How Do You Spell Entrepreneur on Labor Day? L-A-B-O-R!

In honor of all of the hard working entrepreneurs (and maybe even working hard on Labor Day), here are 7 fast facts about Labor Day in the U.S. as well as a 10-year reference guide to help you plan for this annual one-day holiday.

7 Tidbits of Trivia to Test Your Labor Day Holiday Knowledge

Banks, financial institutions and many U.S. businesses will be closed on the first Monday of September every year in honor of the working men and women, the entrepreneur, the laborer. Here are seven Labor Day trivia tidbits that will give you a deeper appreciation of the day.

For many, the three-day weekend that occurs early in September each year thanks to the U.S. Labor Day holiday represents the end of summer months and the beginning of fall and the school year. We thought you might enjoy learning more about the traditions of Labor Day in the U.S. Feel free to share these trivia tidbits with your own social networks or use them to wow your family and friends as you celebrate the Labor Day holiday this year!

Labor Day became an official holiday on June 28, 1894.

Before Labor Day became an official U.S. observance in 1894, 23 states had already adopted the holiday in honor of workers (US Dept. of Labor). The first state to officially adopt the holiday was Oregon, but the first official celebration occurred on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City.

Perhaps it’s fitting that no one U.S. worker is attributed with its founding.

Labor Day is a day intended to celebrate all workers, so it is perhaps fitting that its foundation can be traced to more than one individual. The two most likely candidates are Peter McGuire (a leading official in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners) and Matthew Maguire (a machinist from the Knights of Labor). (US Dept. of Labor)

U.S. Workers may be long overdue in sending a thank-you note to our northern neighbors.

While most think of the holiday as a U.S. event, it’s highly likely that its origins are in Canada, where in 1872 a parade was held in support of a strike against 58 hour work weeks. The twenty-four (24) union leaders responsible for organizing the parade were arrested under anti-union laws.

The first Labor Day parade nearly failed to come off.

The US Labor Department’s history of this holiday describes the first celebration as “almost entirely disastrous.” For one thing, almost no one showed up on time for the march itself, which was due to begin at 10 AM. Even so, final reports estimated that up to 20,000 men and women eventually joined the parade of workers. Later in the day, festivities continued in a park where there were “speeches, a picnic, an abundance of cigars and Lager beer kegs mounted in every conceivable place.”

The first worker’s strike in the U.S. occurred well before any official Labor Day celebrations were established.

While some say that the first U.S. worker’s strike occurred in 1872, others say that the first strike was held in1836 when a group of Maine fishermen refused to work because the owner of the boats had not paid them. In 1872, Peter Mcguire and 100,000 workers took to the streets in one of the largest worker strikes the U.S. has ever seen. (celebrate-american-holidays.com)

100,000 is a drop in the U.S. Labor Force bucket.

US Census data calculated that the civilian labor force was over one hundred fifty million workers in July 2010; to be more specific: 155,170,000. (http://www.bls.gov) Of these:

• more than six and a half million (6,579,000) have more than one job
• more than twenty-six million are part time workers (26,160,000)
• nearly one hundred fourteen million work full time – more than 35 hours a week (113,974,000) and
• the average commute to work takes just less than a half hour (24.3 minutes)

How young is too young to join the labor force?

Most 5 year olds in the U.S. are thinking about starting school just before or after Labor Day. But according to Forbes.com, children as young as 5 or 6 worked in factories and mines in the late 1800s. Today, children can’t usually enter the workforce until they are at least 14, and then, can only work a limited number of hours until they are at least 16 years old. (www.sheknows.com)

Official U.S. Labor Day Holiday Dates – 2014 to 2023

Monday, September 1, 2014
Monday, September 7, 2015
Monday, September 5, 2016
Monday, September 4, 2017
Monday, September 3, 2018
Monday, September 2, 2019
Monday, September 7, 2020
Monday, September 6, 2021
Monday, September 5, 2022
Monday, September 4, 2023

You might also like: Labor Day Stats: The Good, the Bad and the Irony