Saturday, September 02, 2006

Happy Labor Day

Or, for my Canadian and British friends, Labour. (even though only Canada celebrates it this weekend, I believe England is in May)

The origins of the American Labor Day can be traced back to the Knights of Labor in the United States and a parade organized by them on September 5, 1882 in New York City. They were inspired by an annual labor parade held in Toronto, Canada. In 1884 another parade was held, and the Knights passed resolutions to make this an annual event. Other labor organizations (and there were many), but notably the affiliates of the International Workingmen's Association favored a May 1 holiday.

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the 1880s. The September date has remained unchanged, even though the government was encouraged to adopt May 1 as Labor Day, the date celebrated by the majority of the world. Moving the holiday, in addition to breaking with tradition, could have been viewed as aligning the U.S. labor movements with internationalist sympathies.

Okay, is it too obvious that the two paragraphs above were cut/pasted from wikipedia?

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a copius amount of rest, relaxation and fun this weekend. For a change of pace, go out and do something I would do.

4 comments:

Kim Leslie said...

Oh fine. LABOR day. Sure. Rub it in. Signed your unemployed friend, Kim

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'm going to talk into this here microphone... hope that's what you had in mind... :)

Blogarita said...

Labor Day on May 1? Then how would we know that summer was over?

Ken Dillon said...

Labor Day weekend, like Memorial Day weekend, ALWAYS brings back the memories of you and I hosting the dances at Lakeside BBQ. I'll bet no one had more fun than us doing those. DAMN I miss that.