Holidays: Labor Day

Labor Day, legal holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September in the U.S., Puerto Rico, the Canal Zone, and the Virgin Islands. The celebration of Labor Day, in honor of the working class, was initiated in the U.S. in 1882 by the Knights of Labor, who held a large parade in New York City. In 1884 the group held a parade on the first Monday of September and passed a resolution to hold all future parades on that day and to designate the day as Labor Day. Subsequently other worker organizations began to agitate for state legislatures to declare the day a legal holiday. In March 1887, the first law to that effect was passed in Oregon, followed by Colorado, New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. In 1894 the U.S. Congress made the day a legal holiday. Parades, and speeches by labor leaders and political figures, mark Labor Day celebrations.

Taken from Labor Day in Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia

May Day, also called Workers’ Day or International Workers’ Day, commemorating the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement, observed in many countries on May 1. In the United States and Canada a similar observance, known as Labor Day, occurs on the first Monday of September.

In 1889 an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1 as a day in support of workers, in commemoration of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago (1886). Five years later, U.S. Pres. Grover Cleveland, uneasy with the socialist origins of Workers’ Day, signed legislation to make Labor Day—already held in some states on the first Monday of September—the official U.S. holiday in honour of workers. Canada followed suit not long afterward.

Taken from May Day on Encyclopedia Britannica Online