According to history, Labor Day is “Dedicated to the Social and Economic Achievements of American Workers.”

According to History.com (you know, the History Channel), in US history, the late 1850′s was an economy based more on manufacturing than agriculture from the past.  This brought on Unions organizing strikes and rallies protesting the age limitations, low wages, and long hours.  On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers marched up to the New York City Hall looking for better working conditions.  This turned into the first Labor Day Parade.  Many states followed their lead and parades were expanding from town to town.  Unfortunately violence erupted as in the Haymarket Riots of 1886 in Chicago and lives were lost.  Again in 1894, the workers in the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike due to wages being cut and their Union Representatives getting fired.  Then a few weeks later on June 26th, Eugene V. Debs from the American Railroad Union asked for a boycott of the Pullman Railroad cars to support the company’s employees concerns.  This basically stopped transportation across the nation and hardly any product was being moved.

The Federal Government had to do something, so they tried to break the strike by dispatching their military troops to Chicago which brought on several riots in the city and more deaths.  The President at the time, President Grover Cleveland, wanted reconciliation with the Unions.  Congress had no choice but to pass a Labor Day Holiday act quickly that was voted in unanimously and signed into law just 6 days after the 1894 strike.

And there you have it.  Interesting, don’t you think?