Weekends.
The 10-hour, 6-day workweek was a hard-fought struggle.
So was the 8-hour, 5-day workweek.
Thank the labor movement.
Students at Medford High School in the 1960s were barely exposed to the American labor movement. I can testify to that. I took every history and economics course offered. and the story of the hours and conditions of labor wasn't part of the curriculum.
I can understand why. The subject is economic conflict within a society, and the Cold War was underway with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We considered the Cold War an ideological battle between freedom and collectivism. The American labor movement would be a touchy area. The arguments advanced by the labor movement could sound "communistic" or "socialistic." Slavery was bad--the textbooks were clear on that. So was communism. It was safest for schools to describe labor markets in America as their happy and peaceful alternative. We had a system of free contracts between employers and workers, everyone paid what the invisible hand of the free market determined, everyone getting prosperous together. Since everybody got along and agreed the American system was best, there wasn't much "history" to tell.
Shorter workweeks and safer working conditions are now matters of law. Norms and expectations changed and legislatures responded. This happened in a context of Americans seeing what unions had negotiated for their workers, and they wanted it for themselves. Industrial settings were the vanguard for change. Better pay, hours, and working conditions required organizing and collective action by workers. Worker groups led strikes. Factory owners fought back with strikebreakers. Some strikes led to violence. People were killed.
The weekend didn't just happen. People fought for it.
Labor Day is my favorite federal holiday.