Labor Day. More than a beer-and-brats fueled bacchanalia on the last true weekend of summer, it is intended to celebrate the achievements of the American worker and, if such be possible, his or her “class.” A child of the late 19 th -century Progressive movement, it was set in September rather than on the traditional laborers’ day of May 1 to avoid unpleasant conflation with the doings of the Second Socialist International at a time when xenophobia was rampant here. To what extent such concern was justified is a topic for another time.
The New York state assembly first proposed […]
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