Special to The Desert Sun

Tomorrow is Labor Day. Unlike almost every other American holiday that honors a particular person or event, this one celebrates an idea. It began in the late 19th century with the origination of the American labor movement and over the years has become a traditional end-of-summer landmark.

While plenty of people work on Labor Day, many others have the day off. In any event, it's a historic day that we often take for granted, so today's column is a look back at why and how it came about.

It turns out that New York City was the birthplace of Labor Day, and the date was Sept. 5, 1882. There were only about 1.2 million residents in the five boroughs at that time, but it was much more of an industrial city than it is today. Factories of all stripes were everywhere,

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