Embassy of the United States of America U.S. HOLIDAYS

Labor Day: An Ode to the American Worker

A parade in Buffalo, New York, a century ago was a precursor to Labor Day celebrations still held each year in cities and towns across America. Library of Congress

nlike other U.S. holi- The labor movement stirred workday. A quarter million New days, Labor Day does not mixed sentiment in America, but Yorkers turned out to watch the U pay tribute to a person or many workers believed it offered parade, which concluded with a memorialize a historic event. It a unified voice that would hasten picnic for workers’ families. gives voice to the American worker. improvements. Organized labor The next day’s New York Times played a role in America’s social The innovation surge that drove reported that “those who rode or and cultural development — and manufacturing during the 19th marched in the procession were in establishing protections for century had given rise to a “work- cheerful, and evidently highly workers and the first notable com- ing class” of people employed by gratified with the display. … The memoration of Labor Day. others — on others’ terms. By the great majority smoked cigars, and late 1800s, poor working condi- On September 5, 1882, New all seemed bent upon having a tions were a source of social dis- York’s unions hosted a “work- good time at the picnic grounds.” cord, especially in cities, where ingman’s holiday.” An esti- Banners called for “Eight Hours immigrants were arriving in mated 10,000 workers took the for a Legal Day’s Work” and “Less large numbers. day off without pay to march for Hours and More Pay.” reduction of the 12- to 16-hour Labor Day: An Ode to the American Worker

A Poet of the Night Shift

Philip Levine, raised in Detroit, worked in factories while attending university there, including a night shift at an automotive gear and axle factory. Levine has published numerous volumes of poetry. The Simple Truth (1994) won the Pulitzer Prize, and What Work Is (1991) won the National Book Award. Levine has said of his writing about workers, ”I took this foolish vow that I would speak for them and that’s what my life would be.”

Here is an excerpt from “What Work Is”: … now suddenly you can hardly stand Titled Transcending by its creators, David Barr and Sergio De Giusti, this monument to the legacy of the U.S. labor movement rises above Hart Plaza in Detroit. ©Pat (Cletch) Williams the love flooding you for your brother, who’s not beside you or behind or Other Voices was a restless period that painted the boyhood backdrop for Levine, ahead because he’s home trying to Throughout the country’s history, who arrived in 1928 as a newborn sculptors, composers, authors and sleep off a miserable night shift son of Russian Jewish immigrants. painters etched their percep- at Cadillac so he can get up tions of workers’ lives into the before noon to study his German. social consciousness. Collective, but Individual Harking back to the original New Works eight hours a night so he can sing “The truly great man is he who York holiday, local governments would master no one, and who Wagner … host picnics and sporting events would be mastered by none,” on Labor Day. Schools and offices Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American — From What Work Is, by Philip Levine are closed. (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991) artist and philosopher, mused in Online readers may listen to Philip Sand and Foam, his 1926 collec- Union leaders and government Levine read “What Work Is” at the Library tion of spiritual reflections. officials make speeches honor- of Congress. ing the collective achievements of Gibran’s quote is engraved beneath American workers. the arches of Transcending, a 19.2- meter steel-and-granite monument Americans, however, have many Unions continued the annual cel- to the legacy of labor that rises definitions of work based on many ebration, and in 1894 Congress above Hart Plaza in Detroit, the different experiences, so a day set established the first Monday in heart of the U.S. automobile indus- aside to honor their work reflects September as the nation’s official try and witness to labor’s sterling those differences. Marching in a Labor Day. The eight-hour day successes and devastating defeats. parade or not, going swimming eventually became the legal stan- or not, visiting friends or not, Raised in Detroit during turbulent dard in 1940 through amendments Americans honor the essence of times, Philip Levine would convey to the Fair Labor Standards Act Labor Day simply, by taking the a poetic message about the work- of 1938, which also banned child day off … or not. ing class. The 1930s brought nota- labor and set certain wages. ble work stoppages — “strikes.” It

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE August 2012 BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS