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You're listening to Ted Talks Daily,

where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

If you're one of our American or Canadian listeners, you're probably not working today,

in observance of Labor Day. But what is the story

behind getting a day off work to celebrate working? Educator Kenneth C. Davis gives us

a quick history and all the context after the break. How's this for a strange idea? A day off from work in honor of work itself. Actually, that is

what Labor Day celebrated in the United States and Canada on the first Monday of every September

is all about.

The first American Labor Day was celebrated in New York City on September 5th, 1882 as thousands of workers and their families

came to Union Square for a day in the park.

It was not a national holiday, but had been organized by a union to honor workers in their hard efforts with a rare day of rest, halfway between July 4th and Thanksgiving.

There were picnics and a parade, but there were also protests.

The workers had gathered not just to rest and celebrate, but to demand fair wages, the end of child labor, and the right

to organize into unions.

During the period known as the Industrial Revolution, many jobs were difficult, dirty, and dangerous.

People worked for 12 hours, six days a week without fringe benefits such as vacations, health care and pensions, and if you

were young, chances are you were doing manual labor instead of your ABCs and fractions. Children as young as 10 worked in some

of the most hazardous places like coal mines or factories filled with boiling vats or dangerous machines.

Trying to win better pay, shorter hours and safer conditions, workers had begun to form

...