When did Labor Day become a national holiday?
After the first Labor Day in New York City, celebrations began to spread to other states as workers fought to win workplace rights and better working conditions and wages at a time when they had little power. In 1893, New York City workers took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of a national Labor Day. The following year, 12,000 federal troops were called into Pullman, Ill., to break up a huge strike against the Pullman railway company and two workers were shot and killed by U.S. deputy marshals. In what most historians call an election year attempt to appease workers after the federal crackdown on the Pullman strike, shortly after the strike was broken, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation making the first Monday in September Labor Day and a federal holiday. Cleveland lost the election.
Labor Day occurs on the first Monday in September and was first celebrated in the United States on September 5, 1882. The date was deliberately selected to fall between Independence Day and Thanksgiving. The holiday was suggested by Peter J. McGuire, a New York City carpenter and a founder of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and by Matthew Maguire, a Paterson, New Jersey machinist. They strongly believed that American workers should have a holiday similar to those of other countries. The first celebration was observed only in New York City with a parade of about 10,000 workers. The idea spread quickly and in 1894, President Grover Cleveland declared Labor Day a national holiday.
