Labor Day Now And Then
The History Of Labor Day Celebrations
Labor Day has a long history, and it means different things to different people. Some people escape to the beach for their long weekend. Others go camping, or fishing, and some stay at home to throw a barbecue (personally, I’ve always preferred Disneyland.) However you like to celebrate, Labor Day is a great opportunity to spend some quality time with friends and family, and these days it’s all about taking a break. If you can’t get away, try a fun “staycation” idea, like going through old photos and videos from years past with the whole family. A trip down memory lane can be just as fun as a trip to the beach, and you don’t have to worry about all that sand getting into those uncomfortable places. One way to make this kind of activity work even better is to digitize your old photos and videos to make them easier and more fun to share. You can covert VHS tapes to DVD, and even edit old footage together to tell a cohesive story.
But the stories of Labor Day didn’t always involve family vacations and fun in the sun. For decades, citizens of major cities marched in parades on Labor Day to show their support for the rights of workers, and to celebrate immeasurable contributions of the American workforce. The above photo, which has been scanned to digital for preservation, shows the Women’s Trade Union League float as it made its way through the streets of New York City in 1908. By then, Labor Day had already been widely celebrated for over 25 years.
Dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers, Labor Day was created by the labor movement in the early 1880s as a way of showing tribute to the workforce that built this nation and made it great. Peter J. McGuire, cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, is believed by many to have founded the holiday to honor those Americans “”who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” More recent research suggests that the holiday was first proposed by Central Labor Union secretary Matthew Maguire, who was a machinist from New York. We may not know exactly how Labor Day came to be, but we know that it was first celebrated on Tuesday, September 5th, 1882.
On June 28th, 1894, Congress passed an act officially making the first Monday in September a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories. By that time, Labor Day was already being celebrating by 24 states. The official holiday was to be observed in two ways: a street parade to show the “strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations,” to be followed by a festival. Nowadays we may not celebrate Labor Day in the way Congress laid out over a century ago, but honoring the American worker is still as important as ever.
To find out more about Labor Day, visit the Website for the United States Department of Labor, at http://www.dol.gov/.
To find out more about converting VHS to DVD, visit http://www.scandigital.com/scandigital-film-video-transfer.php.
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