March 19, 2010
UTNE READER

Carpe Diem

A reason to celebrate

September/October 2002
Jay Walljasper Utne Reader 
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Labor Day,

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September 2

Picnics, canoe rides, back-to-school sales-these are the things we celebrate on Labor Day. Any connection to working-class movements seems peripheral at best. But the truth is, Labor Day was invented by a union leader, Peter McGuire, who in 1882 staged a parade in New York City followed by a ceremony, fireworks, and dancing in Union Square (though some say it was Matthew McGuire, a machinist union leader). Within a decade, 32 states had declared the first Monday in September an official holiday, thus giving all Americans one less day of work each year, and more reason to believe in the importance of a labor movement.
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