Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day! I guess for someone who works at home at a dream job I’m not the typical benefactor of this holiday. But in honor of this day off, I’m going to share some thoughts about Labor Day and how I came to have such thoughts in the first place.

I’ve been spending my days researching my next novel, which I started in the usual way. My next book is going to be set somewhere in the late 1880s or perhaps early 1890s. Since the setting is America, I pulled out my trusty Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates. It’s a book—yes, an actual paper-bound volume—that gives me, in chronological order, a brief overview of whatever era I’m targeting. It offers various facets of history: politics, culture, sports, nearly everything you can imagine. While it doesn’t go into much detail, it gives me a starting place if something catches my eye to investigate if I think I might use it for my setting or characterization.

One thing that always amazes me when I do this is how much—and how little—things have changed. We’ve always had economic booms and busts, we’ve had unrest because of labor and race relations, we’ve had natural disasters and political scandal and famous thieves and philanthropists. Circumstances change, technology advances, but inside we’re still the same.

But that’s another story. What I noticed as I was doing my preliminary research was that Labor Day was made official in 1894, under President Grover Cleveland. Speaking of him, did you know he’s the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms? He was first elected on the Democratic ticket in 1884, then lost his bid for re-election in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison. Was it a sweeter victory for Cleveland the second time around when he unseated Harrison, as Harrison had done to him four years before?

But that, too, is another story. One of Cleveland’s challenges while he was in office the second time was labor unrest. It’s true by any standard that big businesses took advantage of workers during the Industrial Age. Between low pay, long hours, unsafe conditions and child labor, I think we can all agree the people had a reason for the unrest back in that day. One particularly brutal strike was right here in Chicago, with the Pullman strike of 1894. Because of hard economic times, Pullman reduced wages in May. Workers struck, resulting in violent mobs that pillaged the area. In sympathy for the striking Chicago workers, a general railway strike followed. On July 3, President Cleveland, in an attempt to break the strike on the grounds that it interfered with postal services and commerce, sent US troops to Chicago to stop the strikers. Happy 4th of July! Needless to say, the mob didn’t just start behaving. There was a battle and two men were killed and several injured. The troops weren’t called out of Chicago until July 20. The strike officially ended a couple of weeks later, and nothing was settled. The wages were still cut.

All that is backstory to the first official Labor Day, which Cleveland agreed to in part perhaps because his method of sending in troops to stop a controversial strike was viewed as – shall we nicely say – harsh. The first state to start the Labor Day holiday was Oregon, in 1887, followed by New York and several other states. Cleveland made it a national holiday. I’ve put in a video below from the History Channel that explains the origins. For example, one of the reasons the date was chosen by an American union leader was that it filled the void between 4th of July and Thanksgiving. Now that’s practical planning!

So take a moment to view the video, thanking God that although many things haven’t changed, many things have. Labor Day isn’t just a time for stores to have a sale, for us to put away our white shoes and pants, and as my husband says, put down the final fertilizer application, but to be thankful for how the workers of our country keep us all going.

So thank you!