UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
WITH LIBERTY AND
LEISURE FOR ALL
no friend to unions, adopted
the eight-hour day in 1914 “because it so happens that this is
the length of time which we find
gives the best service from men,
day in and day out.” In 1926, Ford
also gave his workers two days off
instead of one, something labor
leaders had begun to demand.
The five-day week didn’t catch
on with most other business moguls, though, as Hunnicutt, Roediger and Foner have documented.
John Edgerton, head of the National Association of Manufacturers,
said in 1926 that it was “time for
America to awake from its dream
of an eternal holiday.” George L.
Markland, chairman of the board
of Philadelphia Gear Works, said
that year that “any man demanding the 40-hour week should be
ashamed to claim citizenship in
this great country,” adding that
“the men of our country are becoming a race of softies and mollycoddles.” Elbert Gray of U.S. Steel
cited the Bible: “Six days shalt
thou labor and do all thy work.”
But labor had God on its side
as well. Jewish leaders pointed
out that Saturday work violated
the Jewish Sabbath. “I can see
but one way to save the Sabbath
for the Jew, and that is through
the establishment of the fiveday week,” Rabbi Israel Herbert
Levinthal said in 1925.
The early 20th century also witnessed new attitudes toward leisure, and workers couched their
demands not only in practical terms
but also in humanitarian ones.
In 1919 for instance, Juliet Stuart
Poyntz of the International Ladies’
Garment Workers union argued
that workers wanted “time for rest,
time to play, time to be human.”
“[The worker] is not the slave
of 50 years ago. He has something
to live for. He is not a machine.
He is a person,” Poyntz wrote. As
Auto
manufacturer
Henry Ford
adopted the
eight-hour
day because
he considered
it good for
business.