Mass production created mass leisure time that changed American life
Evidence
And time had another dimension now. Assembly lines, mass-production techniques—the whole new technology that would make it possible, by 1929, for sixty-nine workers to produce as much as one hundred had in 1920—had given it as a gift to the American working man. Before World War I, a seventy-hour factory week had been common; in 1920, the average was sixty hours; in 1929, just before the Crash, it would be forty-eight. The Saturday half holiday was becoming a part of American life; the full holiday was becoming more common; small-town businessmen who hadn’t yet forgotten what was the devil’s handmaiden were muttering at Kiwanis Club luncheons about Henry Ford’s institution of annual vacations—with pay!—for his workers. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 631
Categorization
- CANDY: The drop from 70 to 48 hour work weeks in under two decades, plus Ford’s paid vacations scandalizing Kiwanis moralizers, is a lively surprise for small talk.
- XREF: connects to: The rise of mass media and consumer leisure transformed American life at century’s turn. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1315; Twentieth-century thinkers widely predicted technology would produce abundant leisure time — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 57; Industrial capitalism’s workplace practices reshaped twentieth-century society to fit mass production. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1309
Broader Connections
- The rise of mass media and consumer leisure transformed American life at century’s turn.
#corroborates(0.85) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1315 - Industrial capitalism’s workplace practices reshaped twentieth-century society to fit mass production.
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1309 - Twentieth-century thinkers widely predicted technology would produce abundant leisure time
#corroborates(0.72) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 57