10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square
In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living.
The idea of a “workingmen’s holiday,” celebrated on the first Monday in September, caught on in other industrial centers across the country
At the time, the New York Times considered the event to be unremarkable. Labor Day is now a U.S. national holiday held the first Monday every September.
New Home began as a very small sewing machine operation with combined assets of only $350.
The first Labor Day occurred in 1882 in New York City under the direction of that city’s Central Labor Union.
The founders were looking for two things: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time.