 |
Labor Day
From the History Channel
An outstanding resource! Read about history of the labor movement and its movers and shakers, as well as view images and videos of Labor Day. |
 |
A Curriculum of United States Labor History for Teachers
Sponsored by the Illinois Labor History Society
This curriculum guide for teachers is sponsored by the Illinois Labor History Society. It was created by James D. Brown, Jr. for the Illinois Labor History Society in cooperation with teachers from the metro Chicago area and local union members. The Illinois Labor History Society is a non-profit organization with a mission to preserve and promote awareness of labor history in Illinois. ILHS is staffed by volunteers. This project was also produced by volunteers and one graduate intern. The HTML version is maintained by Chicago-Kent College of Law. |
![]() |
 |
Illinois History: A Magazine for Young People
From the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
Here is a partial list of articles:
• The Failure of the Pullman Strike and Its Effect on the U.S. Labor Reform Movement
• John Peter Altgeld: Representative of the Working Man
• The Haymarket Tragedy
• The Packinghouse Jungle
• Mary Harris Jones: A Union Crusader
• New Orient Coal Mine Disaster of 1951
• The Railway Strike of 1877
• The Memorial Day Massacre of 1937
• A Union is Formed
• The Cherry Mine Disaster and its effects on Labor and Labor Unions in the United States |
![]() |
 |
Labor in Illinois History
From the Illinois History Teacher Magazine
The Illinois History Teacher Magazine (Volume 13:2, 2006) contains the following articles:
• Miners of the Prairie: The Days of Shaft Mining in Northern Illinois by Richard P. Joyce and Evelyn R. Holt Otten
• Remember Virden! The Coal Mine Wars of 1898-1900 by Rosemary Feurer, Michael K. Daugherty and Jenny L. Daugherty
• When Worlds Collide: The 1894 Pullman Strike in Decatur by Robert D. Sampson and Malcom W. Moore, Jr.
• Meatpacking in Illinois History by Wilson J. Warren and Victoria E. Hollister |
 |
The History of Labor Day
From the United States Department of Labor
"Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country." |
 |
Labor Day
From USA.gov
“This USA.gov site includes information on all aspects of Labor Day from labor and labor union facts, occupational outlook and state job banks, career activities for kids, and back to school, recreation, and travel resources.” |
![]() |
 |
Child Labor in America 1908-1912
From the History Place.com
The Photographs of Lewis W. Hine: “Photographer Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940) was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He studied sociology at Chicago and New York universities, becoming a teacher, then took up photography as a means of expressing his social concerns. His first photo essay featured Ellis Island immigrants. In 1908, Hine left his teaching position for a full-time job as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, which was then conducting a major campaign against the exploitation of American children. From 1908 to 1912, Hine took his camera across America to photograph children as young as three years old working for long hours, often under dangerous conditions, in factories, mines, and fields. Hine was an immensely talented photographer who viewed his young subjects with the eye of a humanitarian. In 1909, he published the first of many photo essays depicting working children at risk. In these photographs, the essence of wasted youth is apparent in the sorrowful and even angry faces of his subjects." |
![]() |
 |
The Origins of Labor Day
From PBS' Online NewsHour
"The observance of Labor Day began over 100 years ago. Conceived by America's labor unions as a testament to their cause, the legislation sanctioning the holiday was shepherded through Congress amid labor unrest and signed by President Grover Cleveland as a reluctant election-year compromise. Read about the turbulent circumstances of Labor Day's birth, browse NewsHour segments on labor and the economy, and explore labor-related resources on the Internet." |
![]() |
Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904
From the Library of Congress
"The Westinghouse Works Collection contains 21 actuality films showing various views of Westinghouse companies. Most prominently featured are the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and the Westinghouse Machine Company. The films were intended to showcase the company's operations. Exterior and interior shots of the factories are shown along with scenes of male and female workers performing their duties at the plants." |
 |
Labor Day Crafts
From Enchanted Learning
This site, for younger students, contains a wide variety of activities. Some of them include: an occupations collage, a box town, a fire truck, fire truck snacks, printouts to color, printout books on Caesar Chavez and other topics, and tools pages in various languages. |
Labor Day
From the Holiday Zone.com
"These are educational Labor Day activities including arts and crafts, puzzles and quizzes, games and activities, quotations, poetry, songs, book and vocabulary lists, and other printable materials." The Discussion Topics for Labor Day (Essential Questions) are excellent. |
 |
The Samuel Gompers Papers
From the Department of History, University of Maryland
"Samuel Gompers was the nation’s leading trade unionist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and president of the American Federation of Labor from 1886 until his death in 1924. 'Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people,' he said. 'There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire . . . . there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.'" |
![]() |
 |
The Triangle Factory Fire
From the ILR School at Cornell University
"Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out..." “The fire at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City, which claimed the lives of 146 young immigrant workers, is one of the worst disasters since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This incident has had great significance to this day because it highlights the inhumane working conditions to which industrial workers can be subjected. To many, its horrors epitomize the extremes of industrialism. The tragedy still dwells in the collective memory of the nation and of the international labor movement. The victims of the tragedy are still celebrated as martyrs at the hands of industrial greed.” |
![]() |
 |
Photos From the Triangle Factory Fire
From the University of Sydney
“The purpose of this website is not to display photographs or to make available a large quantity of visual resources. Instead the site focuses on only a small collection of photographs, which I attempt to analyse in some depth. The aim of these analyses is two-fold: Firstly, to highlight ways in which historians can analyse and make use of photographic evidence, and how these photographs in particular can work in dialogue with textual sources on the Triangle Fire. Secondly, to create an awareness of the potential interpretations that these photographs could have, and how they can incorporated into different narratives, like the Triangle Fire itself. In other words, to move away from looking at the history of Triangle Fire as a discrete and singular narrative, and instead see it as a multiple narrative with many overlapping and at times contesting and contradictory strands.” Alison Leung, a third-year History undergraduate at the University of Sydney |
![]() |
 |
Labor Day - What Work Teaches Us
From Kids' Turn Central.com
“Most kids start out working by doing chores around the home. Some get allowances for these chores, some don't. Some get special privileges for helping out. Whatever reason you do chores - you learn some valuable lessons along the way. You will have the rest of your life, if you choose, to work outside the home - but starting young teaches you some good things.” |
 |
Labor Laws for Teens
From eHow.com
"While millions of teens are gainfully employed in part-time and summer capacities, there are many state and federal laws that dictate when they can work and what they can do. These laws gradually introduce more freedom in employment as the child ages." |
Free Presentations in PowerPoint Format
From pppst.com
Here are free Labor Day PowerPoint presentations and some additional lesson plans. |
 |
Labor Day
From USA for Kids
"'Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,' said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. 'All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.'" |
 |
Matthew Maguire, Father of Labor Day?
From the New Jersey Historical Society
"Files at the New Jersey Historical Society in Newark show that Matthew Maguire of Paterson, New Jersey, [1855-1917], was not only a man to be reckoned with in the beginning days of the American labor union movement, but was very probably the man behind the creation of Labor Day." |
 |
Life of Peter McGuire, 'Father' Of Labor Day
From the South Central Federation of Labor
“Peter J. McGuire, a young carpenter, stood before the New York Central Labor Union on May 12, 1882, to suggest an idea of setting aside one day a year to honor labor. His idea was simple. The day should ‘be celebrated by a street parade which would publicly show the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations.’” |
 |
Hard Labor: How Unions Fought to Honor the American Worker
From Fact Monster.com
“The Labor Day holiday as we know it grew out of the efforts of labor unions over a century ago. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, records indicate the holiday was first proposed in the late 19th century. Two men are credited with the original idea: Peter J. McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, and Matthew Maguire, a machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.” |
![]() |
 |
The Pullman Strike, Chicago 1894
From the Kansas Heritage Group
“The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in United States history. It, before coming to an end, involved over 150,000 persons and twenty-seven states and territories and would paralyze the nations railway system. The entire rail labor force of the nation would walk away from their jobs. In supporting the capital side of this strike President Cleveland for the first time in the Nation's history would send in federal troops, who would fire on and kill United States Citizens, against the wishes of the states. The federal courts of the nation would outlaw striking by the passing of the Omnibus indictment. This blow to unionized labor would not be struck down until the passing of the Wagner act in 1935. This all began in the little town of Pullman, just south of Chicago.” |
![]() |
 |
Eugene Victor Debs
From the Debs Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana
“Eugene Debs held memberships and official positions in two late 19th century labor unions: the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF) and the American Railway Union (ARU). Later, he joined a group of labor radicals to found the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Debs promoted workers’ right to organize unions and to strike in order to protect their interests, for shorter hours, and for restrictions on child labor.” |
![]() |
 |
Works Progress Administration
From U-S-History.com
“By 1936 over 3.4 million people were employed on various WPA programs. Administered by Harry Hopkins and furnished with an original congressional allocation of $4.8 billion, the WPA made work accessible to the unemployed on an unparalleled scale by disbursing funds for an extensive array of programs. Hopkins argued that although the work relief program was more costly than direct relief payments, it was worth it. He averred, ‘Give a man a dole, and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit.’” |
![]() |
Labor Day Quotations to Ponder:
• "Without labor nothing prospers." Sophocles
• “It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.” John Locke
• “Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.” Adam Smith
• "A man usually values that most for which he has labored; he uses that most frugally which he has toiled hour by hour and day by day to acquire." Dorthea Dix
• “Labor Day differs in every essential from other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflict and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.” Samuel Gompers
|
|
