Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern History) [Paperback]

Roy Rosenzweig (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 052131397X | ISBN-13: 978-0521313971 | Publication Date: October 31, 1985

In the first comprehensive study of American working-class recreation, Professor Rosenzweig takes us to the saloons, the ethnic and church picnics, the parks and playgrounds, the amusement parks, and the movie houses where industrial workers spent their leisure hours. Focusing on the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, he describes the profound changes that popular leisure underwent. Explaining what these pastimes and amusements tell us about the nature of working-class culture and class relations in this era, he demonstrates that in order fully to understand the working class experience it is necessary to explore the realm of leisure. For what workers did in the corner saloon, the neighbourhood park, the fraternal lodge hall, the amusement park, and the nickelodeon had a good deal of bearing on what happened inside the factories, the union halls, and the voting booths of America's industrial communities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'In the proliferating scholarship on American working-class history, leisure has been among the last themes to be taken up. Thus, the appearance of Roy Rosenzweig's book is especially to be welcomed. It is an admirable study on several counts. For one thing, it fully exploits the advantages of local history ... His exhaustive research has yielded rich materials, anabling him, for example, to show the changing composition of Worcester's saloonkeepers and to chart the opening history of the city's movie houses ... especially impressive is his subtle assessment of the impact of the movies on Worcester's working people.' David Brody, Journal of American History

'Eight Hours For What We Will is a major contribution to modern American working-class history and to the history of a changing American popular and mass culture.' Herbert Gutman, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York

'This is conceptually a very innovative and important book.' Thomas A. McMullin, Historical Journal of Massachusetts

'Rosenzweig provides a fascinating study of the interplay of class, ethnicity, and economics in shaping the leisure culture of Worcester's working class.' Mark Aldrich, The Journal of Economic History

Book Description

Focusing on the city of Worcester, Massachusetts the author takes the reader to the saloons, the amusement parks, and the movie houses where American industrial workers spent their leisure hours, to explore the nature of working-class culture and class relations during this era.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (October 31, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052131397X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521313971
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leisure Among the Working Class, December 8, 2001

By 

Tanja M. Laden (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern History) (Paperback)

It is interesting how the focus of leisure has changed among social historians to include elements of working-class leisure. In Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers & Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 by Roy Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig first offers theories as to why labor historians have traditionally shied away from studying leisure as an academic subject, citing the silliness and frivolity old-fashioned academics associate with the subject. After referring to these types of intellectuals as "narrow-minded,' Rozenzweig continues to use the town of Worcester, Massachusetts to discover what constituted pastimes and amusement for Worcester workers by asking three questions. The first asks what have been the traditional values among the American working class, the second asks about the character of interclass relations in America's industrial communities, and the third question asks how class culture and relations changed from the nineteenth century to the twentieth. By examining these questions, Rosenzweig believes that a town like Worcester "offers the best opportunity for capturing workers' lives in all their complexity." (Rosenzweig, 3)
The first two sections of Eight Hours for What We Will are concerned with the saloon and the effect of temperance on workers as well as the use of July Fourth celebrations "to mark out [Worcester's immigrants'] cultural distance not only from the city's elite and native middle class but also from fellow immigrants. (Rosenzweig, 65-86)
Eventually, Rosenzweig writes about how interrelationships of workers led to the rise of a leisure market, an outgrowth of both the saloon and Fourth of July celebrations. One of Rosenzweig's main arguments is that the development of amusement park, continual importance of saloons as leisure arenas, and the beginning of a film culture were all a gradual process that grew with the Worcester community itself. Less a study on the nature of leisure, Rosenzweig effectively indicates how leisure is transformed within the bounds of a working class community.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An in-depth look into the history of Worcester, March 13, 2007

By 

Steven W. Ramsdell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Modern History) (Paperback)

This book is a helpful resource for anyone wishing to understand the history of Worcester, MA from the 1880s until the 1920s. The theory is that the investigation of leisure time has been overlooked, and this book is an effort to remedy this. It's written in an academic tone, so it's not for everyone. It goes into detail about the changing nature of work, how the local tycoons pitted the workers against one another by deliberately recruiting people from antagonistic ethnic and religious backgrounds, but the book shows that the workers sometimes banded together and won out. It describes the nature and use of saloons, movie theatres, amusement parks, and 4th of July celebrations in a day and age when most workers toiled for 10 hours a day, six days a week, with about 3 holidays a year.