While I know I'm a little late, I thought I'd gather some images of workers from our collections in celebration of labor day. The most obvious, I suppose, is the Work Projects Administration (WPA) posters collection. The WPA was created in 1935, as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, as a federal agency to provide work to unemployed people.
Next I found this image from our Society Photograph collection (#V59) of workers from the Torresdale Filter Plant in Philadelphia. The photograph is estimated to have been taken around 1901.
From our Philadelphia War Photograph Committee collection (#V3) is this image of workers making Stetson hats.
And finally from one of our largest collection of images, the Philadelphia Record photograph morgue (#V7), this image of Latino workers from the 1940s. This collection consists of the photographs taken for the Philadelphia Record, a newspaper which published from 1879 to 1947, when it was absorbed by the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Most of the photos in the collection date from the 1920s to 1940s.