History of Labor Day Fare

Many Americans consider Thanksgiving the most food-focused celebration on the holiday calendar, but that title might rightly belong to Labor Day.

Union leaders who first proposed the annual observance back in the early 1880s cited two reasons for its creation: They wanted to increase the visibility of the labor movement with massive parades, and they wanted to honor workers with "monster picnics" at which men, women and children who typically toiled for more than 12 hours a day in windowless sweatshops and dangerous factories could relax.

The latter proved so popular that by the time Congress declared Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894, the informal feasts threatened to eclipse the day's pomp and politics.
Legendary labor leader Samuel Gompers, the cigar maker who rose to head the American Federation of Labor, in 1908 begged fellow workers to mark the holiday with more than just picnics: "Labor Day without demonstrations, parades and meetings will, as sure as the sun rises and sets, lose its distinctive characteristic," he lectured. "Already we find social and fraternal associations alluring the wage-earners from Labor Day parades to outings, picnics and excursions."

But even Gompers couldn't persuade most workers to devote their rare day off to marching in the late-summer sun. Picnicking had become the definitive Labor Day activity.

The origins of Labor Day are remarkably murky -- considering the holiday was probably coined by a minute-keeping union committee -- but most sources credit either American Federation of Labor co-founder Peter McGuire or Central Labor Union secretary Matthew Maguire with the initial brainchild.

No matter who first had the idea, more than 10,000 workers joined the inaugural Labor Day march from New York's City Hall to Union Square in 1882.

The first Labor Day parades were pinnacles of political pageantry, with marchers hoisting signs reading "Prepare for the revolution" and "Down with the wage system."

Workers typically chose costumes to match their trades: In 1888, brewers tucked sprigs of malt in their hats and horseshoers donned leather aprons. The cake bakers concentrated their parade preparation on props, wheeling a 10-foot high cake along the route. And from Cleveland to Boston, the parades invariably led to picnics.

"There was no trace of the paraders at the disbanding point by 2:30 o'clock," the New York Times reported in 1889. "Many of them materialized afterward at the picnic parks up town and beyond."

The Labor Day picnicking habit was soon picked up by members of the hoity-toity set who had no quarrel with the capitalist system, but apparently didn't mind indulging in one last alfresco meal before bidding farewell to their beach houses.

Clambakes were held all over Long Island and along the Jersey shore in the 1890s, at which picnic-goers feasted on "bushels of oysters and clams, great quantities of fish, lobster, bread, corn, milk, frankfurters, coffee and peaches."

The Times neglected to note the menus for the picnics held by trade unions, although workers -- many of them first-generation Americans -- likely packed their baskets with cured meats, sausages, cheeses, cabbage salads, pickled fish and other unfussy foods from their native countries. What is known is what Labor Day celebrants drank: Beer, and plenty of it.

Describing a union picnic in Chicago held following a June 1879 pro-labor parade featuring 2,000 marchers and four brass bands, a Chicago Daily reporter wrote: "The crowd gave themselves up to masticating and digesting the fragments of cold lunches, beer drinking and other means of passing the time. Eyes looked love to eyes that spoke again, and when they spoke, generally said 'beer.'"

Still, the union members were principled in their drinking. When a New York City park concessionaire in 1894 failed to provide "union beer" from an organized brewery, as promised, members of the Central Labor Union revolted.

"For a whole hour, none of them would drink another glass of beer," the Times reported.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, the concession stand's manager sent a wagon to fetch 10 kegs of union beer. But a rumor spread throughout the crowd that the kegs were just for show, with staffers continuing to pour the scab stuff. Angry workers declared the picnic over.

While that particular picnic had a premature end, picnicking remains a vital element of Labor Day celebrations today, as workers across the country fire up their grills and observe the holiday with platefuls of hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, corn and ice-cold bottles of beer.