Labor Day has become the unofficial end of summer. The true meaning of the holiday is much different, however.

Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September. This year, the holiday falls on Sept. 4.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Day is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of the American worker.

The exact history of Labor Day – specifically who founded it – remains in question.

According to the Labor Department, some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was the first to suggest a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.” Others credit Matthew Maguire, a machinist and later secretary of the Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., who reportedly proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

The first governmental recognition of the holiday came through municipal ordinances passed in 1885 and 1886. The first state bill to commemorate Labor Day was introduced into the New York legislature but the first to become law was passed in Oregon in February 1887.

During 1887 four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1884, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on Sept. 5, 1883.

Today, the day is often celebrated with cookouts and family gatherings.

How is Labor Day different than Memorial Day?

Memorial Day and Labor Day – in the U.S. the two holidays are the traditional bookends of summer.

And while there’s sometimes confusion over what the holidays are for, the two days commemorate very different things.

Memorial Day is a time to remember all those who have died in service to their country.

The day traces its roots to the period after the Civil War when groups began honoring Confederate and Union soldiers who died in the war. Memorial Day, celebrated on the last Monday in May each year, was declared an official holiday in 1967 and, a year later, moved to its current date as part of the Monday Holiday Act.

Memorial Day is traditionally seen as the start of summer. Labor Day, celebrated the first Monday in September, is the traditional end of summer.