Labor Day is a public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September.

Labor Day was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized the first parade in New York City on September 5, 1882. The day was celebrated with a picnic, concert and speeches.

Ten thousand workers marched from City Hall to Union Square.

In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make it an official public holiday.

According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, during "hot dog season", which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Americans consume roughly 7 billion hot dogs, or about 818 hot dogs every second.

By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states had already passed bills officially celebrating Labor Day.

On June 28, 1894, just six days after the end of the deadly Pullman strike that left 30 workers dead and 57 wounded, President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law.

The National Labor Union (NLU) was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AFL (American Federation of Labor).

Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

After it became a federal holiday, the fashion industry adopted Labor Day as the natural endpoint for summer fashion, making it the last day when it was acceptable to wear white or seersucker.