Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. We've got our super producer, guest producer,
Speaker 1: the man the myth legend, mister Paul Blackjack Decades Folks,
Speaker 1: is here with us live.
Speaker 2: Noel. I'm then you're Noel. We are live in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 3: They call me the main smell by the way, Now
Speaker 3: what was It's like top golf, but just the most
Speaker 3: popular of aromas. But we are coming to you today
Speaker 3: live from the iHeart Podcast studio powered by at the
Speaker 3: House of Music at the iHeart Radio Music Festival.
Speaker 2: We are very much and it's nighttime, though I said day.
Speaker 3: You may be listening to this during the day, so
Speaker 3: I was just kind of trying to tick all the box.
Speaker 1: Your chronological mileage may vary, So let's paint a picture.
Speaker 1: Right now, Noel and I are sitting inside a booth,
Speaker 1: a booth on the grounds of the T Mobile Arena
Speaker 1: here in Las Vegas. Have we decided that we were
Speaker 1: going to have our live episode tonight.
Speaker 2: We're going to treat it the way that we.
Speaker 1: Treat things when we're just hanging out as buddies.
Speaker 2: Well that's all. I like to think.
Speaker 3: That's how we treat every episode of Ridiculous History. But
Speaker 3: I'm picking up what you're putting there.
Speaker 2: That's sweet. What we're saying is there's some background noise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I mean, we're not directly in the pit,
Speaker 3: but we might as well be because they have a
Speaker 3: whole pa set up outside with like video and stuff,
Speaker 3: so we're kind of right outside that, but we can
Speaker 3: suspend some disbelief.
Speaker 2: Right Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's a good energy going by. You know,
Speaker 1: our pals Anny Reese and Lower and vogel Bomb just
Speaker 1: walked by and they love podcasting too, so they were
Speaker 1: about to sneak into the booth.
Speaker 3: Going to bumb rush us man, but then they didn't
Speaker 3: realize they were the giant glass doors. We have had
Speaker 3: a few little intoxicated folks just like run into the
Speaker 3: thing like a bird into a deck window doing stuff.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: We did another podcast earlier, but today we are here
Speaker 3: to talk specifically about something that we've definitely addressed adjacently.
Speaker 2: Eugene V.
Speaker 3: Debs, you might recall big figure in the labor movements.
Speaker 3: He's sort of a top spell really is indeed a
Speaker 3: top smell in that particular department.
Speaker 2: But we're talking.
Speaker 3: I think it may even have come up in that episode. Yes,
Speaker 3: the idea of what's the deal is not even gonna
Speaker 3: do it. What's up with the idea of not wearing
Speaker 3: white or was it wearing white after Labor Day?
Speaker 2: It's like a faux pas. It feels like an old
Speaker 2: timey thing. It came up.
Speaker 3: We looked it up and it was like, oh, turns
Speaker 3: out it was something rich people invented to make themselves
Speaker 3: stand apart from the rabble, which.
Speaker 1: Also goes back to I didn't mention this on airon previously.
Speaker 1: It also goes back to the idea of dress code
Speaker 1: as discrimination, which is how dress codes started, right to
Speaker 1: begin with.
Speaker 3: Anything usually with code after it in those days, probably
Speaker 3: not a good code, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we are, as is our wont in ridiculous history.
Speaker 1: We are going to learn more about a holiday shortly
Speaker 1: after it occurred. Yeah, we're good at that, but we're
Speaker 1: very good. Hey, I think we did. Okay, we're within
Speaker 1: a month, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We want to give a shout out, of course to
Speaker 1: another integral part of our show, our regular super producer
Speaker 1: Max Williams, this rippin legend is too busy to hang
Speaker 1: out with us.
Speaker 3: But recently I thought you were referring to the ripping
Speaker 3: legend of his white pants. I thought you're going to say,
Speaker 3: but he left us with this ripping legend, which they did.
Speaker 1: They allegedly did not rip, but he's still legend. And
Speaker 1: remember he recently went to a wedding on a beach.
Speaker 1: And so Max, like you are like me and hopefully
Speaker 1: like you ridiculous historians. He loves nineties R and B.
Speaker 1: He loves boys to men. So he bought a white
Speaker 1: pair of pants, right, He didn't.
Speaker 3: He didn't have the white flowing linen shirt or the
Speaker 3: or the or the jacket.
Speaker 2: But he was halfway there. He was half way, and
Speaker 2: that's what he said. He really was.
Speaker 3: He felt that this was a worthy investment because it
Speaker 3: was a light, you know, cool white pair of linen pants,
Speaker 3: but all social underwek he bought specially as you would.
Speaker 3: You know, you want you don't want it to it's
Speaker 3: too sh it's too sheer. You know, you might see
Speaker 3: the line.
Speaker 2: Big coward through the white pants. You got to make
Speaker 2: sure they match. But it's half a suit it's half
Speaker 2: a suit. It's the first part of the suit investment,
Speaker 2: which is not cheap.
Speaker 1: And it was halfway through September as well, and that's
Speaker 1: when it hit our pal Max. He said, I can't
Speaker 1: wear white right now because it's mid September. It's after
Speaker 1: the national holiday we have here in the US, Labor Day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, I'm pretty sure he still wore them.
Speaker 3: It was just he occurred to him that maybe I
Speaker 3: should look into this. And I think through all of
Speaker 3: Max's research, to through our research, through our conversations with Max, we've.
Speaker 2: Determined that kind of wear white whenever you want.
Speaker 3: This is sort of a dated cliche with the history
Speaker 3: of it says a lot about the labor movement in general.
Speaker 3: It didn't occur to me until little later, but you
Speaker 3: might remember the terms, you know, white collar blue collar.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: White collar jobs are typically like higher paying jobs, you know,
Speaker 3: more affluent type jobs, and blue collar jobs are usually
Speaker 3: like manual labor jobs. And that had to do with
Speaker 3: the history that we're about to talk about here, what
Speaker 3: it meant to be able to wear white, not have
Speaker 3: to worry about getting motor oil on your collar or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, because you don't do the physical labor. And
Speaker 1: also it's funny that Labor Date in the US in
Speaker 1: modern times, everybody loves it because.
Speaker 2: It's a day off of work.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a barbecue, We have barbecues together
Speaker 1: sometimes a solidity. But a lot of folks don't know
Speaker 1: the origin of that, and I question whether that origin
Speaker 1: has been purposely erased. You don't care about the two
Speaker 1: union leaders in New Jersey who fought to take a
Speaker 1: day to recognize the hard working to your point, no
Speaker 1: blue collar people in their communities. So let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the rise of the labor movement, the
Speaker 1: creation of Labor Day, and why people are to your point,
Speaker 1: not supposed to wear white after it.
Speaker 3: Well as it stands now, you know, with that day
Speaker 3: of rest and the barbecuing and all that, it is
Speaker 3: meant to represent, you know, the achievements of the labor
Speaker 3: movements and to appreciate the labors of the laborers of
Speaker 3: the labor movie. How laborious, laborious. But you know, that's
Speaker 3: the idea is to celebrate you know, work, people that work,
Speaker 3: both white collar and blue collar.
Speaker 2: But again, historically a lot.
Speaker 3: Of organizing and unionizing and things like that have centered
Speaker 3: around jobs that were easily exploited by bad people and
Speaker 3: high positions of power. They felt that they essentially owned
Speaker 3: these individuals, and that before the times of regulations that
Speaker 3: protected these workers in the workplace so they could go
Speaker 3: to work and not fear for their lives, people were
Speaker 3: fearing for their lives.
Speaker 2: Oh and also we made peace with Sheryl Crowe.
Speaker 1: That was pretty cool goodness, although I did run away
Speaker 1: because you realize, you know, I told you and our
Speaker 1: palm Matt Frederick that one of her songs triggered.
Speaker 2: An emotion and not an emotion.
Speaker 3: I don't have a ton of them, I know, and
Speaker 3: you were I think you already hit your quota.
Speaker 2: This was my third one.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, but no, right, I mean, like, before, you know,
Speaker 3: the the advent of the labor movement, people were putting
Speaker 3: themselves potentially in bodily harm just for the privilege of
Speaker 3: making ends meet for their families.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, the US Department of Labor has has a good
Speaker 1: primer on this.
Speaker 2: You can read it for free online.
Speaker 1: It's called History of Labor Day, and they point out
Speaker 1: it's always observed the first Monday in September, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, that's a negative for me because you know
Speaker 1: how I feel about all those holidays that are like
Speaker 1: this is the you know, was it Thanksgiving? Is like
Speaker 1: this is Thursday or whatever. Yeah, I don't think either
Speaker 1: of us know until someone more on the ball text.
Speaker 2: Let's just snow that we have the day off and
Speaker 2: that's a shame.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until eighteen eighty six that a movement
Speaker 3: began that, you know, asked for this to be made
Speaker 3: a national holiday, and that's when some bills were passed.
Speaker 1: It to just that pretty much a grassroots movement as well.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until June twenty eighth, eighteen ninety for that
Speaker 1: Congress passed an act making that first Monday in September
Speaker 1: of every single year a legal holiday in the United States.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is in that explanation the Department of
Speaker 1: Labor left out why Labor Day was.
Speaker 2: A thing in the beginning.
Speaker 1: That's the erasure I'm talking about, you know, to your point,
Speaker 1: Let's go to Karen Zraich for New York Times. Karen
Speaker 1: points out that in the late eighteen hundreds, many people
Speaker 1: in this country in the United States, including Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: Which wasn't built by that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, many of these Americans toiled for twelve hours a day,
Speaker 1: seven days a week, often in really physically dangerous, very
Speaker 1: low paying jobs. And this was of course the heyday
Speaker 1: of child labor in the US.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Karen puts it beautifully well tragically, but you know,
Speaker 3: she writes very well, and you know, to our earlier point,
Speaker 3: the conditions were often very dangerous, and there was nobody
Speaker 3: looking out for the workers to make sure they didn't
Speaker 3: lose a hand or a limb or their lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she says children worked to on farms and in
Speaker 1: factories and mines. Conditions were often harsh and unsafe. It
Speaker 1: was in this context that American workers held the first
Speaker 1: Labor Day parade, marching from New York City Hall to
Speaker 1: a giant picnic at an Uptown park on September fifth,
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two. And nol I love you know, I
Speaker 1: love a protest, I love a march, but also I
Speaker 1: love when that ends in a picnic called bear.
Speaker 3: I love a picnic, and I love a parade, and
Speaker 3: I love a good headline, which this one was working
Speaker 3: men on Parade. That sounds like a delight, and that
Speaker 3: came from the New York Times. The article actually appeared
Speaker 3: on the very last page, which is kind of weak.
Speaker 3: I would say, it seems like it should have gotten
Speaker 3: a little bit more, you know, preferential treatment than that.
Speaker 3: But it did say in this buried lead that ten
Speaker 3: thousand people marched quote in an orderly and pleasant manner.
Speaker 2: So that's so patrician. Maybe, you know, maybe that's why
Speaker 2: they put it on the last page. Maybe if they
Speaker 2: had like gotten a little rowdy, you know, it would
Speaker 2: it would have made bigger headline. Some of these peasants
Speaker 2: have military trainings.
Speaker 1: See how they are, I see how they march in
Speaker 1: such an orderly man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not natural. They the workers were. The workers
Speaker 2: were the.
Speaker 1: Lower middle class members of the city, members of what
Speaker 1: you might consider like guilds, you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: certain things like bricklayers and shoemakers and dressmakers. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: people working in printing presses, people rolling cigars, folks work
Speaker 1: in the dock. This wasn't yet an official holiday. And
Speaker 1: so what's interesting and tragic about this, and quite courageous,
Speaker 1: I would argue, is that a lot of those ten
Speaker 1: thousand people were risking losing their job by showing up
Speaker 1: by participating in this parade, which was actually a worker's
Speaker 1: strike across professions.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: In eighteen ninety four, we've talked about this as well.
Speaker 3: We had the Pullman strike, which was a big deal,
Speaker 3: disrupting trade and disrupting a lot of the rail movement
Speaker 3: there in the Midwest. And at this point, you know,
Speaker 3: the federal government was not about this kind of behavior.
Speaker 3: There was no protection for striking workers, There was no
Speaker 3: protection for standing up for your rights to not be exploited,
Speaker 3: and the government totally crushed them.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It was like a strike breaking type situation like the Pinkertons,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I mean, honestly, they may have employed
Speaker 3: the Pinkertons even you know, I heard a lot about
Speaker 3: you know, what do they call boss Tweet and folks
Speaker 3: like that, the Tammany Hall machine and all of that.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of breaking up these strikes and
Speaker 3: like you know, through physical force, through violence.
Speaker 1: In this parade, they clearly had the people on their side.
Speaker 1: And that is the history of the labor movement. On
Speaker 1: these signs in this parade slash protest that.
Speaker 2: Again ends in a picnic.
Speaker 1: I just like that, you know, in a parade, we
Speaker 1: love both these things. I'm terrible about it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what do they have at the picnic?
Speaker 2: Anyway?
Speaker 1: On their signs they call for stuff like less work
Speaker 1: and more pay, make us only work eight hours a
Speaker 1: day and stop using convict labor. And the people cheered
Speaker 1: for them because there was a clear divide between the.
Speaker 2: Haves and the have nots.
Speaker 1: And as you said, the Pullman strike absolutely rocked the
Speaker 1: United States. The Pullman Car Company going by the Pullman
Speaker 1: Palace Car Company and fancy car and.
Speaker 3: We say cars, we're talking about like train cars. You
Speaker 3: know where this is also where a lot of the
Speaker 3: weirdness surrounding the culture.
Speaker 2: Of tipping began.
Speaker 3: Yes, the Pullman was inherently a bit of a racist
Speaker 3: flex from the wealthy towards these African American porters.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't even say a bit. It was very bad.
Speaker 1: And the h and the Pullman company lowered wages on
Speaker 1: the people who lived in these company towns. But when
Speaker 1: they lowered the wages, they didn't lower the rent. So
Speaker 1: this this company town now part of Chicago. Everybody, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in a in a burst of creative now yeah, and
Speaker 1: so uh people obviously now they're getting robbed by their employer.
Speaker 2: There's no other way to look at it at that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they can plain.
Speaker 1: And the owner, George Fullman, super humble guy you can
Speaker 1: tell by the name of his company, he.
Speaker 2: Said, fire them all.
Speaker 1: And they striked, and other workers caught on in the
Speaker 1: railway industry, and they were led by the guy who
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, Eugene V. Debs listened to our two parter
Speaker 1: about Debs. I know, Max loves him, and these folks
Speaker 1: when they're striking, they said, look, if a pullman car
Speaker 1: comes through here, we're not going to handle it. It
Speaker 1: is basically invisible. We're going to take the freight and
Speaker 1: passenger traffic to a halt. So they stopped. Chicago, which
Speaker 1: is a huge economic hub at the time. Tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of people just left work. Those strikes broke out,
Speaker 1: and then, like you said, they were fired upon, they
Speaker 1: were shot by.
Speaker 3: Were not just fired you know, by the fat cats.
Speaker 3: They were shot at. And we know that the American
Speaker 3: government is not incapable of this kind of thing throughout history.
Speaker 3: I mean, you had like student protests, it can't state,
Speaker 3: you know, being rocked by violence from the the government.
Speaker 3: You know, people being shot for literally just expressing how
Speaker 3: they feel.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, and it's it's speaking of the US government.
Speaker 1: Let's shout out as super not great president Grover Cleveland
Speaker 1: named Mike Grover.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, Grover the sesame street Monster's kind
Speaker 2: of cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Grover Cleveland doesn't always get a top ten
Speaker 1: listing of best presidents. But he signed this bill into
Speaker 1: a law on June twenty eighth, eighteen ninety four, and
Speaker 1: that's when Labor Day became a national holiday. People are
Speaker 1: still guessing whether he had an ideological or ethical thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was a politician. Did he just want
Speaker 2: the votes to It's entirely like who knows? Who knows?
Speaker 2: You know, who knows what's what? Evil alerks in the
Speaker 2: hearts of men? The shadow that knows.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he did do this thing, and it became
Speaker 3: a national holiday. At that point looked a little different
Speaker 3: than what it does look like today. You know, probably
Speaker 3: was more reverential back then, you know, because it was
Speaker 3: so close to the labor movement. You know, now it's
Speaker 3: almost like people just kind of use it as an
Speaker 3: excuse to barbecue and don't really think about what it means.
Speaker 3: But to your point, been a lot of these holidays
Speaker 3: that are on the fifth Thursday of the second Tuesday
Speaker 3: of the month. Yeah, it's easy to lose track, you know.
Speaker 3: And it's like sometimes it's good to think about history
Speaker 3: a little bit, to remember why we even celebrate these.
Speaker 1: Things in the first place, especially when we know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: This is something that stands out to me, to you,
Speaker 1: and to our pow Max as well. And you know,
Speaker 1: speaking of collective action, one thing that is funny to me,
Speaker 1: funny to you, and I think funny to Max as well,
Speaker 1: is that labor Day seems kind of collective in its origin.
Speaker 1: History may never know who actually created.
Speaker 2: It, Isn't that funny?
Speaker 3: And usually in these types of stories, we did one
Speaker 3: on Mother's Day, Father's Day, you know, usually you kind
Speaker 3: of know and like there's sort of like a like
Speaker 3: usually it's parallel thinking involved, right with this one, it's
Speaker 3: it's a little bit different. We have some records that
Speaker 3: show that in eighteen eighty two, a guy named Peter J. Maguire,
Speaker 3: who is the general secretary of a kind of a
Speaker 3: very early you know union, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners,
Speaker 3: and also a co founder of the American Federation of
Speaker 3: Labor said that there should be quote a general holiday
Speaker 3: for the laboring classes to honor those who and this
Speaker 3: is such good old timing language.
Speaker 4: Who from rude nature have delved and carved all the
Speaker 4: grandule we behold from rude nature, rough hun crawling fall
Speaker 4: from the slime of history.
Speaker 2: I love the way that was written.
Speaker 1: Also props to my I'll knowle here because you improve
Speaker 1: the end of that.
Speaker 2: And it was fantastic. Yeah, I know. Thank you would
Speaker 2: be awkward if you did a bad job. It's really
Speaker 2: good at it.
Speaker 1: So there's there are other issues. Other historians believe that
Speaker 1: a guy named Matthew McGuire, machinist named Matthew McGuire, we
Speaker 1: founded the.
Speaker 2: Unclear.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the old idea of whether it
Speaker 1: was Robert Johnson, the guitar player who sold his soul
Speaker 1: to the devil in the Crossroads or Bobby Johnson, the
Speaker 1: harmonica player.
Speaker 3: Oh stam, they both could shred, that's for sure. I'm
Speaker 3: that both of them made deals with that old scratch.
Speaker 2: I'm wearing the wrong suit to talk about devils today.
Speaker 3: No, you look great, then, she just notice it has
Speaker 3: got really cold in here. I feel like ye, she
Speaker 3: ever running may maybe maybe it's the subject matter.
Speaker 2: Maybe we are so.
Speaker 1: Recent research appears to support this idea that Matthew McGuire
Speaker 1: was the originator of the holiday, because he proposed the
Speaker 1: holiday in eighteen eighty two when he was the secretary
Speaker 1: of the Central Labor Union in New York. And a
Speaker 1: lot of this comes from.
Speaker 3: Both secretaries, both McGuire's never in the same room together,
Speaker 3: one which one was, who's Tyler Durton?
Speaker 2: You tell me right?
Speaker 1: So if you look at the New Jersey Historical Society.
Speaker 1: Shortly after President Cleveland signed the law creating Labor Day
Speaker 1: as a national holiday across the United States, a paper
Speaker 1: called the Patterson He's.
Speaker 2: Coming on and you hear that? Yeah, I could probably
Speaker 2: hear that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A paper called the Patterson Morning Call published an opinion piece,
Speaker 1: and Lil Wayne loves this, stating that the souvenir pin
Speaker 1: should go to the alderman, Matthew McGuire of this city,
Speaker 1: who is the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday.
Speaker 1: And if you think about that, that's what six foot
Speaker 1: seven foot is really about.
Speaker 3: Six foot seven foot bunch, come mister Tallian antiomeyven Ina
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: Oh, the Wayne version of it. Oh, I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but you know, but that song is also
Speaker 3: about laboring and about like well, it's probably about slavery, right,
Speaker 3: I mean the tally man is not the guy's boss.
Speaker 3: It's more like his overseer, right, I think I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's a good question.
Speaker 1: And that was a very beautifully done segue, by the.
Speaker 3: Way, Nail well anyway, I mean, yeah, Wayne is kicking.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to hear what he's got to offer.
Speaker 2: No, we should we got to to McGuire's we it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter who established labored it.
Speaker 3: What matters is that it was established and then it
Speaker 3: was passed into law, and now we should all do
Speaker 3: a better job at remembering what it actually stands for.
Speaker 3: But what about the pants? What about the pants?
Speaker 2: About the pant? About the pants and the shoes? Serial mom? Please? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But by the way, also speaking of Cereal Mom, John
Speaker 3: Waters just got like a like a Hollywood star, I believe,
Speaker 3: and just got in like they have a huge retrospective
Speaker 3: of his work. Ceial Mom is one of his lesser
Speaker 3: appreciated films, but it's pretty accessible. I think it's I
Speaker 3: would argue it's more accessible than pink flamingos. And it's
Speaker 3: basically about who is it. Who's the Kathleen Turner well done? Yeah,
Speaker 3: the serial mom who is a serial killer who murders
Speaker 3: people for being rude and having bad manners. And there's
Speaker 3: someone who she kills brutally disembowels. I want to say,
Speaker 3: for wearing white shoes after labor Day.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: And this question of labor day and fashion may have
Speaker 1: stemmed from practicality. According to Amber Chanical for Farmer's Almanac,
Speaker 1: she says, before air conditioning was invented, clothing choices were
Speaker 1: important when you wanted to keep cool in summer, keep
Speaker 1: warmer winter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hence Max's delightful sheer linen pantaloons.
Speaker 1: I think he just wants people to know he's been
Speaker 1: working out.
Speaker 2: I know, it's sure he does.
Speaker 3: He's got some he's got some good gams on boys
Speaker 3: gets some gams.
Speaker 2: But you're right, like, think about the southern gentleman.
Speaker 3: It's fine linen suit sitting on the front porch and
Speaker 3: join them in Juli.
Speaker 2: I mean feel this, We're in Vegas. I'm wearing a
Speaker 2: linen suit, right, Yeah, but I think there are even
Speaker 2: versions of linen that are even more sheer and thin,
Speaker 2: and they're you know, almost like silk, but like linen
Speaker 2: that's very popular. It's like, what do you what a
Speaker 2: John Hammond wore in Jurassic Park. I also it is.
Speaker 1: I also I have my televangelist suit, but I stopped
Speaker 1: wearing it because you know, it gives me the spirits.
Speaker 3: I hear you, But this is the thing, right, So
Speaker 3: this was in a way like also the longer you
Speaker 3: wore this sheer linen kind of stuff, it sort of
Speaker 3: showed that you could take vacations later in the summer
Speaker 3: and that you had a little more you know.
Speaker 2: Means you had a little more ends.
Speaker 3: And then it became sort of a sign of decorum
Speaker 3: because it's almost like any further than that than Labor Day,
Speaker 3: they've decided someone arbitrarily.
Speaker 2: It's really just nothing to do with labor day. As well.
Speaker 3: Have another version of the story that more does, but
Speaker 3: this version is more about the calendar time and like
Speaker 3: just don't show off.
Speaker 2: Anything after that is just showing off.
Speaker 3: And it's also a way of codifying a dress sort
Speaker 3: of sense, you know, like fashion trend kind of like
Speaker 3: standards you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer.
Speaker 1: So once that arrived, historically people would start to wear warmer,
Speaker 1: darker fabrics. Ye like blue collar shirts, right right. So
Speaker 1: fashion it's a good weave, and so fashion, the world
Speaker 1: of fashion decided, we're making it official, it's time to
Speaker 1: retire that white clothing post Labor Day.
Speaker 3: And it was thought to be a sign that you
Speaker 3: were doing a good job of getting acclimated to the club.
Speaker 3: If you were nouveau reche and you started to adhere
Speaker 3: to this schedule, then it was like, oh, they get it. Okay,
Speaker 3: We're gonna let them in a little bit more, you know.
Speaker 1: And then to your point, there's the other story, the
Speaker 1: idea that the rule came from the very wealthy in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. People wanted that lightweight, bright clothing,
Speaker 1: the breezy dresses. It meant that you were able to
Speaker 1: go on vacation, which a lot of people just can't do.
Speaker 2: That's right. I think I sort of mashed up the
Speaker 2: two reasons how they got there, but they are connected.
Speaker 3: I mean, the first one has just as much to
Speaker 3: do with the rich sort of setting the tone as
Speaker 3: the other.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Again, it's like anything beyond that point is just kind
Speaker 3: of like showing off. And it's just a matter of
Speaker 3: sort of like setting the tone and sort of being
Speaker 3: like this is this. It's like seasons in fashion lines.
Speaker 3: You know, you've got the fall season and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: It just people love to have little weird rules that
Speaker 3: only they know about, you know.
Speaker 2: And so to keep this.
Speaker 1: Focus here, we're going to put a horse in the race, folks,
Speaker 1: because you know, the one percent loves horse racing.
Speaker 2: If you don't want.
Speaker 1: To practice this idea of white being verboten after labor Day,
Speaker 1: then don't pay attention to it.
Speaker 2: Screw those certainly, you know, to to our point at
Speaker 2: the top of the episode.
Speaker 3: And I think what we pretty quickly found in a
Speaker 3: cursory Google is that this is utterly kind of a
Speaker 3: non thing. I think even in the circles that maybe
Speaker 3: it used to be a thing in people. You know,
Speaker 3: fashion rules are made to be broken, Trends are made
Speaker 3: to be set by, like, you know, new people, and
Speaker 3: it does seem to be if you have got a
Speaker 3: pair of pants, like Max, you let those wear those
Speaker 3: pants until they wear out in the crotch.
Speaker 2: Let those ponies run, let them ride, let them ru
Speaker 2: ride them, and let them run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as far back as the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: fashion icons like Coco Chanel quote unquote revolutionized fashion and uh,
Speaker 1: the industry of manufactured esthetics by keeping white as a
Speaker 1: permanent staple in her wardrobe regardless.
Speaker 2: Of the calendar. Where do you think j Lo got
Speaker 2: the idea? Yeah? I mean I text her, but probably
Speaker 2: someone else.
Speaker 3: Apparently it's in a rider that every at least it
Speaker 3: used to be in the whenever she's more popular.
Speaker 2: I guess she's still populout it.
Speaker 3: But that everything, the furniture and stuff backstage had to
Speaker 3: be white. The candles all had to be white. J
Speaker 3: Lo loves white. But to your point about Coocheel, she
Speaker 3: was just you know, being a what do you call that?
Speaker 2: And iconoclasts, you know.
Speaker 3: But then if you do that with enough confidence, it
Speaker 3: becomes the thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there are still plenty of people who consider
Speaker 1: post labor day white clothing a no go.
Speaker 2: And that's fine.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to wear white after Labor Day,
Speaker 1: then don't. But you should not consider yourself in charge
Speaker 1: of other people's decisions if they have if they have
Speaker 1: something they like to wear, then they can wear it
Speaker 1: whenever they want, no matter what it looks like, no
Speaker 1: matter the season.
Speaker 3: And I think we may have stopped just short of
Speaker 3: like the kind of end of the other theory about
Speaker 3: the white like we mentioned the idea of a blue
Speaker 3: collar and darker clothes and how white was sort of like,
Speaker 3: I can wear this year round because I don't have
Speaker 3: the kind of job that will get me give my
Speaker 3: collar all schmoz.
Speaker 2: Because I don't what you say labor, I don't labor
Speaker 2: that much.
Speaker 3: Therefore that it was a way of them separating themselves
Speaker 3: from the have nots who would have had to wear
Speaker 3: darker clothes, think like a mechanic's onesie, you know, like
Speaker 3: the darker like denim or whatever. But that is where
Speaker 3: the blue collar white collar kind of divide came. And
Speaker 3: that version of the story to me, jives pretty well
Speaker 3: with the other version that it was. They're very interrelated.
Speaker 3: I think the true the truth of it lies somewhere
Speaker 3: in between the two.
Speaker 1: And hopefully we have solved the mystery a bit. We
Speaker 1: want to congratulate everybody who was hanging out, as well
Speaker 1: as our our pal.
Speaker 2: Matt Frederick O drinking from a coconut. Our pal Andy
Speaker 2: Kelly drinking from a coconut.
Speaker 1: Both drinking from coconuts. You were listening to Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: live at the iHeart Podcast Studio powered by Bose at
Speaker 1: the House of Music at iHeart Music Festival. We have
Speaker 1: so many people to thank Man you Debs. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he's the modern eugenp Yeah, he really is to
Speaker 1: the people.
Speaker 3: And Max for the first time I think, I mean, well,
Speaker 3: he's been away before, but he's not here. But he
Speaker 3: is here in spirit because he compiled this this research
Speaker 3: doc for.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our research associate, mister Max Williams. Thanks to
Speaker 1: our guest super producer, Paul the black Jack Emperor Decades Wheezy.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I just can't ignore him. He's just out there.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks to Wayne who you know, Wayne, just you
Speaker 1: can just send one DM Okay, I get it. And
Speaker 1: thanks of course as always to the continued labor movement.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Christophrasiotis, Eves, Jeff Coat both here in spirit, Gabe, Lucy,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, Alice Cooper and thanks you No, thanks to you, Ben.
Speaker 4: We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.