Photograph: Labor Day postcard from the early 1900s (Carola Lillie Hartley Collection.)
CAROLA LILLIE HARTLEY
Publisher and Contributing Writer
Did you know the United States did not have a Labor Day holiday until the late 1800s? Ever wonder what this holiday is about, and how it all began.
History of Labor Day in the United States
In 1880 a man by the name of George Pullman opened a factory where he produced the famous Pullman Palace luxury rail cars for the railroad. He founded a town he called Pullman at that same time to house his factory workers.
In 1894, George Pullman cut the wages of his employees, and many others were laid off. Yet he continued to charge them rent at a high rate for their homes in Pullman, IL. This led to a bloody strike that pitted workers against the company. That horrible conflict resulted in dozens of deaths, the shutdown of rail traffic across most of the US, the intervention of the US Army, and eventually the dissolution of Pullman as a company town.
A National Holiday
A movement for a national Labor Day holiday had been growing for some time in America, starting in September 1892. At that time New York Union workers went on strike, taking an unpaid day off and marching around Union Square in support of the holiday. Although this was a much-publicized event, it was actually the Pullman fight in Illinois two years later that brought the issue to light.
Legislation for a national Labor Day holiday passed unanimously in Congress on June 28, 1894. It had broad support especially from President Grover Cleveland since he got himself in trouble when he led a crackdown on the 1892 New York Union strike. The president thought the public would view him as anti-labor, so he hoped that the holiday would appease workers, both in Pullman, IL and across the country.
So now we have a US holiday to support labor, and Chicago has a Pullman National Historic District that is now also a National Treasure.
Enjoy your time off, enjoy the bar-b-que and most of all, love your family and friends!
