Monday, September 05, 2011

Happy Labor Day. Here's the History

Very interesting essay here.

In 1884, when President Grover Cleveland signed the bill making Labor Day a national holiday on the first Monday in September, he and its sponsors intended it not as a celebration of leisure but as a promotion of the great American work ethic. Work, they believed, was the highest calling in life, and Labor Day was a reminder to get back to it. It was placed at the end of summer to declare an end to the season of indolence, and also to distance it from May Day, the spring event that had become a symbol of the radical labor movement.

The day most of us now spend in happy leisure was created to urge Americans to work more, not less. The holiday’s inventors would have been dismayed to see that Americans today would use it only to float in a pool, play putt-putt golf, or – even worse – to fantasize about a life in which they do nothing but play.

Bet you didn't know that........

HT: Agitator
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9/05/2011 1:26 PM

    "The day most of us now spend in happy leisure was created to urge Americans to work more, not less."

    Except if you are a county bus driver who chooses to work overtime because their pay is too much and is at the expense of the taxpayer.

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