Labor Day has long been shrouded in mystery, with its origins traced back to a single event in 1882 that cost workers nearly $75,000 in lost wages. The holiday’s first celebration took place on September 5, 1882, in New York City, but the exact identity of its organizer remains elusive.
The credit for initiating Labor Day is disputed between two men: Peter McGuire, a carpenter and co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, and Matthew Maguire, a machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union. Despite their rival unions, their surnames differ by only one letter—a distinction that has puzzled historians.
A former U.S. Department of Labor historian admitted in 2011 that she could not determine which of the two deserved the credit for organizing the holiday’s first observance. Workers reportedly forfeited about $75,000 in wages to march from City Hall to Union Square, with the Central Labor Union even fining anyone who skipped the event.
The U.S. also had a strong reason to avoid May Day, which was commemorated on May 1, 1886. A deadly bombing at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886, turned May Day into a symbol of radicalism. In 1894, President Grover Cleveland pushed for Labor Day to be celebrated in September instead, ensuring the holiday would not become a memorial to the radicals involved.
Labor Day has since evolved into a day of quirky traditions that no legislature passed but which Americans follow anyway. One such tradition is the rule against wearing white after Labor Day—a practice likely born from Gilded Age New York as a gatekeeping test for those who could afford servants and did not engage in hard labor.
Fashion historians trace this rule to Newport summers, where white linen signaled that one had servants to launder it without having to endure the dirt of manual work. Other traditions include pools closing after Labor Day due to school schedules, with roughly one-third of the nation’s 309,000 public pools facing lifeguard shortages each year because many are teenagers who leave when school ends.
Mattresses also see significant sales around this time, often by as much as 50% across major brands, based on the simple observation that a day off is a day to shop.
