with a parade. Rosie Neeley, a member of the Noon Exchange Club, sponsor of the parade, said that their intention is to continue the parade next year if all goes according to plan. It’s unfortunate that this year’s event would have been the 75th anniversary but the milestone can be celebrated next year.
Hopefully, while folks celebrate the holiday, they’ll remember to recognize this country’s workers, past and present, who are responsible for so much of the United States’ success.
More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first suggested that we celebrate a holiday honoring workers. Some records indicate that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was first to suggest a day to honor American workers. However, many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist who served as the secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York was first to propose the holiday.
The first Labor Day was celebrated Tuesday, Sept. 5 1882 in New York City, then celebrated again exactly one year later. In 1884, the first Monday in September became the official day of the holiday and that year, the Central Labor Union encouraged organizations in other cities to observe what they called the “workingmen’s” holiday.
The idea took hold and by 1885, Labor Day was celebrated in a number of the country’s industrial centers. In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty states in the United States were already officially celebrating Labor Day.
Even though its original purpose was to celebrate the contributions of workers to the prosperity and success of the country, Labor Day is now viewed more as the end of the summer season. Folks around the country celebrate it with barbecues, parties and parades.
“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day…is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.”
Sources:
www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history