Tag Archives: Peter J. McGuire
Peter J. McGuire Memorial Included In National Historic Register
Earlier today, U.S. Congressman Donald Norcross announced that the Peter J. McGuire memorial and gravesite is now part of the National Register of Historic Places.
Annual Labor Day Wreath Laying Ceremony Held August 31
Labor leaders, public officials and members of the local business community will be on hand Aug. 31 for a wreath laying ceremony at the Peter J. McGuire Memorial, located at Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken.
Labor leaders, public officials and members of the local community will gather in Pennsauken on Friday, Aug. 31 to celebrate workers across our country at the annual AFL-CIO wreath-laying ceremony. This annual event has been held for over 120 years at the Peter J. McGuire Memorial, located at Arlington Cemetery, 1620 Cove Rd., Pennsauken, where the labor leader and “Father of Labor Day” is interred. The ceremony begins at 11:00 a.m.
Annual Labor Day Wreath Laying Ceremony Held September 1
Labor leaders, public officials and members of the local business community will be on hand Sept. 1 for a wreath laying ceremony at the Peter J. McGuire Memorial, located at Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken.
Labor leaders, public officials and members of the local community will gather in Pennsauken on Friday, Sept. 1 to celebrate workers across our country at the annual AFL-CIO wreath-laying ceremony. This annual event has been held for over 120 years at the Peter J. McGuire Memorial, located at Arlington Cemetery, 1620 Cove Rd., Pennsauken, where the labor leader and “Father of Labor Day” is interred. The ceremony begins at 11:00 a.m.
McGuire is known for championing important labor causes that are considered commonplace today, such as the 40-hour work week, days off on the weekend, and child labor laws. His most famous achievement, remains an idea he proposed in May 1882, at the New York Central Labor Union, for a day to be set aside to celebrate the American worker and to celebrate the achievements of the labor movement. In New York that September, the first Labor Day parade and celebration was held. In 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed the law declaring Labor Day as a national holiday.
The current memorial in Pennsauken was sponsored and built by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and dedicated in 1952. In 2016, officials and VIPs were on hand to dedicate a new “welcome wall” to help mark the location of the Peter J. McGuire Memorial.
For more information about Peter J. McGuire and his accomplishments, be sure to read the 2015 article written by Robert Fisher-Hughes, AAP columnist and amateur historian, which can be found here.
The Father of Labor Day And His Pennsauken Monument
By Robert Fisher-Hughes, AAP Columnist and Amateur Historian
In Arlington Cemetery in Pennsauken, N.J. there stands two monuments to Peter J. McGuire. The older of the two marks the resting place of the man and his family, but includes the inscription “Labor Omnia Vincit,” labor conquers all. When this monument was erected in 1906, any truth in that motto was largely due to the life’s work of the man so honored, and to a handful of his close colleagues in the labor movement.
