Book of Days

It is Labor Day. For some, an unofficial closing of summer. More importantly, though, Labor Day celebrates the American worker and the accomplishments of labor throughout our history. It is the day we recognize that our accomplishments as a nation are collective and cooperative. We each do our share and when we do, great things happen.

The Central Labor Union organized the very first Labor Day celebration on the Fifth of September, 1882. It was a Tuesday, and organizers were more than a little concerned about turn out: Would workers show up if it meant losing a day’s pay? At the start of the parade, in Lower Manhattan, the answer seemed to be “no.” Just a few people showed. But as the parade progressed through the city, more and more workers joined in, mostly union members. By the time the parade concluded, more than 10,000 workers were marching, and plans were set in motion for a second Labor Day celebration a year later. Twelve years after that first organized parade, Labor Day was a national holiday. Congress set its date as the First Monday of September.

Here’s a confession: I don’t believe much in the myth of the Self Made Man. I know, I am always encouraging my readers to suspend disbelief. But I am too much of a realist to believe in this. The way I see it, we build on what others have already built. My success is built on the foundations that were laid by my parents, by my grandparents, by all the people who have come before me. My success is dependent on the others I work with, dependent on each contributing their share. In a country whose overriding narrative tends to focus on the great I, Labor Day celebrates what is possible when we work cooperatively together. Labor Day is about us all.

Image: Members of the Women’s Auxiliary Typographical Union in the annual Labor Day parade, New York, 1909. Courtesy United States Department of Labor.

Here in the US, Labor Day marks an unofficial end of summer. Perhaps not so much here in Florida, where summer is slow to pack its bags: an unwelcome guest that just won’t take a hint. But I have spent summers in New England and there, you’ll notice a definite shift that drifts in around the First of September. There is, with the arrival of the first of these “Ember Months,” a sudden flagging of interest in the frozen custard stand and other such summery ideas. This year, the First of September also happens to be Labor Day, but Labor Day is a movable holiday, celebrated each year on the First Monday of September. Come Labor Day, those frozen custard thoughts begin shifting toward pumpkin pie thoughts and our sights toward the apples ripening on the trees. Change is in the air.

And then there is the official aspect of Labor Day, a holiday created to acknowledge the contributions of the American worker. The founding of the holiday goes back to the heyday of the American Labor movement and the glorious ideals that went hand in hand with that movement. The first Labor Day celebration was organized by the Central Labor Union and occurred in New York City on September 5, 1882. It was a Tuesday. By 1884, the holiday was moved to its current First Monday of September date and was being celebrated in industrial centers across the country, usually with parades and speeches.

Unions have done great things for this country, but they are also a matter of contention. I have had two experiences with unions that illustrate both ends of the spectrum. There was the time I was working a job in Providence, Rhode Island, and I happened to pick up a broom to sweep the work area and was promptly told to put the broom down, for the sweeping had to be done by union members only. Well. Okay, then. And then there was my grandfather, Arturo, a card carrying member of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Union, Local 1, New York, from the 1920s on. That was most of his life. I remember when he was awarded a gold union card on his 50th anniversary with the union. I was a little boy then. The card is still in the frame he placed it in, and it hangs in my grandmother’s old room at my family’s home. I was too young to ask Grandpa what the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Union meant to him. He, too, was probably of two minds about it, but still, I know he was proud of that card, so that seems to say something about his experience. Happy Labor Day.

Image: A postcard of the old Union Printers Home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, built in the 1890s by the International Typographical Union to care for the sick and aging members of the union. Of course this holds some historic interest to letterpress printers like myself. The home is still in operation but is open to all now, not just printers and typographers. This, I think, represents that ideal of the best of what a union can be: an organization that looks out for its members. You pull for me & I’ll pull for you.