About the Author: Becky Sutherland Cornett is a retired health care administrator, independent researcher and public historian with decades of publishing experience. She is a life member of the Delaware County Historical Society, a member of the Ohio History Connection’s Conestoga Society, the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), the Lincoln Forum, and the Organization of American Historians (OAH). Since 2020, Cornett has focused on presenting, teaching, and writing about local and Ohio history topics.
Labor Day is certainly a turning point across the country.
The first Monday in September marks the traditional end of summer activities — marked by parades, ceremonies, festivals, street markets, camping and boating, picnics, and neighborhood barbecues.
The holiday used to be associated with the fall return to school, but now most new school years start in August.
Although most of us think of Labor Day as a celebratory federal holiday, it’s important to note that the journey to its recognition as a day to honor the workforce was highly fraught, centering on an array of issues related to wages and salaries working conditions, work hours, and benefits (holidays, vacations, insurance).
Although there have been many gains for white, blue, and pink collar employees over a period of three centuries and counting, the quest for worker rights and dignity continues as there are new challenges for all levels of the workforce.
Central Ohio is one of the centers of these challenges as our rapidly growing region faces an aging workforce, worker shortages in high-demand skill areas, concerns about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business and industry that may replace many workers instead of just making them more productive, and housing, childcare and healthcare costs.
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History of Labor: U.S. Dept. of Labor
The holiday is rooted in the late 19th century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being. Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. After municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, a movement developed to secure state legislation.
In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American laborer worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages.
Ohio’s Role in Labor Day
Ohio officially recognized Labor Day on April 28, 1890, making it one of the first states to adopt the holiday.
By the time President Grover Cleveland signed the bill making it a federal holiday into law (1894), 30 states were already celebrating the holiday.
As with many other bills created to address pressing public issues, public outrage about using the U.S. Army to suppress the Pullman Railroad Strike in Illinois, killing 13 people, prompted Congress to pass the federal legislation to appease working class voters.
John Patterson Green, an African American state representative, introduced the 1890 bill to create Ohio’s Labor Day.
Prior to that initiative, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was established on December 10, 1886, during a landmark meeting of labor groups in Columbus.
The AFL united disparate trade unions into a single, national powerhouse for worker’s rights, electing Samuel Gompers president.
When asked what the goals of the AFL would be, he said:
“We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”
This Labor Day, let’s celebrate but also take time to reflect on why the first Monday in September is a national holiday.
