Laboring away

So today at work someone asked me if I knew how Labor Day came into being. I paused for a few seconds, fried my brain, and said the only thing I could think of: "I don't know". So I got curious this evening and visited the U.S. Department of Labor website this evening and found out some basic history. According to the U.S. DOL:

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

I still find it funny that a day that has been set aside for some people to be off work is called "labor". Click here to read the page I got the info from.