News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Campers are beginning to arrive at Camper’s Cove in Alpena for Labor Day weekend in this photo taken on Wednesday afternoon.

ALPENA — With all the festivities surrounding Labor Day, it can be easy to forget why the holiday started in the first place.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday is rooted in the late 19th Century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.

The holiday started as a movement by individual states, the first state to introduce a bill being New York. The state of Oregon was the first to pass a bill in 1887 making Labor Day a holiday. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York followed suit that same year.

On June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday, according to the DOL.

The first celebration of Labor Day, however, was in New York City in 1882 in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

Many Americans celebrate Labor Day with parades and parties – festivities very similar to those outlined by the first proposal for a holiday, which suggested that the day should be observed with a street parade to exhibit “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families, according to the DOL. That became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.

There is some controversy over who founded Labor Day.

Some records show that in 1882, Peter McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, suggested setting aside a day for a “general holiday for the laboring classes” to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold,” according to the DOL.

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that machinist Matthew Maguire, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday.

Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York, according to the DOL.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.