On September 4 the Seymour High School did not have school because it was a day of celebrating something that is not really celebrated as often as it should have, Labor Day. Labor Day is always on the first Monday of September. Why? Well, it celebrates the people that are working for our country and also the people that have worked for what our country has become. Labor Day is celebrated in the U.S. and Canada, in most of the other countries it is celebrated on May 1.

The first time Labor Day was celebrated as a holiday was on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City with the plans of the Central Labor Union. Two years later in 1884 it was decided that Labor Day would be on the first Monday of September. The Central Labor Union wanted other cities to take part in commemorating a “workingmen’s holiday”. With that, the idea spread and a year later in 1885 Labor Day was marked in many industrial centers of the country.

More than one hundred years after the first Labor Day there is still no certainty as to who started the day. Most records show that Peter J. McGuire, who was an American labor leader of the nineteenth century, was the first person to step up and say that people should celebrate those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” However, some people agree that Matthew Maguire a machinist founded the holiday in 1882. But what people know as clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day.

Over the years Sophomore Madeline Halcomb has been celebrating Labor Day at her grandma’s house where they would bring different dishes but did not get to it this year. When asked, Halcomb says she knows people who would say they only notice Labor Day because they get a free day off of school. The people that were working when Labor Day was being formed for their sake worked hard for their family, friends, and country.

Some students take it for granted whenever a parent or sibling goes off to work at his or her own job to raise enough money to go to college or a special trip. Labor Day is a day to show that this country cares about the people that worked for our country and what it is today is all thanks to them.