Observed on the first Monday in September each year, Labor Day is a celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. The day gained recognition when labor activists lobbied for a federal holiday to honor the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity and well-being.

Who proposed marriage on Labor Day?
According to some U.S. Department of Labor records, in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, proposed establishing a “general holiday for the working class” to honor those “who have wrought and fashioned out of brute nature all the grandeur we here see.”

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history is not unchallenged. Many believe that machinist Matthew Maguire, not Peter McGuire, was the originator of the holiday.

Recent research seems to support the claim that Matthew Maguire, later secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

First day of work:
The first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, according to plans by the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day just one year later, on September 5, 1883. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law declaring the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.How do Americans celebrate Labor Day?
Many Americans celebrate Labor Day with parades and parties—festivities very similar to those of the first proposal for the holiday, which proposed observing the day with a street parade to demonstrate “the strength and esprit de corps of the commercial and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and entertainment of workers and their families. This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were later introduced as more emphasis was placed on the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Later still, a 1909 resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention established the Sunday before Labor Day as Labor Sunday and devoted it to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

American labor has raised the nation’s standard of living and contributed to the greatest production the world has ever known. The labor movement has brought us closer to realizing our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is fitting, therefore, that on Labor Day the nation should pay tribute to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom and leadership – the American worker.