LABOR DAY: Or how it became a national holiday

Labor Day was first celebrated in NYC in 1882 based on the celebrations of Canadian labor's Nine-hour movement.

On May 11th, 1894 3000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat strike bringing rail traffic west of Chicago to a halt. The American Railway Union supported the strike by which union employees refused to run trains containing Pullman cars. By June 26th 125,ooo union employees had ceased work rather than handle Pullman cars.

Democratic president Grover Cleveland ordered 12,000 US Army troops commanded by General Nelson Miles (Soon to be the Commanding General US Army in 1895) against the strikers. 13 strikers were killed and 57 wounded before the strike was successfully broken.

Cleveland was now despised by labor, wanting reconciliation and fearful of further troubles, legislation designating Labor Day a national holiday were rushed through congress a mere 6 days after the end of the strike.

Now this story can be found on wikipedia, the History Channel website, the AFL-CIO website, and many others... but strangely enough not a word of it appears on the Department of Labor web page about Labor Day...

Go figger.

~Finntann~