Labor Day as a federal holiday, held on the first Monday of September, has been with us now for 120 years. President Grover Cleveland signed the law that made Labor Day a national holiday in 1894. Ever since then, the three-day weekend has provided people in the U.S. with the opportunity for vacations, time with their families, shopping trips, and a general celebration of the conclusion of summer and the beginning of fall.
However, there were twelve years of Labor Day observations in the U.S. before it became an official holiday. The first Labor Day celebration took place in 1882 in New York City on September 5. According to the accounts from the time, it had a rough start and almost didn’t happen.
The main event planned for that first Labor Day was a parade along Broadway that was to start at City Hall. However, the parade ran into a bit of a snag early on. The marchers started to line up for the procession around 9 a.m., with a police escort to make sure the event went peacefully. However, the problem of the day wasn’t rowdy members of the parade—it was that nobody had remembered to bring a band!
With people ready to march, but no music to march to, it started to look like no parade would happen at all, and the first Labor Day would have ended up a failure. But just in time, Matthew Maguire of the Central Labor Union—one of the two men who first proposed the celebration—ran across the City Hall lawn to the Grand Marshal of the parade, William McCabe, to inform him that 200 men from the Jeweler’s Union of Newark were crossing the ferry to Manhattan… and they had a band!
At 10 a.m., only an hour late, the band from Newark walked down Broadway playing a number from a popular Gilbert and Sullivan opera. They passed McCabe and the other 700 marchers, who then fell in line behind them. Soon, the spectators joined in, and an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people marched through Lower Manhattan.
According to the New York Times, “The windows and roofs and even the lamp posts and awning frames were occupied by persons anxious to get a good view of the first parade in New York of workingmen of all trades united in one organization.”
The parade concluded two hours later when the marchers reached Reservoir Park. But the party was only getting started. Until 9 p.m., some 25,000 people celebrated with picnics and speeches and beer kegs. It was an enormous success, and all thanks to the speedy arrival of jewelers carrying band instruments.
If those musicians from Newark hadn’t shown up, perhaps we wouldn’t have the holiday opportunity that we now have every year. However you celebrate your Labor Day, our family at Purl’s Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning wishes your family a happy end of summer.
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Coats for Kids 2013 kicks off their local campaign November 3rd – December 7th. Purl’s Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning is proud to join Kiss Country and The Salvation Army as a collection location for the 2014 Coats for Kids drive. Each year the community and local businesses work with The Salvation Army to collect gently used or new winter coats to keep kids warm in the cold winter months. For more than 30 years this campaign has brought together organizations, schools, businesses and members of the community with the single goal to donate to children in need. Kiss Country has been part of Coats for Kids in the Central Valley for more than 20 years. Their efforts to bring this issue and coat drive to the forefront, has made a real difference in the lives of so many young children. We are open to the public as drop off location for coats Monday – Friday from 8:00 am-5:00 pm. We are located at: 232 South Schnoor Avenue, Madera, CA 93637. We encourage our customers and members of the community to get involved and help keep the kids in our Valley warm. Our goal is to collect hundreds of coats in the hope that no child will have to be cold!
