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Labor Day: A Grand Celebration
For most Kalamazoo County residents, Labor Day marks the end of summer. As the kids get ready for the new school year and parents put summer leisure equipment way, few stop to think about the origins of the holiday. Fewer still reflect on how Kalamazoo celebrated the first Labor Day.
Congress established Labor Day as a national holiday in 1894. The origin of the holiday was a decade earlier, when New York City’s Central Labor Union encouraged local workers not to work on the first Monday of September in 1882. Some 30,000 laborers heeded the call and participated in a parade through the city’s streets to showcase the importance of labor in America’s booming economy. The practice quickly spread to other cities.
Kalamazoo workers were not as quick to organize the holiday. In 1887, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported that “the labor people of Kalamazoo were too busy attending to their own business to spend their time parading the streets on the labor day. And their heads were exactly level.”Two years later, both the Gazette and the Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph were praising the holiday and the contributions of workers to American prosperity.
By August 1889, the newspapers offered daily reports on the efforts of Kalamazoo’s Central Labor Union to organize a parade and festivities to mark the informal holiday. “The celebration of Labor Day in this city will not be one of the usual cheap affairs,” the Gazette assured its local readers.
Organizers planned a large parade for the morning with a full afternoon of activities at the old National Fair Grounds at Portage Street near today’s Stockbridge Avenue. The highlights of the celebration included a baseball game between Kalamazoo and Saginaw of the Michigan State League and a hot air balloon launch and parachute jump.
This first celebration was not exclusively for Kalamazoo’s union members. All workers were welcome to participate, regardless of union affiliation, and all employers of labor were invited to enter floats in the parade and to exhibit their wares at the fairgrounds. The Kalamazoo Light Guard, Fire Department, and local bands also participated.
Unions and workers from the surrounding area also joined in. The railroads added cars to their service for the day and offered a special fare. Kalamazoo’s first Labor Day celebration included representatives from Battle Creek, Dowagiac, Niles, St. Joseph, and other localities.
Monday, September 2, 1889 arrived, and, with the exception of a brief shower around noon, the festivities proved all that the organizers hoped for. At 10 o’clock, the parade assembled near the Grand Rapids and Indiana depot at Pitcher and Main Streets. The bands, floats, and workers marched through the city streets to Bronson Park, where the ceremonies began. The marchers and spectators heard speeches by Charles Holt, President of the Cigar Makers Union, and Fred Cellem, President of the City Council.
Following the ceremonies, more than 2500 people headed for the fairgrounds, where, at 2:30, a variety of contests were scheduled. After these preliminaries, the Kalamazoo Kazoos baseball team took on the Saginaw team. The Kazoos lost 2-1 although they allowed only 2 hits, one a homerun that landed on the roof of a carriage. It was the last game the Kazoos played, as a dispute over splitting the ticket revenues led the team to abandon Kalamazoo and move to Flint.
After the game, Professor W. W. McEwan, a well-known aeronaut, inflated his hot air balloon and ascended to a height sufficient to allow for a parachute jump. He did so successfully, landing in a cornfield on Lake Street north of the fairgrounds. The day concluded with a formal ball at the German Turnverein Hall.
Over the next two decades, local unions continued to organize parades and celebrations. In the mid-1890s, residential development closed the old fairgrounds, and the activities were moved to Long Lake. In the 1900s, Oakwood Park hosted the festivities.
By the mid-1910s, the annual celebration rated little more than a notice in the local papers. Instead, it was not uncommon to read that local residents spent the holiday taking train excursions to Lake Michigan. A quarter-century after the first observance in Kalamazoo, the pattern of Labor Day as a last summer weekend of relaxation, rather than a celebration of workers, had become widely accepted.
Congress established Labor Day as a national holiday in 1894. The origin of the holiday was a decade earlier, when New York City’s Central Labor Union encouraged local workers not to work on the first Monday of September in 1882. Some 30,000 laborers heeded the call and participated in a parade through the city’s streets to showcase the importance of labor in America’s booming economy. The practice quickly spread to other cities.
Kalamazoo workers were not as quick to organize the holiday. In 1887, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported that “the labor people of Kalamazoo were too busy attending to their own business to spend their time parading the streets on the labor day. And their heads were exactly level.”Two years later, both the Gazette and the Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph were praising the holiday and the contributions of workers to American prosperity.
By August 1889, the newspapers offered daily reports on the efforts of Kalamazoo’s Central Labor Union to organize a parade and festivities to mark the informal holiday. “The celebration of Labor Day in this city will not be one of the usual cheap affairs,” the Gazette assured its local readers.
Organizers planned a large parade for the morning with a full afternoon of activities at the old National Fair Grounds at Portage Street near today’s Stockbridge Avenue. The highlights of the celebration included a baseball game between Kalamazoo and Saginaw of the Michigan State League and a hot air balloon launch and parachute jump.
This first celebration was not exclusively for Kalamazoo’s union members. All workers were welcome to participate, regardless of union affiliation, and all employers of labor were invited to enter floats in the parade and to exhibit their wares at the fairgrounds. The Kalamazoo Light Guard, Fire Department, and local bands also participated.
Unions and workers from the surrounding area also joined in. The railroads added cars to their service for the day and offered a special fare. Kalamazoo’s first Labor Day celebration included representatives from Battle Creek, Dowagiac, Niles, St. Joseph, and other localities.
Monday, September 2, 1889 arrived, and, with the exception of a brief shower around noon, the festivities proved all that the organizers hoped for. At 10 o’clock, the parade assembled near the Grand Rapids and Indiana depot at Pitcher and Main Streets. The bands, floats, and workers marched through the city streets to Bronson Park, where the ceremonies began. The marchers and spectators heard speeches by Charles Holt, President of the Cigar Makers Union, and Fred Cellem, President of the City Council.
Following the ceremonies, more than 2500 people headed for the fairgrounds, where, at 2:30, a variety of contests were scheduled. After these preliminaries, the Kalamazoo Kazoos baseball team took on the Saginaw team. The Kazoos lost 2-1 although they allowed only 2 hits, one a homerun that landed on the roof of a carriage. It was the last game the Kazoos played, as a dispute over splitting the ticket revenues led the team to abandon Kalamazoo and move to Flint.
After the game, Professor W. W. McEwan, a well-known aeronaut, inflated his hot air balloon and ascended to a height sufficient to allow for a parachute jump. He did so successfully, landing in a cornfield on Lake Street north of the fairgrounds. The day concluded with a formal ball at the German Turnverein Hall.
Over the next two decades, local unions continued to organize parades and celebrations. In the mid-1890s, residential development closed the old fairgrounds, and the activities were moved to Long Lake. In the 1900s, Oakwood Park hosted the festivities.
By the mid-1910s, the annual celebration rated little more than a notice in the local papers. Instead, it was not uncommon to read that local residents spent the holiday taking train excursions to Lake Michigan. A quarter-century after the first observance in Kalamazoo, the pattern of Labor Day as a last summer weekend of relaxation, rather than a celebration of workers, had become widely accepted.