Labor Day became a Federal holiday in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed a bill making it official, but Brookline had been celebrating since 1887 when Massachusetts was one of four states to make it a state holiday. (That was one year after Oregon became the first.)
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| Boston Transcript, September 6, 1887 |
Members of the Brookline local of the Carpenters and Joiners Union took part in the 1887 parade in Boston. The local paper, the Brookline Chronicle, expressed concern, however, about the viability of the new holiday, given that working people would have to give up a day's pay to participate in the activities.
"Too many workmen cannot afford it," wrote the paper. "They already feel the loss of a day's pay, and many of them are inwardly resolving that it will be several years before they turn out again. There is danger, therefore, that the day will be thrown away by actual workingmen, to be picked up by demagogues who earn their bread by the sweat of the jaw...And in that way Labor Day is in great danger of being transformed into Politician's Day."
Despite those fears, Labor Day grew in popularity both locally and nationally. One year later, the Carpenters and Joiners Union held Brookline's first Labor Day parade.
"This organization [reported the Chronicle] turned out with forty-five men, under command of James W. Boyd, and with a police escort marched through the principal streets of the town. Music was furnished by Highland pipers. Afterward the union went to Boston and took part in the great labor parade."
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| This Boston Globe illustration shows the 1888 Labor Day parade in downtown Boston in which Brookline union members took part. |
Brookline did not continue to have its own parade for long, but local union members continued to participate and take leadership roles in the Boston parades in subsequent years.
