Labor Day has been around for a surprisingly long time, longer than Mother’s Day, longer than Father’s Day, and almost as long as the official celebration of Washington’s Birthday.

What’s changed since the first local Labor Day parade, in New York in 1882, is the very nature of labor. Go searching for Labor Day history  on the Department of Labor Web site, for instance  and you invariably come across a quotation from one of the founders of the American Federation of Labor, Peter McGuire.

Labor Day, he said, was meant to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

There is not so much delving and carving these days, and nature doesn’t seem quite as rude as it once did. Labor Day has expanded well beyond the realms of organized labor, and what was once a “workingmen’s” holiday is now a respite for nearly everyone with a Monday job.