Labor Day Weekend 2024 is upon us. What does that mean to you? For many years Labor Day marked the end of the summer season at tourist destinations like our towns. But that isn’t what it was established to commemorate.

Labor Day, organized by the Central Labor Union was first celebrated in this country in New York City on September 5, 1882. The Great Railroad Strike during the summer of 1877, in response to a 10% cut in worker’s wages by one West Virginia station of the B&O Railroad, spread across the nation bringing United States Railroad traffic to a halt for 52 days. The violent strike did not cancel the pay cut, but it got workers energized to fight for their rights. A labor protest for an eight-hour workday at Chicago’s Haymarket on May 4, 1886, escalated into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day.

The Knights of Labor were the first Maine workers to celebrate Labor Day at Peaks Island on August 31, 1886. Kennebunk diarist Andrew Walker proudly made a point to mention that no one abstained from his usual work in Kennebunk on Labor Day 1889. Maine became the ninth state to legally recognize Labor Day in 1891. President Grover Cleveland signed a law establishing the first Federal Labor Day holiday in 1894.

The first observance of the holiday I could find here was a big Labor Day Parade in Kennebunk in 1897. The town of Kennebunkport welcomed its soldiers home WWI at a celebration on Labor Day, September 1, 1919. Governor Milliken addressed the crowd from a platform jutting out from the front steps of the South Congregational Church at 10:00 am. There was a parade down School Street and cars transported the soldiers to Cape Porpoise where dinner was served at Stone Haven. Another automobile parade followed through the Wildes District, South Main Street, Ocean Avenue and into Emery square in the Lower Village. The highlight of the day was a baseball game between Kennebunkport and Kennebunk. I have shared some photographs taken in Kennebunkport that day.