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Debatable · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Labor Day was the beginning of workers having more rights
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. But curiously, there is a fierce
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  Speaker 1: debate as to who is actually responsible for its creation.
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  Speaker 1: The Central Labor Union of New York and New Jersey,
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  Speaker 1: or the CLU, formed in the year 1881. A year later,
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  Speaker 1: in 1882, the CLU held a large labor parade in
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  Speaker 1: New York City, attracting tens of thousands of participants. These
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  Speaker 1: were all workers who were going a day without pay,
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  Speaker 1: in solidarity with another, demanding a 40-hour workweek limit. At
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  Speaker 1: the time, they were required to work very long hours
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  Speaker 1: every day of the week. Two different men are said
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  Speaker 1: to have been responsible for this parade, and it's extra
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  Speaker 1: confusing because they have almost exactly the same name. One
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  Speaker 1: was Peter J. McGuire, and the other was Matthew McGuire,
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  Speaker 1: both from New Jersey, both heavily involved in the union.
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  Speaker 1: Peter was a carpenter, And Matthew was a machinist, which
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  Speaker 1: is someone who works with machines that shape metal. They
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  Speaker 1: had other differences, too. Peter was more of an opportunist
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  Speaker 1: who thought the union should try to get recognition through
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  Speaker 1: the two most powerful political parties, the Democrats and Republicans. Matthew,
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  Speaker 1: on the other hand, was a member of the Socialist Party,
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  Speaker 1: a smaller group who believed in workers joining together to
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  Speaker 1: get elected to office and to force the government to
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  Speaker 1: heavily regulate businesses. Matthew was the one who actually organized
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  Speaker 1: the parade. writing invitations to many smaller unions. He even
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  Speaker 1: wrote a message to local newspapers beforehand, making it clear
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  Speaker 1: that both union and non-union workers were invited. After the
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  Speaker 1: parade was a success, Matthew attended a CLU meeting where
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  Speaker 1: he called for a labor parade on the first Monday
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  Speaker 1: of every September thereafter. Peter spoke at the first parade,
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  Speaker 1: but that seems to be the extent of his involvement.
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  Speaker 1: And this is important because that parade is is often
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  Speaker 1: seen as the first Labor Day. Over the next few years,
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  Speaker 1: several more parades and walkouts took place across the country,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes turning violent when police or paid agitators intervened. In
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  Speaker 1: an effort to curb this violence, President Grover Cleveland officially
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  Speaker 1: recognized the first Monday in September as a national holiday
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  Speaker 1: by signing it into law in 1884. And thus, Labor
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  Speaker 1: Day was born. Now, Matthew Maguire wasn't at the signing ceremony,
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  Speaker 1: but Peter James Maguire was. And President Cleveland thanked him
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  Speaker 1: personally for his work in creating the day. People are
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  Speaker 1: split as to why this happened. Some believe that the
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  Speaker 1: president simply confused the two men because of their similar
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  Speaker 1: last names. Others believe that James and the head of
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  Speaker 1: the union, Samuel Gompers, actually conspired to cut Matthew out
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  Speaker 1: of the picture. And this conspiracy seems to have been
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  Speaker 1: real because just a few years later in 1897, James
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  Speaker 1: Maguire took credit for first suggesting the idea of Labor
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  Speaker 1: Day in an article that he wrote for a union newspaper.
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  Speaker 1: And his claim stuck. Over the next several decades, James
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  Speaker 1: was credited more and more often as the creator of
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  Speaker 1: Labor Day. And this likely happened for two reasons. One,
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  Speaker 1: Matthew wasn't that interested in taking credit because the socialists
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  Speaker 1: saw Labor Day as as a token measure that didn't
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  Speaker 1: really address the demand for the 40-hour workweek. And for another,
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  Speaker 1: socialism only became less and less popular in the United
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  Speaker 1: States to the point where it was practically outlawed in
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  Speaker 1: the 1950s. Fewer people than ever at the national level
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  Speaker 1: wanted to give Matthew credit. But as those views relaxed
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  Speaker 1: in the 60s, researchers began to uncover more and more
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  Speaker 1: evidence to support Matthew as the founder of Labor Day.
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  Speaker 1: There was a newspaper article from Pennsylvania in 1894 saying
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  Speaker 1: that he should have been given the pen that the
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  Speaker 1: president used to sign the bill into law. The article
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  Speaker 1: argued that he had done the most to make Labor
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  Speaker 1: Day happen. And most damning of all was the revelation
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  Speaker 1: that Peter James Maguire's 1897 article, the one where he
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  Speaker 1: took credit, was provably untrue. He claimed to have suggested
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  Speaker 1: the idea at a previous union meeting, but there was
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  Speaker 1: absolutely no record of a meeting on the day that
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  Speaker 1: he cited. In the end, No one's going out of
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  Speaker 1: their way to officially give one man credit over another.
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  Speaker 1: It's hard to be 100% sure what the truth is,
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  Speaker 1: and it doesn't affect the holiday and how it's celebrated.
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  Speaker 1: And sadly enough, these political differences are still in play
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  Speaker 1: in the United States today. Both Matthew and James, who
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  Speaker 1: worked in their time to bring workers together, might find
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  Speaker 1: it curious that although we still have Labor Day, we
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  Speaker 1: also still have plenty of political disagreements. Take it from me,
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  Speaker 1: every well-run podcast needs to make use of productivity management software.
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  Speaker 1: And no, this isn't an ad. It's just praise for
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  Speaker 1: the power of centralized information. But throughout most of history,
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  Speaker 1: people didn't have software to rely on. They had to
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  Speaker 1: come up with various creative ways to store information in
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  Speaker 1: a simple, centralized location. The most curious example of this,
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  Speaker 1: in history, comes from France in the 17th century, when
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  Speaker 1: Louis the Sun King was looking to exert his ego
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  Speaker 1: across his kingdom. But he needed a financial genius to
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  Speaker 1: help him finally get France organized enough to where the
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  Speaker 1: king actually got his due. Jean-Baptiste Colbert waited for years
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  Speaker 1: to take his place in the French court. In 1651,
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  Speaker 1: he saw his opportunity. The chief advisor to the young
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  Speaker 1: King Louis XIV was a man named Cardinal Mazarin, and
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  Speaker 1: he was exiled from the court for angering the nobles
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  Speaker 1: by trying to consolidate the king's power. Away from Paris,
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  Speaker 1: Mazarin would need someone to carry messages back and forth
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  Speaker 1: for him, and so Jean-Baptiste quickly secured the position. Mazarin
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  Speaker 1: soon realized that Jean-Baptiste was absolutely meticulous. No detail escaped
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  Speaker 1: his notice. His skill with accounting in particular was unparalleled.
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  Speaker 1: Mazarin could make use of this, too, and when his
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  Speaker 1: exile ended, he introduced Jean-Baptiste to the king. By 1661,
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  Speaker 1: the now-grown-up King Louis XIV trusted Jean-Baptiste enough to let
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  Speaker 1: him investigate the king's then-superintendent of finance, Nicolas Fouquet. The
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  Speaker 1: king wanted to leverage the country's wealth to build his
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  Speaker 1: massive palace of Versailles, but France's tax system was quite
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  Speaker 1: a mess. Jean-Baptiste found that Fouquet was was skimming a
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  Speaker 1: significant amount of the tax revenue for himself. And when
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  Speaker 1: he showed the king the vast estate that Fouquet had
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  Speaker 1: built with this new wealth, Louis had Fouquet thrown in
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  Speaker 1: jail for the rest of his life. Jean-Baptiste happily took
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  Speaker 1: over his position. But he soon found that it wasn't easy.
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  Speaker 1: Louis was the quintessential playboy king in every sense. He
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  Speaker 1: wanted to spend his time hunting, dancing, and bedding women.
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  Speaker 1: He wanted his ministers to say yes to his every whim,
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  Speaker 1: and handle all of the dirty details. But at the
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  Speaker 1: same time, he wanted to make the decisions. He wanted
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  Speaker 1: absolute authority. So Jean-Baptiste had to find a quick, easy
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  Speaker 1: way to present information to the king and get yes
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  Speaker 1: or no answers. To this end, he commissioned a series
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  Speaker 1: of small, golden notebooks that could easily fit in the
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  Speaker 1: king's pocket. And then he filled them with immaculately organized information.
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  Speaker 1: The books look like something from 100 years ago, not
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  Speaker 1: nearly 400 years ago. The penmanship is simple, clean, and stylish,
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  Speaker 1: with perfectly drawn tables showing the king how much money
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  Speaker 1: was coming in from across France. Jean-Baptiste even had the
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  Speaker 1: notebooks decorated with elaborate illustrations, you know, to keep the
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  Speaker 1: king interested. Louis loved the system too, and he gave
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  Speaker 1: Jean-Baptiste more and more power because of it, until he
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  Speaker 1: was running every significant economic institution in France. He used
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  Speaker 1: this power to regulate the French economy and down to
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  Speaker 1: the last inch, making sure that tax collectors collected the
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  Speaker 1: exact right amount from peasants, merchants, and the non-noble wealthy
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  Speaker 1: class as well. He built a large navy and set
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  Speaker 1: up a massive French colony in Canada to begin importing
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  Speaker 1: more resources. He taxed imports from other countries and granted
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  Speaker 1: tax cuts and monopolies to major French corporations. Much of
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  Speaker 1: this worked to pull France out of the Middle Ages
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  Speaker 1: and into the Enlightenment era. Now, it must be said
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of these reforms were pretty ruthless. For example,
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  Speaker 1: Jean-Baptiste forbade French workers from leaving the country and forced
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  Speaker 1: them to work unpaid overtime. He also wrote the Code
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  Speaker 1: Noir that codified the enslavement of Africans for work in
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  Speaker 1: French colonies and stripped them of almost any rights. All
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  Speaker 1: of these changes, although they cemented France as a world power,
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  Speaker 1: were exclusively in service to the king's wealth, and he
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  Speaker 1: used his money to build Versailles, and several other indulgent
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  Speaker 1: royal buildings. And it was all accomplished through the power
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  Speaker 1: of these little golden notebooks. So whatever you want to
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  Speaker 1: do in your life, whether it's build a country or
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  Speaker 1: make a podcast, make sure your team keeps all of
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  Speaker 1: its information in a central, well-organized place. It can help
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  Speaker 1: you accomplish great things. Just be careful that your ambition
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  Speaker 1: doesn't grow too great. Curiously enough, all of Jean-Baptiste's policies
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  Speaker 1: to increase the power of the king contributed to the
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  Speaker 1: discontent that caused the French Revolution decades later. Those little
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  Speaker 1: golden books that paved the way for Louis XIV's palace
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  Speaker 1: also paved the way for the removal of his great-great-great-grandson's head.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me, Aaron Manke,
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
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  Speaker 1: Grim & Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it
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  Speaker 1: over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities. You'll also find a link
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  Speaker 1: to the official Cabinet of Curiosities hardcover book, available in
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  Speaker 1: bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobooks. And
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  Speaker 1: if you're looking for an ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon.
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  Speaker 1: It's all the same stories, but without the interruption for
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  Speaker 1: a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over
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  Speaker 1: at patreon.com slash grim and mild. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.