The first Labor Day parade was held in New York City
On this day · 5 September 1882
On September 5, 1882, thousands of workers marched up Broadway in New York, staging the parade that became Labor Day.
On September 5, 1882, the Central Labor Union organized the nation’s first parade celebrating organized labor in New York City. Thousands of workers marched from City Hall up Broadway, past a reviewing stand at Union Square, drawn from trades across New York and New Jersey.
The day did not begin smoothly. With few marchers in place at the start, organizers worried the event would flop — until a band of jewelers from Newark arrived and stepped off down Broadway, and the crowds finally swelled in behind them.
Most marchers ended the day at a picnic of speeches, cigars, and a generous supply of lager.
It was a workers’ day off taken, not given: participants forfeited a day’s pay to attend. The idea spread quickly through the labor movement, and in 1884 the union fixed the celebration on the first Monday in September. Twelve years later, in 1894, Congress made Labor Day a national holiday.
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