First Labor Day parade, September 5,1882--U S Dept. of Labor image Where was your laborer ancestor on September 5, 1882? If he was in New York City, he may have marched in the first Labor Day parade. A brief timeline of the Industrial Revolution shows us the progression from home production to mass production in factories. Factories needed workers and workers needed residences near the factories, thus cities grew. Many of our young, penniless immigrant ancestors found their first occupation in East Coast factories. Factory workers developed unions in an effort to improve working conditions but it also resulted in a social network of sorts. By the 1880s, concern for workers was more evident and the first "Labor Day" was suggested. On the morning of September 5, 1882, a crowd of spectators filled the sidewalks of lower Manhattan near city hall and along Broadway. They had come early, well before the Labor Day parade marchers, to claim the best vantage points from which to...