Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday of September every year since Grover Cleveland formally declared it a holiday for the working classes, in 1894.
The no-white-after-Labor-Day rule probably began during the late nineteenth century, when newly-well-to-do American families returned from their country houses to their homes and jobs in the cities. It would have been out of the question to wear white in the grimy, coal-smoky urban centers. (For some cool pics I posted on a former blog about smoky cities, click here. )
In honor of Labor Day, I’ve posted some pictures of people at work. For picture credits, scroll down. If you’re on Pinterest, I have a “people at work” board you can visit as well.
Images:
Lunch break, Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives
Seven “Canary Cottage” young women of the burlesque theater, 1916 (Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-113672)
Lewis Hine, Noon hour at Massachusetts Mill, Lindale, Ga. 1914 (Library of Congress: LC-DIG-ncl-2004003934/PP/)
Lewis Hine, Noon hour at Massachusetts Mill, Lindale, Ga. 1914 (Library of Congress: LC-DIG-nclc-01356)
A two-horse team street cleaner, with sprayer, squeegee, and roller at rear. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)
A one-legged newspaper boy and other “newsies”, on Delancey Street, on December 26, 1906. (Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)
Lewis Hine, Noon hour at Massachusetts Mill, Lindale, Ga. 1914 (Library of Congress: LC-DIG-nclc-02754v)
“Drawing-in” -15 years. Berkshire Cotton Mills. Location: Adams, Massachusetts (Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/nclc.03113)
