Pictured here celebrating her 100th birthday flanked by her daughter Cinda (left) and daughter-in-Law Debbie (right), Pat Gering was declared an American Hero by her community in Hay Springs, NE last month. She has been a very special person in the OTC’s Lani Gering’s life for the last 50 years and we think she deserves some recognition from us.

Labor Day 2026 occurs on Monday, September 7th. The holiday pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is observed each year on the first Monday of September. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal holiday in 1894. Labor Day weekend also symbolizes the end of summer for many Americans and is celebrated with parties, cookouts, parades and athletic events.

Origins of Labor Day

Labor Day, an annual celebration of workers and their achievements, originated during one of American labor history’s most dismal chapters.

In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American laborer worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages.

Labor Day’s Railroad Strike Roots

Congress passed legislation in 1894—amid a railroad workers’ strike—to create the holiday honoring labor.

People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks.

As manufacturing increasingly supplanted agriculture as the wellspring of American employment, labor unions—which had first appeared in the late 18th century at the dawn of the labor movement—grew more prominent and vocal. Unions began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay.

First Labor Day Parade

Many of these events turned violent during this period, including the infamous Haymarket Riot of 1886, in which several Chicago policemen and workers were killed. Others gave rise to longstanding traditions: On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first Labor Day parade in U.S. history.

The idea of a “workingmen’s holiday,” celebrated on the first Monday in September, caught on in other industrial centers across the country, and many states passed legislation recognizing it. Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later, when a watershed moment in American labor history brought workers’ rights squarely into the public’s view. On May 11, 1894, Chicago employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives.

On June 26, the American Railroad Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars, crippling railroad traffic nationwide. To break the Pullman strike, the federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, unleashing a wave of riots that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers and the arrest and imprisonment of Debs.

The Meaning of Labor Day

In the wake of this violent unrest—and in an attempt to repair ties with essential American workers—Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed it into law.

But more than a century later, the true founder of Labor Day has yet to be identified. Many credit Peter J. McGuire, cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, while others have suggested that Matthew Maguire, a secretary of the Central Labor Union, first proposed the holiday.

Rosie the Riveter – A True Champion of American Labor

The U.S. Department of Labor recognizes Rosie as a champion of American workers. Labor Day serves as an annual reminder of how these women permanently transformed the American workforce, breaking down structural barriers and redefining the dignity of labor. The impact of World War II on women changed the workplace forever, and women’s roles continued to expand in the postwar era.

The true identity of Rosie the Riveter has been the subject of considerable debate. For years, the inspiration for the woman in the Westinghouse poster was believed to be Geraldine Hoff Doyle of Michigan, who worked in a Navy machine shop during World War II.

Other sources claim that Rosie was actually Rose Will Monroe, who worked as a riveter at the Willow Run Bomber Plant near Detroit. Monroe also was featured in a promotional film for war bonds.

But the most credible claim on Rosie’s legacy came from Naomi Parker Fraley, who was photographed working in the machine shop at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California. In the 1942 photo, she is sporting a telltale polka-dotted bandana. Fraley passed away in January 2018.

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