Adult Swim: Historical Corner: Labor Day

Francis Labor, known to friends as "Suicide Brown"

1875

The first Labor Day was observed in 1875 by Francis Labor, an unemployed brick technician from Cleveland determined to "give (him)self a reason to subsist through at least one more otherwise pointless year as human detritus on this miserable, hardscrabble ball of dirt and water." It was a poorly attended event and following Frances's subsequent death of self-imposed dust-suffocation, America would not see another Labor Day for five years.

1882

Bathrooms were uncommon, often replaced by "urine reclamation rooms" like this one.

The second Labor Day, often thought of as the more-well-known or "actual" Labor Day came in 1882 in Boston, when members of the city's least-famous Waistcoatery's (then called "wistcotteries") marketing team decided to have an all-day, all-night, and then all-the-next-day wistcotting tournament for their factory workers, who were already working long shifts doing nothing but wistcotting.

Typical stairwell chairman monitoring apparatus

The tournament became a public-relations nightmare when Burfle Sid-Burthington ("Burfy") had a mental breakdown and used his wistcotting scythe to behead anyone within swinging distance. Within one hour, he was able to behead an entire floor full of employees before being noticed by the stairwell chairman through one of the few "eek windows," which were slats incorporated into the stairwell buttresses to allow "airflow enough for at least one floor full of wistcotters." according to the building's safety code manual.

The stairwell chairman, a Mr. Forthingright Shindlecrow, then locked all other floors and retired to the bottom-most level, where he exited into the street and promptly set the building on fire.

Not only were a great, unrecorded number of laborers killed, but so too were three reporters from the Boston Trisention, Boston's biggest newspaper at the time, who had been there to cover the tournament. Two had been in the basement chicory spa at the time getting medicinal peat salve tonic rubbings while the third was in the guest lavatory taking his daily constitutional.

It was at this time that the marketing department decided to host the first "Burned-Up Labourers Day of Mourning for Reporters and Hot Dog Eating Contest," which was later shortened to "Labor Day."

1911

Labor Day suffered a setback in 1911, when a sub-committee of the Coopers Guild specializing in rundlets and puncheons tried to add a "Come-Get-Punched-in-the-Rundlet" rundlet-punching booth, claiming they had official "Labor-Day Permission." President Taft was halfway to canceling the holiday permanently when it was discovered that "Labor-Day Permission" was a made-up idea.

1925

Copper rubbings depicting the fictitious event, like the image above, could be found in a number of men's copper-rubbings bi-monthlies

Labor Day got a big boost in 1925 when the broadcasting of the "Labor Day Champaign Corset Model-T Posedown" brought thousands of listeners to their radio to hear radio announcer Melman Vern spout vivid descriptions of flashy cars and women's nipples peaking through champaign-soaked corsets. Vern was later fired when a privately hired team of Pinkertons exposed the whole show to be nothing more than "a three-day-whisky-bender fever dream Vern came up with on the way to the studio." Despite its marred credibility, the event is still widely credited as the first Labor Day Wet T-Shirt Contest.

1930's

Due to common hallucinations, the practice was known as "getting pursued by the starfish."

During the Great Depression, Labor Day became a bacchanalian event for many looking to escape the bleak hardships of the time. Shoe leather soaked in brine and ethylene, applied directly to the naked eye was a party favorite.

1950's

Parades and public speaking gained popularity during the 50's, when communities collectively decided that this would be the decade most referenced as a time before everyone started ruining everything and it should be celebrated with parades and public boastery. The saying "back in my day" was impatiently rushed into the vernacular before it made sense and used to describe events that had just happened, were currently happening or were about to happen. The phrase gained plausibility in the year 1960.

1960's & 70's

A couple of young hippies enjoying a communal lack of awareness.

During the 1960's and 70's, the hippie movement re-interpreted Labor Day to fit their vision of peace and happiness, turning it into a festival of nudity, drugs and doe-eyed naivete. The machinist union in Delver, Minnesota reacted with their own counter-festival, calling it the "Hippies Aren't A Part of My Daily Life and I Suspect That They Get More Attention Than Their Small Numbers Would Otherwise Dictate Because They're Frequently Naked and High" festival.

1980's & 90's

Sweaters and hair happened in the 80's and 90's.

The 1980's and 90's had Labor Days as well. Let's not talk about those.

2000's

In the 2000's (or "naught's" as nobody calls them), the relaxation of laws surrounding the use of consumer fireworks led to a surge in small-scale "driveway gatherings" around the nation. Most psychologists concur that the act of setting something on fire for a minimally rewarding display of lights and sound is the brain's subconscious way of reminding workers that entertainment is overrated and that even if the job that consumes most of your life is an unfulfilling suck on your energy and mental health, it's about on-par with the "fun" part and slightly more dignified.

Today

Example of a Cat that makes you laugh audibly.

In modern times, the popularity of the Internet and Social Media has had a wide-sweeping effect on Labor Day. The hashtag #LaborDay is expected to get more than eleven million vital tweets this year alone. Wall posts regarding the inconsequential minutiae of Labor Day revellers' Labor Days are considered incalculable by statisticians. The flash-mob craze is looking to have one last Labor Day sendoff this year, a stunt tentatively titled "Strangers in a Mall Dance Your Last Shred of Good Will Far, Far Into the Ground."