Every once in awhile, I turn from the humorous to the serious. This is an extra posting in honor of Labor Day, which is celebrated in the U.S. on the first Monday of September. It is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the contributions American workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country. I did not do a lot of research for this so I only list the Labor Day information for the U.S. I know that there are many countries that celebrate this type of holiday.
My friend Howard expressed these thoughts about why we have a three day weekend!!
"Let's give thanks to all the workers out there who make our country a wonderful place to live. Yes, we've got blue collar workers to build our foundations and we've got doctors and nurses to keep us well and we've got artists and entertainers to help us 'get away from it' for awhile and we've got retired folks who built the foundations of our great country and we've got farmers who provide our food and we've got teachers to pass along knowledge and we've got business men and women to keep things rolling in many jobs and we've got public service folks to keep us safe from harm. Enjoy your weekend!"
(Thanks for sharing this, Howard)
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, l883. In l884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in l885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.
Shortly thereafter, a movement developed to have state legislation to recognize Labor Day. While the first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 2l, l887. During the year four more states -- Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York -- created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.