Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits - Music for Labor Day

Today we are playing music for Labor Day in the United States, and it's interesting to look at the origins of this holiday: much of the rest of the world recognises May Day (May 1st) instead as the day to celebrate labour.

According to Wikipedia, "The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City. It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labour movement as a top political priority. The September date was chosen as Cleveland was concerned that aligning an American labour holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket massacre. All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday.

"The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday: A street parade to exhibit to the public 'the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations,' followed by a festival for the workers and their families. This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civil significance of the holiday."

Today we'll be playing a collection of workers' songs going back a hundred years, primarily sourced from Britain and the United States, including a significant collection of archive recordings, such as The Land Song, a Georgist and later Liberal Party song from the 19th century, and recordings issued by Lansbury's Labour Weekly in 1927 (British Labour Party MP George Lansbury is seen here, addressing a meeting). In additional we will hear a number of protest songs including some unique material from the Women's Suffrage movement in the US.

Topic Records are particularly well-represented in today's programme: this year they celebrate 70 years with a multi-CD set called Three Score Years And Ten, some of which we'll hear today. We would like to have included the Topic archive recording of Edward Carpenter's England Arise for choir, but all we could find is a solo piano and vocal version (one of the Lansbury recordings above), and the Vaughan Williams choral version which has a very different tune. Can you suggest a source?

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme now at http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in; outside the US, tune to http://main.radioriel.org in-world, or simply click here if your browser is configured to launch a player automatically.

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.