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Change Your Day

A revitalized blog with one mission: to present a moment that jolts your day, triggers new thinking, gets you through traffic tangles, and relieves job stress. Or, more prosaically, accompanies you through the early miles of bike touring through France and Italy. Wherever you are, I aim to change your day.

Credit to @illuminatethearts for lighting the skies from the Ferry Building down Market Street. 

Oregon Passes 1st State Law for Labor Day Holiday in 1887

9/7/2015

 
Oregon became the first state to enact an official recognition of Labor Day on February 21, 1887. The first initiatives began through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. Four more states followed Oregon’s lead that year. By 1890 twenty-three additional states adopted the holiday. The U.S. Congress established the first Monday in September of each year as a national holiday.

Not surprisingly, the Oregonian took exception to the notion. In an editorial on February 10, 1887, the paper declared:

“About the silliest of all the demagogical methods of “aiding labor” is the bill to declare a special holiday in June to be known as “Labor Day.” There is sufficient inclination to idleness, there are sufficient incentives to productivity already. Just in what way labor is to be benefited by an invitation to shut up shop or stop the plow upon a particular day in the busy season, or indeed, at any other time, does not appear.”

In February 1887 Oregon’s eight governor, Sylvester Pennoyer, signed House Bill #102, declaring the first Saturday in June a public holiday, to be known as Labor Day. Pennoyer, a Democrat, took office the month before. He supported labor unions and favored use of American labor over that of Chinese immigrants.  


The paper managed a “Brief Mention” on June 4, 1887 about the new holiday: “Today (Labor day) is a legal holiday and no session of the state courts will be held, either justice’s or circuit.” Two other articles the next day briefly described Labor Day activities in Salem and Eugene.
Picture
Sources 
US Department of Labor (www.dol.gov/laborday/history.htm) 

Editorial, Oregonian, February 10, 1887, 4.

“Bills Signed by the Governor,’ Oregonian, February 23, 1887, 2.

“Brief Mention,” Oregonian, June 4, 1887, 8.

Terry, John. Oregon's Trails: Death shroud a suggestive footnote to a gadfly's death. Oregonian, November 9, 2003, as noted in Wikipedia.

Andrew Booth
9/7/2020 07:25:02 am

It’s the first Monday in September. Happy Labor Day to the US and Canada!

The first Labor Day bill in in the US was passed in Oregon shortly after the Haymarket Affair in Chicago on May 4, 1886; however, local initiatives apparently pre-date the historic labor demonstration and massacre.

More than 80 other countries celebrate International Workers' Day on May 1, chosen to commentate Haymarket Affair.

Thank you to Michael Helquist for this article about Oregon history.


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