Short Stuff: Labor Day

Labor Day, the day when most people in America paradoxically take off work, is actually rooted in some deeply radical and anarchistic thinking. Learn all about this most subversive of American holidays in this episode of Short Stuff.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Shorty. I'm Josh, there's Chuck
and Jerry's over there, so that makes this stuff you
should know shorties. Welcome to the Shorty. I like that.
I'm trying to switch things up because these are a
little different, you know. Sure, they're their own thing. Chuck. Yeah.
We we decided that we needed a signal to people
that this was different, and we decided against a three

(00:26):
minute long I suggested a series of blinks, but after
a little while we figured out that wasn't gonna work. Well,
I see you're wearing white, m hm. And that's because
it's not yet Labor Day, and then it's acceptable. Still
is that still a thing? Oh? Was it ever? I
think so? Yeah. I think that, um, gangs of angry

(00:49):
people would beat you senseless if they saw you wearing
white after Labor Day. Gangs of angry boaters and country clubs. Yeah,
maybe clutching their pearls. We're talking Labor Day, Yeah, we
are talking Labor Day. And a lot of people kind
of look at Labor Day and say that's a weird
name for a day off to go have a picnic

(01:10):
before we have to go back to school or something. Sure,
and that is a pretty appropriate thought if you think
about it, because it really doesn't have anything to do
with labor. Um. It's a day off, which is something,
but it's not a day off for everybody. It just
seems insensible until you start to know the origins of
Labor Day and you say, oh, it came out of

(01:31):
the labor unions, hence the name labor Day. Let's get
back to that. Yeah, exactly. Uh, as far as national
holidays in the US and Canada, it's been around since
about eighteen, well since exactly eight And it was, like
you said, labor unions. They don't know exactly who started
this tradition, but I think scholars generally say one of

(01:55):
two people, both involved in labor unions probably did so. Yeah,
one Waster McGuire and the other one was Matthew McGuire,
two different spellings, but um they I saw somewhere that
Matthew McGuire was much more radical and that um Peter
McGuire was much more um centrist. He was the chill one.

(02:15):
So he was the one that gets He got the
official credit over time, but it may have actually really
been Matthew McGuire. He was just overlooked because he was like,
let's have let's have some labor party rallies and maybe
we'll throw some bombs or something. Possibly, so Peter McGuire
with a C. He was a general secretary of the

(02:36):
And I love this, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and joiners.
And I guess they mean joiner is as a woodworking joiner. No,
I think they mean like people who like to join clubs. Different. No, sure,
it's gotta be right because it's follows carpenters. But I mean, yeah,

(02:56):
I guess that's what that means. Nothing like a dovetailed joint, right,
that's what it is that really gets my blood flowing.
But shouldn't it be jointers? I don't know. I bet
you someone will have some good information on this, like
a joiner was a former name for carpenter or something, right,
but well, so McGuire. Peter McGuire's claimed to fame. Other
claim to fame was um that he co founded the

(03:18):
a f L. What, Yeah, the American Federation of Labor.
I thought you met the American Football League. No, who
was that? Well? I don't know, Okay, So the the
whoever came up with the idea it's murky, but we
actually do know. The first Labor Day that was September five,

(03:39):
eight two, and it took place in New York and
it was like a real deal Labor Day thing. Yeah,
the parade, Yeah, and the whole the whole reason behind
the First Labor Day Parade was like, at the time,
if you worked, you worked in a factory most likely,
and you worked anywhere between twelve and tend to twelve

(04:00):
to fourteen hour days, seven days a week. And so
these labor unions were starting to organize, but they were
you know, they were pretty good at organizing people in
their trade, but they weren't coming together to to really
join their strengths. And so whoever's idea this was to
have this first Labor Day parade. The basis of it
was get all these different people from different unions together

(04:22):
and so they can see that they have all this
stuff in common, and then maybe we can really become, like, um,
a strong political force and we can agitate for like
a five day work week and eight hour work days.
And they were successful, but it came out of this
first this first parade that they had. Yeah, they were like, hey,
we get all Thanksgiving, Christmas in the fourth of July,
how about one extra day off? Yeah, and and for

(04:46):
this first labor day and for other ones too, they
were like, well, no, you can't have the day off.
So it was a general strike, is how they took
the day off. Yeah. So enter President Cleveland, Mr Grover Cleveland.
And uh is an interesting background because he was not
a union supporter. But everyone thinks when he signed the
law saying the first Monday in September shall be Labor

(05:10):
Day nationwide, while I grew up mustache or shaved the beard,
especially as you can tell pretty good Chuck. But most
people think that even though he wasn't a union supporter,
he was trying to, uh, sort of put himself in
a better light because of some political damage earlier that year.
He sent federal troops in to put down a strike.

(05:33):
And this was I mean, I know we covered some
of this in the Union's Long Unions episode, but a
lot of times these strikes became you know, bloody battles
and riots, and uh, a strike by the American Railway
Union at the Pullman Company in Chicago did just that
and thirty four workers died. So they think Cleveland was

(05:54):
like all right, Uh, you're gonna have a day off.
I saw both things. I saw that Cleveland saw this
as politically healing, you know, it was like like a
boney was tossing to the to the unions and a
labor in general. I also saw that that Congress had
a bill um going in circulation years before this happened,

(06:16):
and that Cleveland just happened to be the president who
was sitting at the time, and so he was the
one who signed it. And really it wasn't any any
political tool at all. So I saw both but either
way it did. It did come on the heels of
that for sure, and that was a that was a
big deal, that strike. I was looking into it, Chuck,
and there's like, um, like the whole thing started because

(06:36):
some some workers from the Pullman Company. Pullman made railroad
cars at the time, like the popular ones like the
good on the Pullman yard here in Atlanta, right right.
So they went to to the head of the company,
I think either George or Charles Pullman, and said, hey,
we we want to we want to work fewer hours.
We think we're working too much for too little pay.

(06:58):
He said, oh, that's great, I'll take it into consideration
and like true Montgomery burns fashion. He fired the people
for even asking and so that started this whole, this
whole strike that ended up, Like you said, it was bloody.
There are riots. They were overturning railroad cars. Overturning railroad cars.
Do you know how hard that would be? I imagine

(07:19):
that was rope involved, I would hope. So, yeah, in
the Incredible Hulk, should we take a little quick break. Yeah,
I'm a little worked up. All right, We're gonna take
a quickie everybody, and we will come back and finish
up about Labor Day right after this, all right? So, oh,

(08:01):
what's Labor Day like around the world, Josh? It has
other names in different parts of the world's at right, Yeah,
and it takes place at different times, like May Day.
May one is known internationally, is like the the day
of workers, basically what Labor Day was originally to America.
Um May Day is to the rest of the world,
especially Europe and China and some other places. And it's

(08:23):
been definitely co opted as a kind of a communist
day too. Interesting, Yeah, which is another reason why we
don't really tend to celebrate May Day. We celebrate Labor
Day in a totally different part of the year. Nothing
to do with communism. Yeah, and I actually looked up
the origins of this whole white after Labor Day and
are old buddies at Mental Floss and new buddies here

(08:45):
at work will in mangsh I don't know if they
wrote this one, but apparently that came in the eighteen
eighties or so post Civil War, when uh, new money
started happening, and apparently the old money people were like, geez,
there's more rich people now than ever, and we can't

(09:06):
distinguish between the rich folks. So I'm on an old
blue blood and this guy just made his money and
I don't know whatever they were making back then that
could make you rich. Um chewing gum, radio knobs, radio knobs.
He's got new money. So they felt the need the
old blue bloods too, uh design a bunch of silly

(09:30):
like fashion rules and society rules, Uh that I don't
know if only they would know about it. Yeah, just
doing trapped people maybe, but as a way to distinguish,
you know, old money and true rich people from these
vulgar new rich people. And apparently not wearing white outside
of summer was just one of those rules that was
so those were the very people who would beat you

(09:51):
senseless if they caught you wearing white. That was the
other part of it too, not just feeling foolish, but
feeling vulnerable tremendous paint. But they do confirm that these
days it's not a big deal. I think it's just
kind of become more of a joke now when someone
says you don't wear white after Labor Day, I see
you just laugh and laugh at the joke. But as

(10:15):
far as unions go, the US now obviously is way
down as far as union membership in the nineteen fifties,
and this is pretty remarkable if you ask me about
of the workforce in America belong to a union. Yeah,
it's amazing. Yeah, they've got things done back then too.
What are he's saying? I think, you know, uh, and

(10:37):
now I believe and I'm not sure when this was written,
but it's probably roughly the same. But about four I
saw even lower, which I mean would definitely go on
to explain why labor days really lost its meaning to
you know. Well, now I think people know it as
just that sort of last blast um. Even though kids

(10:58):
start school way early now, it used to be sort
of around that time when you would head back to
school and stuff. Yeah, I was thinking about that. It
made me nostalgic for when I was in school, like
seeing like, oh yeah, Labor Day right after that you
would go back to school. And now it's like not
been in school for a full month now. Yeah, But
I mean I remember having like all of June, July,
and August off for sure. I know, now these kids

(11:20):
are back in school and August it's weird chumps. But
they do get a very quick break with Labor Day
at least, no, I know, they definitely have some pretty
killer breaks that we didn't have. For sure. They get
all the brakes. Well that's it, huh, that's that's one
in the can. If you happen to be listening to
this on Labor Day, pay yourself on the back because
you just created an s Y s K trifecta. There.

(11:44):
Oh that's nice, chuck, and put on something white just
to stick it in the eye of those blue bloods.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
can go to our website stuff you should know dot com.
It's got all of our social media links. You can
also send us an email. Pay attention you should address it.
Tore Ucky to Stuff podcast and how Stuff Works dot com.