Political sanitization erased Labour Day’s true founder

Evidence points to Matthew Maguire, but his socialist politics may explain why Peter McGuire got the credit

Labour Day isn’t just for Canadians, as we know. Many countries have a similar holiday on their calendars. Some have the same name as ours. Others call it something different. It’s not always held on the same day, either.

There’s even a little mystery behind one of these holidays that many Canadians may not be aware of.

Our neighbour to the south shares this holiday with us. Known as Labor Day in the U.S., it’s held on the first Monday in September. The American tradition started in 1882, which is 12 years before the Great White North followed suit.

The origin story remains in dispute, however.

One of two men, Matthew Maguire and Peter J. McGuire, is the “true father of Labor Day,” as New York Times reporter Jenny Gross wrote on Sept. 5, 2020. The former worked as a machinist, while the latter was a carpenter. “Both were respected union leaders with Irish parents,” Gross wrote, “both fought for the betterment of the working class, and both attended the first Labor Day parade in New York City in 1882.”

Peter McGuire, who founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and co-founded the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which became the American Federation of Labor), is credited by the U.S. Department of Labor as the true father of this holiday. In an unusual twist highlighted by the Canadian Labour Congress, Peter McGuire may have been inspired by “labour day” festivities he observed during a visit to Toronto in May 1882. This may have motivated him “to organize the first American ‘labor day’ on Sep. 5 that same year,” according to the CLC. It’s certainly possible.

Matthew Maguire, who served as secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York and was active in socialist politics, is now touted by some academics and historical societies as the true father of this holiday.

“According to the New Jersey Historical Society,” the U.S. Department of Labor wrote on its website, “after President [Grover] Cleveland signed into law the creation of a national Labor Day, The Paterson (N.J.) Morning Call published an opinion piece entitled, ‘Honor to Whom Honor is Due,’ which stated that ‘the souvenir pen should go to Alderman Matthew Maguire of this city, who is the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday.’” Moreover, the newspaper editorial “also referred to Maguire as the ‘Father of the Labor Day holiday.’”

Here’s some additional information that works in Matthew Maguire’s favour. “Over the years,” Gross noted, “evidence has emerged suggesting that credit should go to Maguire, the secretary of the Central Labor Union, which organized the first Labor Day parade.” How so? Researchers from the genealogy website MyHeritage believe they unearthed an important piece of information after digging through the records of descendants of both men. They found “an interment card from 1917, held at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Totowa, N.J., where Maguire is buried, that includes a handwritten message: ‘This man founded Labor Day.’”

I guess it’s time to ask the $64,000 question. How did Peter McGuire, rather than Matthew Maguire, become the true father of Labor Day?

“At the center of the debate is a Central Labor Union meeting that took place in May 1882,” Gross pointed out. “In an 1897 article in The Carpenter, a monthly union publication, McGuire wrote that he first proposed the holiday at that meeting. The parade’s grand marshal, William McCabe, later recalled, in an 1897 article in The Cleveland Recorder, that Maguire, not McGuire, proposed the idea at that meeting.”

There’s another component that may be at play, too.

Bill Collins, a retired history teacher related to Matthew Maguire, suggested to Gross that politics could have changed the course of history. To wit, “Maguire, who ran for vice president on the Socialist Labor Party ticket in 1896, may have been pushed aside because his political beliefs were deemed too radical to be associated with Labor Day.”

The U.S. Department of Labor seems to agree with this theory. “According to The First Labor Day Parade, by Ted Watts, Maguire held some political beliefs that were considered fairly radical for the day and also for Samuel Gompers and his American Federation of Labor. Allegedly, Gompers did not want Labor Day to become associated with the sort of ‘radical’ politics of Matthew Maguire, so in an 1897 interview, Gompers’ close friend Peter J. McGuire was assigned the credit for the origination of Labor Day.”

The irony? Peter McGuire was active in socialist politics, too. He co-founded the Social-Democratic Workingmen’s Party of North America in 1874, which dissolved two years later. He was also a member of the Greenback Labor Party and Socialist Labor Party — the same one that Matthew Maguire ran for as vice-president.

It’s amusing that the dispute over who is the true father of Labor Day may come down to who was or wasn’t perceived as being an acceptable socialist in the 19th century. The workers of the world were a bit disunited in left-wing U.S. circles, it seems. Go figure.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.