Today, Labor Day is generally when many Americans take a break from working and enjoy a nice long three-day weekend. But why are we able to enjoy leisure on Labor Day, and how did this holiday come to be? The state and then federally approved holiday was created during a long battle for workers’ rights throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.
During the period now known as the Industrial Revolution, many states moved from a primarily agrarian economy to that based on industry and manufacturing, and business was booming. In Massachusetts, textile manufacturing became the dominant industry, and many of the commonwealth’s current towns originated as mill towns: settlements that developed around a mill or factory. Lowell, Massachusetts was the first large scale factory town in the United States and it was originally praised as the “cradle of the American Industrial Revolution.” Demand for textiles and other manufactured goods continued to rise during the 19th century, and production superseded working conditions in importance. Many workers would work 12 or more hours each day in crowded and cramped factories. As conditions continued to decline, factory workers began to organize and ask for higher pay, better and safer conditions, and shorter hours. Often, factories would employ children and new immigrants to the United States who would work for less and were generally less likely to strike.
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| Female mill workers (1910). Courtesy of the Lawrence History Center. |
As more and more workers joined together to fight for better conditions, the labor movement grew throughout the country. Activists and organizations wanted not only better conditions in the factories, but also recognition for the workers who were the backbone of the new industrial economy. In 1882, union leaders in New York organized the first Labor Day parade, where 10,000 workers marched through the city streets and enjoyed festivities such as speeches, fireworks, and dancing. In February 1887, Oregon became the first state to designate Labor Day as an official holiday, and Massachusetts was right behind them, passing their own holiday designation a few months later in May.
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| Chapter 263 of the Acts and Resolves of 1887 designating the first Monday of September as Labor’s Holiday, or Labor Day. |
However, the creation of Labor Day did not end the worker’s rights and labor movements – far from it. Strikes continued throughout the United States, and often the suppression of these strikes broke out into violence. In May 1886, the Haymarket Riot in Chicago saw days of demonstrations marked with violence between workers demanding an eight-hour day and police ordering the crowd to disperse. On May 4, a bomb detonated, killing both civilians and police officers. This violent event inspired many socialist activists to declare May Day, not Labor Day, the holiday honoring worker’s rights. However, the background of May Day was perceived as too radical, and President Cleveland urged state legislatures to recognize the September Labor Day instead.
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| Lawrence strike, strikers, 1912. Courtesy of the Lawrence History Center. |
Despite these holidays, strikes, demonstrations, and clashes with local government and law enforcement continued throughout the United States. In an attempt to placate strikers and activists, the U.S. Government made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894, but many activists saw the holiday designation as little more than a conciliatory act. The labor movement continued to grow, expanding throughout factories, mills, and other industries. Massachusetts would continue to be a battleground for workers’ rights, with the most famous events being the Bread and Roses Strike (or Lawrence Textile Strike) in 1912 and the Boston Police Strike in 1919. You can find more information on these strikes and others in the State Library’s exhibit One Hundred Years Ago: Massachusetts in 1919. In response to many of these events, the Massachusetts state government created commissions such as the Minimum Wage Commission, which published reports on wages in different industries. Read our blog post about the minimum wage in Massachusetts here.
The United States would finally pass the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, in which the federal government created a minimum wage, mandated shorter work weeks, and created restrictions on child labor. Labor Day remains on the American calendar as an early testament to the workers who built the United States and fought for the rights and benefits that we enjoy at our jobs today.
Further Reading:
- “History of Labor Day” from the U.S. Department of Labor
- “Labor Day's surprisingly radical origins” by Amy McKeever from National Geographic (9/4/2020)
Related State Library Blogs and Collections:
- One Hundred Years Ago: Massachusetts in 1919
- Minimum Wage in Massachusetts
- Social Labor Party
- Materials about President Calvin Coolidge
- Davy Crockett in Massachusetts
