The first parade was not held on a Monday,
but on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City. The parade was repeated
annually without interruption, but not always on a Monday, until several states
and then the Congress in 1894, settled on the first Monday in September. On
September 5, 1882, some 10,000 workers assembled in New York City to participate
in America's first Labor Day parade. After marching from City Hall to Union
Square, the workers and their families gathered in Reservoir Park for a picnic,
concert, and speeches. This first Labor Day celebration was initiated by Peter
J. McGuire, a carpenter and labor union leader who a year earlier cofounded
the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, a precursor of the American
Federation of Labor.
Those first parades were really protest
rallies for the adoption of the 8-hour day, rather than the, often tame civic
events they have involved into. Participants had to give up a day's pay in order
to march. The New York City Central Labor Union (CLU) even levied a fine on
non-participants! In 1882, the New York City CLU was a lodge of the still-secret
Knights of Labor, with a progressive tailor, Robert Blissert at its head. His
right-hand man and Secretary of the CLU was Mathew Maguire, a machinist. The
parade was timed to coincide with a national Kinghts of Labor conference being
held in New York. This accounts for the presence of almost the entire K of L
leadership on the reviewing stand. But their affiliation with labor was masked
for the reporters who covered the parade. Grand Master Workman Terrence Powderley,
for example, was introduced as the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which he,
in fact, was.
The parade Call and all invitations were
sent out over the signature of Mathew Maguire. During the post-parade picnic
at Wendel's Elm Park, P.J. McGuire of the Carpenters, was one of many speakers;
but he does not figure during the planning for the parade. By the 1890's, when
the Knights of Labor had all but disappeared, and Samuel Gompers' American Federation
of Labor was the dominant labor organization, the folklore about the origins
of labor's holiday began. Robert Blisset was no longer a labor activist. He
had become a custom tailor with his own shop in Manhattan. Mathew Maguire had
moved to New Jersey, where he became very active in the Socialist Labor Party.
P.J. McGuire became a member of the AFL Carpenters' hierarchy. Gompers simply
re-wrote history to conform to the spirit of his new American Federation of
Labor by crediting P.J.
McGuire with the Labor Day Parade idea.
Because the AFL was very non-political, the fact that Mathew Maguire had the
effrontery to run as the Vice Presidential candidate on the National Socialist
Labor Party ticket in 1896 erased his chances of recognition as the father of
Labor Day. Blissert was conveniently out of the Labor Movement. All of this,
and more, can be found in greater fun and detail within my litle book, The First
Labor Day Parade.
Twenty thousand workers marched in a
parade up Broadway, on September 5, 1882, when the first Labor Day parade was
held in New York City. They carried banners that read "LABOR CREATES ALL
WEALTH," and "EIGHT HOURS FOR WORK, EIGHT HOURS FOR REST, EIGHT HOURS
FOR RECREATION!" After the parade there were picnics all around the city.
Workers and celebrants ate Irish stew, homemade bread and apple pie. At night,
fireworks were set off. Within the next few years, the idea spread from coast
to coast, and all states celebrated Labor Day. In 1894, Congress voted it a
federal holiday. In 1882, the New York City CLU was a lodge of the still-secret
Knights of Labor, with a progressive tailor, Robert Blissert at its head. His
right-hand man and Secretary of the CLU was Mathew Maguire, a machinist.
The parade was timed to coincide with
a national Kinghts of Labor conference being held in New York. This accounts
for the presence of almost the entire K of L leadership on the reviewing stand.
But their affiliation with labor was masked for the reporters who covered the
parade.
The parade Call and all invitations were
sent out over the signature of Mathew Maguire. During the post-parade picnic
at Wendel's Elm Park, P.J. McGuire of the Carpenters, was one of many speakers;
but he does not figure during the planning for the parade. By the 1890's, when
the Knights of Labor had all but disappeared, and Samuel Gompers' American Federation
of Labor was the dominant labor organization, the folklore about the origins
of labor's holiday began.
