1. Do we thank the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners or the International Association of Machinists for proposing the holiday?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, "Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those 'who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.'" But, others believe that machinist Matthew Maguire was the original proponent. Maguire, who went on to become the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., is said to have proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York,  the DOL website notes. 

The New Jersey Historical Society records Maguire as the originator, but as his ideas were considered too radical and the American Federation of Labor didn't want them associated with the celebration of Labor Day, the credit was given to McGuire. (Good thing they were friends.) 

 In June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday of September a legal holiday.  

2. But what about a parade?

The first Labor Day parade was celebrated Sept. 5, 1882 in New York City, and reportedly drew 25,000 union members and their families. There was a parade, a picnic and speeches, and plenty of cigars and kegs of Lager beer.

Some municipalities still hold parades to mark the day, though strangely, not on Labor Day itself. The 2014 New York City Labor Day parade, for example, will take place Saturday, Sept. 6.

The Philadelphia Council of the AFL-CIO holds an annual parade and family celebration on Labor Day proper, but a "family fun" day (sans parade or acknowledgement of the holiday's labor origins) held at Franklin Square gets far more attention from the city's tourism promoters.

The decline in prominence of Labor Day parades celebrating worker contributions to the economy and well-being of the nation seem to parallel a long decline in union influence post World War II.

3. What's the deal about not wearing white after Labor Day, and what does it have to do with labor?

Our parents and grandparents were enjoined never to wear white after Labor Day. The injunction's provenance is believed to hark back to the late 1800s and early 1900s in the United States, when the white lawn dresses and light linen wear of summer was worn by  the wealthy during their summer leisure at grand vacation estates in the Adirondacks, etc.. They reverted to dark colors in the fall, when they returned to overseeing the industries that bolstered their enormous weath. Immigrants and working class people, on the other hand, didn't get summer breaks and wore dark, hard-wearing clothing year-round.

By the 1940s and '50s  a burgeoning middle-class had adopted the wearing of white clothing during the summer months only as the gospel of propriety and respectability. And the connection to labor? Paid vacation time and holidays didn't really exist until unions fought and won them for working people.

Thankfully, the fashion injunction restricting the use of white clothing has gone the way of the dodo. Don't ask us to give up our white chucks...

4. Labor Day means a new school year begins — right?

Public schools have their first day of classes after Labor Day in the Boston, Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia school districts, but not all school districts do. Some start in mid to late August, including some of the suburban districts around Philadelphia, most of Utah districts, as well as some in Colorado and Ohio. There is a movement to try to get all public schools to open the week after Labor Day. 

5. Do we do anything — nationally — to commemorate Labor Day?

Well, we used to issue postage stamps as a commemorative. The one that accompanies this post was issued in 1956 and takes its design from the mosaic mural at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington. The mural, called “Labor is Life,” was designed by artist Lumen Winter. 117,855,000 of the stamps were issued; one in mint condition is now worth about 80 cents.

But what do the government and our legislators do to commemorate it today? They politic.

President Obama spoke about Labor Day in his weekly address Aug. 30, urging that minimum wage be raised. The Republican National Committee criticized the president and the House's Democratic leadership for rejecting a jobs bill that includes legislation to build the Keystone Pipeline. And the Secretary of the Department of Labor, Thomas Perez released his statement honoring the American worker, cross posting it on the Huffington Post, where two out of the three comments posted, when we checked, groused about lack of jobs and noted that working doesn't prevent people from being mired in poverty.

Most of us aren't thinking especially about labor or our jobs today (though we are writing and posting this). It's all  BBQs and picnics and Labor Day sales. Our labor enables our lives, but we don't want our labor to be our lives.

The irony is, of course, that without the labor unions and membership — who are charged with thinking about labor all the time and who first proposed celebrating the contributions of the American worker — we would not have the leisure to ignore the real significance of the day.