I toil, and deem it a pleasure. —William Beachop Wilson
You never know where poetry is going to turn up.
Take Labor Day. I always saw the day as the other bookend to summer, but one that, unlike Memorial Day, did not originate with a Real Event. Memorial Day, as noted on a PBS page, “was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers,” and had been made a country-wide legal holiday by the late 1800s. Luckily so, as it happens, since the War to End All Wars and its multitudinous offspring were waiting in the wings. As with the lives of ants, humans seem destined to battle, and so Memorial Day has had plenty of opportunities to fulfill its sorrowful role in our lives over the subsequent decades.
Labor Day, on the other hand, struck me as a sort of made-up day to give people one last chance to wear white and buy mattresses before plunging back into the dreary work world. I knew that officially it was supposed to honor the worker, but I didn’t take it seriously except for the part about not having to go to work. As has been the case about most things I once believed, I discovered later in life that I was being arrogant. The circumstances behind Labor Day, even if not anchored in a specific event, are every bit as real as war. In some ways, quite similar.
The Department of Labor succinctly defines the day: “Observed the first Monday in September, Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers.”
Reminding myself of its history this week has forced me to think, yet again, about the many parallels we currently find ourselves in with the glaring excesses of the Gilded Age—as in excesses of wealth for some and of misery for others. Union activism is growing, regulatory loopholes are wider than your kid’s Hula Hoop, and gaps between the haves and the have-nots have reached a level equal to some sort of new mathematical equation of infinity.
A 2022 study quoted in The Guardian noted that:
The wage gap between chief executives and workers at some of the US companies with the lowest-paid staff grew even wider in 2021, with CEOs making an average of $10.6m, while the median worker received $23,968.
That’s a ratio of 670-to-1, if you’re counting, and it’s not like it sprang up out of nowhere; it’s “up from 604-to-1 in 2020,” as noted by another article on the same study:
Despite a pandemic-era boom for low-wage workers, the hike in pay last year for a typical worker at the nation’s lowest-paying companies failed to keep up with the raises enjoyed by the chief executives at their firms. Moreover, at more than a third of the lowest-paying companies, the pay hike [in 2021] for a typical worker fell short of inflation, effectively amounting to a pay cut, the report said.
Consider this random factlet, from Wikipedia:
With the rapid growth and consolidation of large railroad systems after 1870, union organizations sprang up, covering the entire nation.
Replace “1870” with “the 2020s” and swap out “large railroad systems” with pretty much anything else you can think of—newspaper publishers, Internet communications providers, social media giants, streaming services, book publishers.
It’s true that we don’t work 16-hour days anymore. (Except that some of us do, even here is the U.S.A.: Visit the garment district in downtown L.A. sometime. Or consider the ever-available phone and laptop of the remote white-collar worker.) And it’s true that laws prohibit the most appalling of Dickensian working conditions of the Industrial Revolution that killed workers behind locked doors in windowless buildings when fires struck. But modern-day child labor is not only back but being codified into law, and the very presence of rising union efforts—along with the draconian exertions subsequently taken to snuff them out—testifies to the importance and power of labor rights for American workers.
I don’t scoff at the day anymore; I salute it.
But wait. Before stepping onto your soap box, you said something about poetry.
The first Secretary of the Department of Labor (which, incidentally, is almost two decades younger than Labor Day itself) was a poet. Amateur, but still. William Beachop Wilson was Scottish, the son of a coal miner. His first union efforts at the advanced age of 12 resulted in a paddling by a foreman that broke the strike, but young William wrote in his memoirs that “his argument had been forceful and effective, but it was applied to the wrong part of my anatomy to be permanently convincing.” Poetry in action.
On a happier and politics-free note: I’m not alone in believing that Labor Day is serious business, in every sense of the word. You can find online ideas and sample messages for Labor Day cards, and you can also buy a plethora of said cards.
My old friend Etsy has for sale lots of cards and invitations to Labor Day parties, and they get quite elaborate. They include “thank you cards” for people you pay (“Your speedy delivery and cheerful presence always bring a smile to our doorstep.” “Your compassion provides a beacon of hope and doesn’t go unnoticed.”)
And here is a bundled package. It offers trivia questions, flash cards, and word puzzles. Who knew? It also includes an 8.5x11 letter for a longer message.
There’s also a business-centric way to spread well-worded words on this day—by wishing a happy holiday for your employees, your clients, or the people you pay as an individual. I love that management has found a way to market via Labor Day messages.
Wordstream, a digital marketing firm, offers ideas for messages and greetings for your Labor Day cards to employees and clients. Categories for the former include “short-sweet”; “from the leader”; “inspiring”; and your company’s “core values.” For clients, you can select cards for business-to-business customers that are “fun” or “promotional.”
I confess the notion that management might send a card or memo to its employees and customers in honor of Labor Day never occurred to me. Despite its irony, I think it’s wonderful, and I’m going to start doing my own version as suggested by Wordstream, with cards for the folks who pick up my trash and recycling (in this heat!) and fix my leaky pipes and keep our vehicles humming along.
The same site offers good general advice on a “power words” page to help stimulate ideas for your own messages—essentially a fancy interactive thesaurus. Here’s an abbreviation of its counsel:
Think interesting, not impressive: Don’t replace a word to sound smarter or to speak louder. (Good advice in all writing.)
Think specificity: Oftentimes, the better word choice is not a fancier or hyperbolic version of that word, but something more specific.
Don’t force it. Plain language should be your base, with interesting words sprinkled in like accents.
Whatever your profession, and however you spend September 4 this year, I hope it gives you all you wish for the day, whether that is gratitude, a good party, or an afternoon nap. For me, I’ll raise a cup to the workers who have labored before me, and those to come.
Lagniappe: What else? A poem by William Beachop Wilson.
Blue Eyes
There’s an exquisite something about her,
Some undefinable grace
Of spirit or form, that without her
Dear presence about the place,
Sends the covetous heartaches thronging
Each other in wild surprise,
That I can not control the longing
To gaze in her sweet blue eyes.
Such eyes: In their limpid beauty,
So pleasant and strong and true,
Urging me on, when duty
Seems more than my strength can do.
I toil, and deem it a pleasure,
Yet, pray that God may devise
For me a lifetime of leisure
To gaze in her sweet blue eyes.
More about Wilson here.
Good research and reminders. Thank you.
Thanks for writing this, Annie. My sentiments exactly. I often think of the labor that went into building the houses and buildings of the early twentieth century that are in my neighborhood, and the tools and household items that were designed and manufactured so skillfully in that era.