Q: When is Labor Day?
A: Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in September. In 2010, Labor Day will fall on Sept. 6.
Q: Why do we celebrate Labor Day?
A: Labor Day honors the contributions of working men and women to America’s social and economic life. In 2009, working families spent Labor Day marching, rallying, and picnicking to honor the nation’s workers and their work.
Q: When was Labor Day first celebrated in the United States?
A: After the first Labor Day in New York City, celebrations began to spread to other states as workers fought to win workplace rights and better working conditions and wages at a time when they had little power.
In 1893, New York City workers took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of a national Labor Day. The following year, 12,000 federal troops were called into Pullman, Ill., to break up a huge strike against the Pullman railway company and two workers were shot and killed by U.S. deputy marshals.
In what most historians call an election-year attempt to appease workers after the federal crackdown on the Pullman strike, shortly after the strike was broken, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation making the first Monday in September Labor Day and a federal holiday. Cleveland lost the election.
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