Debatable

0:04Speaker 1:Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Labor Day was the beginning of workers having more rights in the United States. But curiously, there is a fierce debate as to who is actually responsible for its creation.

0:47Speaker 1:The Central Labor Union of New York and New Jersey, or the CLU, formed in the year 1881. A year later, in 1882, the CLU held a large labor parade in New York City, attracting tens of thousands of participants. These were all workers who were going a day without pay, in solidarity with another, demanding a 40-hour workweek limit. At the time, they were required to work very long hours every day of the week. Two different men are said to have been responsible for this parade, and it's extra confusing because they have almost exactly the same name. One was Peter J. McGuire, and the other was Matthew McGuire, both from New Jersey, both heavily involved in the union.

1:32Speaker 1:Peter was a carpenter, And Matthew was a machinist, which is someone who works with machines that shape metal. They had other differences, too. Peter was more of an opportunist who thought the union should try to get recognition through the two most powerful political parties, the Democrats and Republicans. Matthew, on the other hand, was a member of the Socialist Party, a smaller group who believed in workers joining together to get elected to office and to force the government to heavily regulate businesses. Matthew was the one who actually organized the parade. writing invitations to many smaller unions. He even wrote a message to local newspapers beforehand, making it clear that both union and non-union workers were invited. After the parade was a success, Matthew attended a CLU meeting where he called for a labor parade on the first Monday of every September thereafter. Peter spoke at the first parade, but that seems to be the extent of his involvement.

2:30Speaker 1:And this is important because that parade is is often seen as the first Labor Day. Over the next few years, several more parades and walkouts took place across the country, sometimes turning violent when police or paid agitators intervened. In an effort to curb this violence, President Grover Cleveland officially recognized the first Monday in September as a national holiday by signing it into law in 1884. And thus, Labor Day was born. Now, Matthew Maguire wasn't at the signing ceremony, but Peter James Maguire was. And President Cleveland thanked him personally for his work in creating the day. People are split as to why this happened. Some believe that the president simply confused the two men because of their similar last names. Others believe that James and the head of the union, Samuel Gompers, actually conspired to cut Matthew out of the picture. And this conspiracy seems to have been real because just a few years later in 1897, James Maguire took credit for first suggesting the idea of Labor Day in an article that he wrote for a union newspaper.

3:34Speaker 1:And his claim stuck. Over the next several decades, James was credited more and more often as the creator of Labor Day. And this likely happened for two reasons. One, Matthew wasn't that interested in taking credit because the socialists saw Labor Day as as a token measure that didn't really address the demand for the 40-hour workweek. And for another, socialism only became less and less popular in the United States to the point where it was practically outlawed in the 1950s. Fewer people than ever at the national level wanted to give Matthew credit. But as those views relaxed in the 60s, researchers began to uncover more and more evidence to support Matthew as the founder of Labor Day.

4:13Speaker 1:There was a newspaper article from Pennsylvania in 1894 saying that he should have been given the pen that the president used to sign the bill into law. The article argued that he had done the most to make Labor Day happen. And most damning of all was the revelation that Peter James Maguire's 1897 article, the one where he took credit, was provably untrue. He claimed to have suggested the idea at a previous union meeting, but there was absolutely no record of a meeting on the day that he cited. In the end, No one's going out of their way to officially give one man credit over another.

4:49Speaker 1:It's hard to be 100% sure what the truth is, and it doesn't affect the holiday and how it's celebrated. And sadly enough, these political differences are still in play in the United States today. Both Matthew and James, who worked in their time to bring workers together, might find it curious that although we still have Labor Day, we also still have plenty of political disagreements. Take it from me, every well-run podcast needs to make use of productivity management software.

5:30Speaker 1:And no, this isn't an ad. It's just praise for the power of centralized information. But throughout most of history, people didn't have software to rely on. They had to come up with various creative ways to store information in a simple, centralized location. The most curious example of this, in history, comes from France in the 17th century, when Louis the Sun King was looking to exert his ego across his kingdom. But he needed a financial genius to help him finally get France organized enough to where the king actually got his due. Jean-Baptiste Colbert waited for years to take his place in the French court. In 1651, he saw his opportunity. The chief advisor to the young King Louis XIV was a man named Cardinal Mazarin, and he was exiled from the court for angering the nobles by trying to consolidate the king's power. Away from Paris, Mazarin would need someone to carry messages back and forth for him, and so Jean-Baptiste quickly secured the position. Mazarin soon realized that Jean-Baptiste was absolutely meticulous. No detail escaped his notice. His skill with accounting in particular was unparalleled.

6:42Speaker 1:Mazarin could make use of this, too, and when his exile ended, he introduced Jean-Baptiste to the king. By 1661, the now-grown-up King Louis XIV trusted Jean-Baptiste enough to let him investigate the king's then-superintendent of finance, Nicolas Fouquet. The king wanted to leverage the country's wealth to build his massive palace of Versailles, but France's tax system was quite a mess. Jean-Baptiste found that Fouquet was was skimming a significant amount of the tax revenue for himself. And when he showed the king the vast estate that Fouquet had built with this new wealth, Louis had Fouquet thrown in jail for the rest of his life. Jean-Baptiste happily took over his position. But he soon found that it wasn't easy.

7:27Speaker 1:Louis was the quintessential playboy king in every sense. He wanted to spend his time hunting, dancing, and bedding women. He wanted his ministers to say yes to his every whim, and handle all of the dirty details. But at the same time, he wanted to make the decisions. He wanted absolute authority. So Jean-Baptiste had to find a quick, easy way to present information to the king and get yes or no answers. To this end, he commissioned a series of small, golden notebooks that could easily fit in the king's pocket. And then he filled them with immaculately organized information.

8:03Speaker 1:The books look like something from 100 years ago, not nearly 400 years ago. The penmanship is simple, clean, and stylish, with perfectly drawn tables showing the king how much money was coming in from across France. Jean-Baptiste even had the notebooks decorated with elaborate illustrations, you know, to keep the king interested. Louis loved the system too, and he gave Jean-Baptiste more and more power because of it, until he was running every significant economic institution in France. He used this power to regulate the French economy and down to the last inch, making sure that tax collectors collected the exact right amount from peasants, merchants, and the non-noble wealthy class as well. He built a large navy and set up a massive French colony in Canada to begin importing more resources. He taxed imports from other countries and granted tax cuts and monopolies to major French corporations. Much of this worked to pull France out of the Middle Ages and into the Enlightenment era. Now, it must be said that a lot of these reforms were pretty ruthless. For example, Jean-Baptiste forbade French workers from leaving the country and forced

9:11Speaker 1:them to work unpaid overtime. He also wrote the Code Noir that codified the enslavement of Africans for work in French colonies and stripped them of almost any rights. All of these changes, although they cemented France as a world power, were exclusively in service to the king's wealth, and he used his money to build Versailles, and several other indulgent royal buildings. And it was all accomplished through the power of these little golden notebooks. So whatever you want to do in your life, whether it's build a country or make a podcast, make sure your team keeps all of its information in a central, well-organized place. It can help you accomplish great things. Just be careful that your ambition doesn't grow too great. Curiously enough, all of Jean-Baptiste's policies to increase the power of the king contributed to the discontent that caused the French Revolution decades later. Those little golden books that paved the way for Louis XIV's palace also paved the way for the removal of his great-great-great-grandson's head.

10:17Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim & Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people who make it over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobooks. And if you're looking for an ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon.

10:49Speaker 1:It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at patreon.com slash grim and mild. And until next time, stay curious.