4 Ironic Labor Day Facts That Will Surprise You
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The U.S. Adoption of this American Holiday Is Rumored To Have Canadian Roots
As one story goes, Peter J. McGuire, a leader of the American Federation of Labor, first proposed the holiday in May 1882 after experiencing the annual labor festival celebrated in Toronto, Canada.
Now this version of the holiday’s origin has been widely disputed, but actually the history books are altogether unsure who truly deserves credit for first proposing the holiday—was it Peter J. McGuire or Matthew Maguire, a machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union? No one knows, but what’s certain is the holiday’s troubled birthplace, occurring in the dark days of American industrial labor.
Cartoonist: Carolita Johnson
