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Many Americans may think Labor Day as the end of summer or a day of rest, parades, picnics, or store sales. Labor Day is so much more.
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 at the behest of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union pushed other organizations to follow and by 1894 23 other states had adopted the holiday. In 1894 Eugene V. Debs led members of the American Railway Union on strike in what is known as the Pullman strike. This strike had major economic implications and soon President Grover Cleveland declared it a federal crime and deployed troops to break it up. Violence erupted, and two men were killed. As a way to calm tensions after the death strike, on June 28, 1894 Labor Day as a legal holiday on the first Monday of September was approved.
There are a number of books on Labor Day and the history of labor in the United States while the Library’s Manuscript Reading Room has President Cleveland’s papers. Also, the National Archives has a nice online photographic exhibit called The Way We Worked that documents the clothing, locales, conditions, and conflict in our workplaces.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.
The Edge of Anarchy : the Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest labor Uprising in America by 
Encyclopedia of US Labor and Working-Class History by 
The First Labor Day Parade, Tuesday, September 5, 1882 by The insurrection of June and July 1894, growing out of the Pullman strike at Chicago, Ill. An address delivered before the National Statistical Association at the Columbian university, Washington, D.C., October 9th, 1894 by 
Labor in America by Origin of Labor Day and chronology events pertaining to the establishment of Labor Day by Report on the Chicago strike of June-July, 1894The following resources created or digitized by the Library of Congress can be used to find out more about the Labor Day..
American Federation of Labor Records
Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers
Digital Image Collections
Eugene Debs: Topics in Chronicling America
Grover Cleveland Papers
Labor Day: Topics in Chronicling America
Organized Labor Since the 19th Century: A Research Guide
Today in History - The First Labor DayThe links below are for content on the Library of Congress website or more generally on the Internet.
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