[This post originally ran on Labor Day, 2011.]

It’s clear that the first Labor Day celebration was held on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, and organized by the Central Labor Union, an early trade union organization operating in the greater New York City area in the 1880s. By the early 1890s, more than 20 states had adopted the holiday. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed into law: ”The first Monday of September in each year, being the day celebrated and known as Labor’s Holiday, is hereby made a legal public holiday, to all intents and purposes, in the same manner as Christmas, the first day of January, the twenty-second day of February, the thirtieth day of May, and the fourth day of July are now made by law public holidays.” (Note: This post has been reprinted on this blog on Labor Day since 2011.)

What is less well-known, at least to me, is that the very first Labor Day parade almost didn’t happen, and that historians now dispute which person is most responsible for that first Labor Day. The U.S. Department of Labor tells how first Labor Day almost didn’t happen, for lack of a band:

“On the morning of September 5, 1882, a crowd of spectators filled the sidewalks of lower Manhattan near city hall and along Broadway. They had come early, well before the Labor Day Parade marchers, to claim the best vantage points from which to view the first Labor Day Parade. A newspaper account of the day described “…men on horseback, men wearing regalia, men with society aprons, and men with flags, musical instruments, badges, and all the other paraphernalia of a procession.

The police, wary that a riot would break out, were out in force that morning as well. By 9 a.m., columns of police and club-wielding officers on horseback surrounded city hall. By 10 a.m., the Grand Marshall of the parade, William McCabe, his aides and their police escort were all in place for the start of the parade. There was only one problem: none of the men had moved. The few marchers that had shown up had no music.