Picnics and Labor Day have been paired since the first celebration of the holiday on Sept. 5, 1882. But a central feature of early Labor Day celebrations died out a century ago in much of the United States — the Labor Day parade.
Labor Day is the one holiday in the American calendar that was conceived and implemented by the American labor movement. Organized by New York City’s Central Labor Union, the first Labor Day event began with a parade to showcase trade union power and ended with a celebratory picnic to foster union fellowship. That first year, grouped according to their crafts, between 10,000 and 25,000 workers marched down Broadway past reviewing stands set up in Union Square, carrying union banners and American flags to the accompaniment of marching bands.
The event was repeated the following year, and in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, forerunner to the American Federation of Labor (AFL), called on all workers to celebrate Labor Day each year on the first Monday in September.
In Portland and in cities large and small across the United States, trade unions responded to that call with enthusiasm. Central Labor Councils put great effort into the preparations for parades and picnics, mindful of the pageantry of public spectacle.
Portland’s first Labor Day parade took place at night — on Saturday, June 2, 1888. In 1887 the Oregon Legislature had been the first in the nation to grant official holiday status to Labor Day, but it chose the first Saturday in June. (In 1893 they changed it to the first Monday in September.)
Portland’s 1902 Labor Day event was typical of the era. Participants assembled by trade in elaborate marching order. Led by a police platoon, they marched through downtown. Marchers then made their way to Multnomah Field (the site of today’s Providence Park stadium) for speeches and friendly competitions, like a fat men’s race (225 pounds minimum) and a tug of war between team drivers and longshoremen. Labor Day festivities concluded with a dance in the evening.
Portland’s 1916 marchers celebrated afterward with swimming and dancing at Columbia Beach, a riverside amusement park located on land that is now part of Hayden Island. In 1919, the Labor Day parade was followed by a Wild West performance (similar to the Pendleton roundup) at the Rose City Speedway, located where todays’ Rose City Golf Course sits.
In that era, even small towns held Labor Day parades. The Dalles held one in 1911. Oregon City held one in 1917.
Parade attendance could be massive. In 1916, The Oregonian described 2,500 marchers lined up in columns while a “cheering throng” of thousands more lined the streets to watch. Bricklayers Local 1 had 200 members participate that year; Ironworkers Local 29 had 225. Sheet metal workers marched 100 strong wearing big blue badges. The Carpenters union contingent alone stretched three blocks. Shipwrights Local 1020 marched alongside a float resembling a ship.
Unions of that era didn’t leave parade participation to chance. They made decisions collectively and they expected all members to turn up. In 1918, Painters Local 10 asked that the names of roughly 200 slackers be published in the Labor Press. (Three later protested that they’d been there but failed to turn in slips; they had their good names restored.) In 1919, the meat cutters union assessed fines of $10 each against 10 members who failed to march in the Labor Day parade and gave the money to jewelry workers union picketing fund.
A 1919 editorial in the Labor Press explained why it mattered to have largest possible turnout: “for the psychological effect that many men would have on the bosses.” Or as a 1912 resolution of the national AFL executive council put it, “Those outside the labor movement test its strength and virility by the way in which Labor Day is observed.”
And yet, Labor Day parades disappeared in the 1920s as suddenly as they had begun. In 1923 the only Labor Day observance in Portland was a dance at the Labor Temple. Portland Central Labor Council minutes in 1924 noted a consensus not to have a parade.
Parades still sometimes popped up in outlying areas, like Klamath in 1928, La Grande in 1930, and St. Helens in 1936.
But by 1932 national AFL president William Green was looking back at the parades with nostalgia, and declaring that it was “a most serious mistake” to think that expenditures of time, effort, and money on Labor Day parades had been wasteful.
“Men and women marching shoulder to shoulder typify impressively the purposefulness and the unity of the labor movement,” Green wrote. “They are a physical demonstration of devotion to principle — a proof that none can fail to understand.”
One hundred forty four years after the first Labor Day parade, Labor Day parades continue — in a few cities. New York City unions ended their annual Labor Day parade in 1968, but started them up again in 1981. Marchers at the head of last year’s New York City Labor Day parade included mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and native Brooklyner Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator from Vermont. This year, Labor Day parades will be held in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukie.
But almost everywhere else Labor Day is celebrated by organized labor, only the picnic part of the original celebration remains.
MORE PHOTOS: There are very few surviving photos of Portland Labor Day parades, but Oregon Historical Society has a small trove from the 1902 parade, including photos of the Iron Workers Local 29 and Bakers Local 114 contingents. Check those out here.
