Labor Day's New Jersey Roots
Posted August 29, 2008

This year, Labor Day as a national holiday officially celebrates its 114th anniversary. For it was on June 28, 1894 that Congress passed legislation setting aside the first Monday in September as Labor Day. But to find the origins of Labor Day as a state holiday, one must venture back a bit farther in time: to 1882. And, not surprisingly, quite possibly to New Jersey.

According to the New Jersey Historical Society, a day set aside to recognize the contributions of the American worker was most likely the brainchild of one Matthew Maguire (1855-1917) of Paterson, New Jersey. As the Society website notes, “Maguire’s passion was the improvement of working conditions and he led his first strike for a shorter work day in the 1870s.”

By the early 1880s, Maguire – who had become secretary of Paterson Local 344 of the Machinists and Blacksmiths Union and one of the organizers of the Central Labor Union of New York– came up with another idea, and in 1882, he sent out invitations calling people to attend the first Labor Day parade, which would be held in New York City on Tuesday, September 5, 1882. 

The parade was a huge success, with various accounts placing the number of attendees at anywhere from 10,000 to as many as 25,000! And as the U.S. Department of Labor  (DOL) notes, the Central Labor Union held a second parade the following year, on September 5. Over the next few years, labor organizations in several cities followed New York’s lead in taking a day to recognize a “workingmen’s holiday.”  It was not until 1887, however, that a state actually passed legislation designating Labor Day as a state holiday. Surprisingly, the first state to do so was not New Jersey or New York – although New York saw the first legislation proposed – bur rather Oregon, on February 21, 1887. That same year, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York passed their own legislation, and by 1890, Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had joined the group. As the DOL recounts, 23 additional states had officially recognized Labor Day by 1894, and finally, in that same year, Congress designated the first Monday in September as a legal, national holiday.

Interestingly, however, despite Maguire’s contributions, another man with a similar surname is often credited with founding Labor Day. As the DOL relates, “Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those ‘who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.’”

Yet, the NJ Historical Society notes that other records, such as William S. Walsh’s Curiosities and Popular Customs (1898) and B.E. and E.B. Stevenson’s Days and Deeds (1912) point to Matthew Maguire. Walsh, for example, wrote, “In 1882 Matthew Maguire, secretary of the Central Labor Union in that city [New York], with the approval of the Union, corresponded with the various Labor organizations in the State with a view to setting aside one day in the year as their own holiday ... Maguire was made chairman of the committee to arrange for the first labor day celebration in that year.” 

A few years later, the Stevensons recorded, “To Matthew Maguire, Secretary of the Central Labor Council of New York City belongs the credit for first actually putting the idea into execution.”

Whether Maguire or McGuire, as we celebrate Labor Day this year, may we pause to recognize the working men and women of New Jersey and throughout the United States who form the backbone of our economy and whose ingenuity, dedication, and persistence, simply put, make our great country run.

Happy Labor Day!

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