Carol Fisher-Linn
Enjoy your three-day weekend…Go ahead, wear white!!
I grew up in the days when wearing white after Labor Day was practically a sin! I also remember that it was a holiday I dreaded as a kid because that meant it was back to school time. Now, I did not go to school in the 1880’s when the celebration of Labor Day was first established, but I live up the road from one of the first one-room schoolhouses in Ellicottville and can only imagine what it was like for those kiddoes. A 2023 article in Mental Floss gives us this information: The youngest were called “Abecedarians” – because they would learn their ABC’s from the dreaded front row of benches. There was no transportation – you hear jokes about your grandparents saying they walked five miles to school, all uphill! Truth is, if you lived within that range, it was felt children could easily walk that daily. Today, the school year is about 180 days. Back then it was 132 so kids could help with family planting, harvesting, chores in high season, etc. No summer soccer for these kids. Many brought bag lunches while they broke classes for “nooning”. They wrote on slates with white chalk. More advanced students helped the teacher with the younger ones. Often teachers lived with their students’ families. Corporal punishment was allowed, including rulers on knuckles, and holding a heavy book straight out for an hour, or the “I shall not…” written 100 times on the blackboard. But I digress. Along with the Labor Day traditions, including furniture and mattress sales, there is a serious side to the celebration of the day.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Holiday Bill into law in 1968, assuring that Labor Day would always be on a Monday for a longer holiday for the worker (except for those in the tourist industry and retail, I guess.) In 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the holiday into law – but only after political pressure brought about after the suppression of the infamous Pullman Strike. Needing to find favor with the labor movement, he officially recognized the first Monday in September as Labor Day.
Just imagine living back in those days. If you worked in a factory, you were paid seventy-five cents a day ($23.13 in today’s dollars). You worked sixty hours a week and often the doors were locked behind you. As a result, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
On September 5, 1882, organizers created a parade to call attention to these horrific conditions. It is reported that between 10,000 to 20,000 attended. A lot of beer (and hot dogs) were reported to have been involved and more unions formed after this event.
Published by Statista Research Department, Jul 5, 2024, in 2023, there were around 14.14 million workers who were members of labor unions in the United States. Per NPR, “Amid a burst of enthusiasm and energy amid high-profile strikes, labor unions added 139,000 members last year…”
The National Education Association (NEA) of the United States is the biggest union in the country with more than 3 million members. It represents public school teachers, substitute educators, higher education faculty members, education support workers, administrators, retired teachers, and even students working to become teachers. This group is followed by steelworkers, public service workers, auto workers and electrical workers. Support our workers and give a big thank you to those taking care of you this Labor Day weekend. Leave a bigger tip!
Support our workers and give a big thank you to those taking care of you this Labor Day weekend. Leave a bigger tip!