09/07/2026
Happy Labor Day!
Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday of September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements in the United States.
In the United States, a September holiday called Labor Day was first proposed in the early 1880s in New York City. Labor Day picnics and other public gatherings frequently featured speeches by prominent labor leaders.
The popularity of the event spread across the country. In 1887, Oregon became the first state of the United States to make Labor Day an official public holiday. By 1894, thirty U.S. states were already officially celebrating Labor Day. In that year, shortly after the Pullman Strike, the Congress passed a bill recognizing the first Monday of September as Labor Day and making it an official federal holiday. President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law on June 28.
The federal law only made it a holiday for federal workers. As late as the 1930s, unions were encouraging workers to strike to make sure they got the day off. All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the United States territories have subsequently made Labor Day a statutory holiday. [Wikipedia]
