Essential Folk Songs for Labor Day
Photo by Jack Vartoogian
August 31, 2024
BY
Kim Ruehl
Throughout history, wherever people have organized for a fair wage and a safe workplace, there has always been music involved. In early folk song collecting, in fact, “labor music” was so prevalent that it was believed to be a separate category of music from “folk.”
Though the federal holiday of
Labor Day was signed into law in 1894 by Grover Cleveland, efforts to make a national holiday that recognized the successes of the labor movement go back even further.
Yet, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that folksingers like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger—and their cohorts in the Almanac Singers (Bess and Alan Lomax, Sis Cunningham, Butch Hawes, Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, sometimes Lead Belly and others)—began working labor songs into their repertoire and recordings.
Guthrie, especially, enjoyed singing for labor unions and saw labor songs as equivalent to all the other kinds of songs he sang: love songs, historical songs, children’s songs, and so on. Seeger was heavily influenced by him and also by their mutual friend Zilphia Horton from the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. She was intentionally using folk songs and labor songs side by side for the purpose of organizing within the labor movement during the 1930s and ‘40s.
The Almanacs were among the first to record a full album of just labor music, but many others have come along since. In fact, throughout the 20th century, the intertwining of folk and labor songs became so tight that labor songs like “We Shall Not Be Moved” and “Solidarity Forever” defied the understanding of the early folklorists and became part of the American folk canon.
To celebrate Labor Day and this rich history of labor songs in folk music, the first hour of this week’s
Folk Alley Radio Show will be all labor songs. You can hear the full hour by
tuning into your local public radio station throughout Labor Day Weekend, listen on-demand via FolkAlley.com or our mobile app, or scroll down for a taste of what host Elena See will be spinning.
Throughout history, wherever people have organized for a fair wage and a safe workplace, there has always been music involved. In early folk song collecting, in fact, “labor music” was so prevalent that it was believed to be a separate category of music from “folk.” To celebrate Labor Day and...
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