Labor Day
Labor Day is one of the purely American holidays, it is a national holiday in the USA and is celebrated on the first Monday of September. For the first time the day was celebrated in the state of New York on the initiative of so called "Knights of Labor". In 1894 the Congress made the Labor Day a federal holiday, and since then all 50 states have celebrating this day as an official holiday.
Traditionally the Labor Day is marked by the majority of the Americans as a symbolic ending of the summer time. It has been celebrated on the first Monday of September since 1880. The proposed form of celebrating it was the form of a street parade that would demonstrate 'the power and the spirit of trade unions', after which a festival for workers and their families was held. Later speeches of outstanding men and women were introduced and the main emphasis was made on the economic and civil significance of the holiday. But later, according to the convention of the American Federation of Labor of 1909 the Sunday preceding the Labor Day was announced as the Labor Sunday dedicated to spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement. Besides mass celebrations in the form of street parades that attract millions of people every year, this day is often celebrated in a family circle when the whole family gets the last chance to unite before all grown-ups have to go to work until the next vacation and the children have to go to school. Such family reunions include barbecues, picnics etc. As many other holidays in the USA this day is greatly commercialized bringing profits to numerous companies producing gifts, greeting cards etc.