A Roundup of Labor Day Resources for Teachers

Labor Day, while often signaling an unofficial end to summer and start of a new school year, can also bring an opportunity for students to ask questions about and examine the relationship between workers and society. In this spirit, we’re highlighting a range of resources that teachers might use for teaching and learning about Labor Day and beyond.

Background on Labor Day 

Check out these resources for helpful background about Labor Day and the larger movement for worker’s rights in United States history. These articles and essays can support a teacher’s own understanding of labor issues and give students reputable secondary sources for building knowledge about the scope of labor issues, events, and achievements.

• The First Monday of September
• Today in History: 8-Hour Work Day
• This Month in Business History
  • Feb – Flint Michigan Sit Down Strike
  • Mar – Triangle Shirtwaist Fire 
  • Jun – Fair Labor Standards Act Signed 
  • Dec – Formation of the American Federation of Labor

Teacher resources

This selection of teacher resources explores different angles of labor history and its impact on society. Teachers can use these materials to help students examine a range of issues including child labor, unions, Progressive Era reforms, and New Deal programs. Each resource uses primary sources to show how individuals and groups have organized to improve working conditions, fight for protections, and influence labor laws and policies.

• Teaching with the Library Blog Posts
  • Progressive Era Issues and Reform Strategies 
  • Extending the Child Labor Primary Source Set
  • Historical Newspapers and an Early Labor Movement 
• Primary Source Sets
  • Child Labor 
  • The Industrial Revolution in the United States
  • The New Deal 
• United States History Timeline
  • Work in the Late 19th Century 
  • Cities During the Progressive Era
  • Labor Unions During the Great Depression 

The Library’s collections

Teachers could use items from the Library’s online collections to build and complement their own lessons and units. Students might construct their own questions about an aspect of labor movements in the U.S. and go to these collections to conduct research. Each collection includes an “about” section as well as brief articles and essays. These supports help orient a user to the collection and inspire ways to get started. 

• National Child Labor Committee Collection
• American Life Histories: Manuscripts from Federal Writers Project
• Labor Day Topics in Chronicling America
• American Federation of Labor Collection
• Songs of Unionization, Labor Strikes, Child Labor

We hope you find some of these suggested resources helpful. We’d love to hear how you incorporated these or other items from the Library into your teaching. Drop us a line in the comments!

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