Here’s The Real Reason Americans Don’t Wear White After Labor Day

These days, Labor Day traditions tend to revolve around sports, store discounts, alfresco dining, and parades. For many people, the holiday is a great opportunity to make new memories with friends and family. However, its origins are perhaps even more honorable, as it was established to celebrate America’s workers.

Still, the societal aspects of Labor Day are often forgotten in modern times. Instead, the holiday has other facets that have endured. For instance, Labor Day weekend is generally thought of as the unofficial finale of summer. And with that comes a whole host of extra meanings, which historically includes why people should no longer wear white.

No one knows for sure who came up with the concept of Labor Day. Nonetheless, it’s often speculated that a U.S. union chief named Peter J. McGuire gave rise to the idea. In 1881, McGuire established the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

After all, people depended heavily on unions in order to be kept safe and paid at their laborious jobs. Workplace conditions were a huge problem back then, especially if you were considered to be an unskilled laborer. At that time, lots of Americans worked daily shifts of 12 hours every day of the week.

In some cases, laborers put their lives on the line every day in order to keep their cities in working order. Given the conditions the average U.S. worker endured, then, it’s easy to see why McGuire thought they should be honored. A date for a celebration was set for September 5, 1882, when 10,000 people marched through the streets of New York.

The gathering in New York is now thought of as the first-ever Labor Day parade. And while the idea of a holiday dedicated to laborers sounds like a no-brainer, some employers weren't thrilled. Since the event wasn't yet a national day off, workers who turned up to march faced the prospect of being disciplined or even fired by their employers.

When McGuire picked a day for his momentous Labor Day parade, he selected one that fell around the midpoint between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, two distinctly American holidays. However, as his idea for an annual celebration of workers gained traction, the earliest Monday in September stuck as the date of observance.

As the Labor Day movement broadened in reach, it did so state by state. Oregon was the first to legally recognize the holiday, doing so in 1887. However, the state marked the occasion on the first Saturday of June. It wasn’t until later, in 1887, that the original official September Labor Days were marked.

On the first Monday of September in 1887, Massachusetts, Colorado, New Jersey, and New York celebrated their first officially recognized Labor Days. In the Big Apple, the workers’ parade was apparently particularly big. And despite discord regarding the influence of socialist organizations on the event, the city came alive.

According to reports, that first official Labor Day in New York saw taverns, stores, and parks filled to the brim with people. The New York Times wrote in a contemporary account of the holiday, “The barrooms were never more resplendent. Liquidly, the first legal celebration of Labor Day may go down to history as an unqualified success.”

In the following years, other states passed laws to make Labor Day an official holiday. But it would take some time – and even some bloodshed – for it to become a national holiday. It was, in fact, the Pullman strike of 1894 that seems to have provided the incentive in this regard.

The Pullman strike started the way most strikes do: with workers being undermined by their employers. The strike was called after the Pullman Palace Car Company cut its employees’ pay but didn’t reduce rental charges for the company-owned residences in which they lived.

The industrial action of the Pullman strike also sparked wildcat walkouts. In other words, unionized workers started to go on strike without getting the support — or even the permission — from the union. In all, tens of thousands of employees eventually put down their tools and stepped onto the picket line.

And, as we’ve heard, it was in the midst of the Pullman strike crisis that Labor Day became a national holiday. President Grover Cleveland passed the legislation in June 1894, although some observers believe he did so for his own gain.

One benefit of establishing a new Labor Day national holiday was that such a celebration would take the focus away from May Day. What's May Day, you ask? Well, since 1884 the labor movement had been using May 1st as a day of industrial action to demand reduced working hours.

Another reason that some Americans were skeptical about celebrating May Day was down to the events of the Haymarket affair, which occurred in May 1886. It was then that an explosive device was detonated during a Chicago protest demanding reduced working hours.

The Haymarket affair was reported all across the planet. After all, the fact that people had lost their lives in pursuit of safer working conditions made their argument even more compelling. Eight protesters were ultimately found guilty as a result of the episode, half of whom lost their lives in the gallows.

So, while May Day would come to be celebrated as International Workers’ Day around the world, it has never been recognized in the U.S. Instead, working people are celebrated on Labor Day. And as the labor movement has waned in recent decades (at least in some communities), the holiday has become more about spending time with family and friends.

Labor Day is considered to be summer’s finale for a number of reasons. Many people take their summer vacations to coincide with the holiday, for example, after which the school year begins. It's one last summertime hurrah with their families while the weather is decent.

It's a holiday that celebrates both beginnings and ends, not to mention the serious sides (workers' rights) and the more lighthearted sides (hot dogs). Yes, another lesser known significance of Labor Day is that the holiday marks the conclusion of the hot dog season.

And yes, Labor Day is also a date of significance within the fashion world. Traditionally, the holiday was the last day of the year where it was considered "appropriate" to wear white. After that, sartorial rules dictated that any clothing in that hue should be packed away in favor of darker colors.

Like many societal dos and don'ts, the no-white-after-Labor-Day rule appears to have taken form in the early 20th century. And by the 1950s, the guideline was adopted by the middle classes, who were unbending in their approach to appropriate dress.

So, how did ditching your white clothes after Labor Day become a thing? Well, the rule is actually linked to the holiday’s status as the unofficial end of summer. The wearing of white, it would seem, should be reserved for the warmer months only. To do so at any other time of year was once a major fashion faux pas.

In a time before modern cooling technology, donning white clothes was one of the only things people could do in a bid to keep cool in the warmer months. Speaking to Time magazine in 2019, etiquette columnist Judith Martin explained, “Not only was there no air-conditioning, but people did not go around in T-shirts and halter tops.

So, wearing white clothes was seen as a stylish way to keep cool. However, since the fashion agenda was mainly set in temperate cities such as New York, warm patches were usually confined to the summer months.

Charlie Scheips wrote about this phenomenon in the 2007 book American Fashion. He explained, “All the magazines and tastemakers were centered in big cities, usually in northern climates that had seasons.” So, while the fashion editors favored white to keep them comfortable through summer, the color was impractical in other seasons – particularly when rain was involved.

And if tastemakers in New York were packing away their white clothes at the end of summer, other followers of fashion – no matter where they lived in the U.S. – were expected to do the same. While this explanation sounds plausible, when it comes to the subtle art of dressing, it seems that things are a little more complex.

Valerie Steele is the director of New York’s Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and she seems to cast doubt over the theory that people were encouraged not to wear white after Labor Day. Would people really suffer through stiflingly-hot months in hot clothing just because the color was impractical in northern winters?

Instead, some historians have speculated that the rule about not wearing white after Labor Day has more symbolic origins than practical ones. That’s because white was the color of choice when well-heeled Americans left the city for prolonged periods during the summer; think flowing white linens and tailored white trousers.

White clothes, it seems, were a tonic to the drab everyday life most working people experienced in urban environments. As Scheips explained to Time, “If you look at any photograph of any city in America in the 1930s, you’ll see people in dark clothes.”

With Labor Day bringing the U.S. summer to its unofficial conclusion, most vacationers headed home, packed up their white clothes, and returned to the daily grind. They restocked their wardrobes with heavy, dark garments — just in time for the colder months to come.

So for a while, it appeared that people naturally ditched their white clothes after Labor Day. But it wasn’t until the 1950s – and the rise of the middle class – that it seemed to become a concrete stipulation. At that time, proper etiquette was considered an easy way for the long-standing establishment to distinguish itself from the nouveau riche.

However, Martin didn’t agree that the no-white-after-Labor-Day rule was set up to keep the traditional elites apart from those with new money. “There are always people who want to attribute everything in etiquette to snobbery,” she stated.

It's possible that everyone, regardless of wealth or status, realized it was needlessly restricting to only wear white during the summer months. Perhaps there was an unspoken agreement to do away with the so-called "rule" in favor of comfort. Either way, the origin of the Labor Day rule remains unclear.

For instance, even as far back as the 1920s, designer and style icon Coco Chanel wore white no matter the season. Bronwyn Cosgrave, the writer of The Complete History of Costume & Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day, shed light on this '20s-era risk taker.

Some memorable fashion moments from recent times include Marion Cotillard receiving her Oscar in 2008 while wearing an off-white gown. Moreover, Michelle Obama chose to don the color at her partner’s presidential ball in January 2009. It wasn't summer for either of these events, and neither of these women were about to walk down the aisle, either.

In any case, as the 20th century passed it seemed that fewer and fewer people adhered to the no-white-after-Labor-Day rule anyway. Indeed, the shade has been worn in all seasons for decades. And in 2004, wearing the color all year-round was approved by Emily Post in her influential guide Etiquette.

So, as the Labor Day rule has fallen out of fashion, even the preservers of American style rules have seemingly relaxed their stances. Scheips told Time that he “would never be caught dead wearing a white suit after Labor Day.” However, he stressed that he reserved no judgment for those who do, adding, “You don’t have to be a fascist about it.”