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Labnet: Saint Monday
( LABNET May 2003 )
"Lex Heerma van Voss"
May 16, 2003 17:08:33
Douglas Reid has demonstrated in several publications that Saint
Monday was still widely celebrated by English workers, especially in
smaller workshops, in the middle decades of the nineteenth century
when the Saturday half-holiday was also already widely enjoyed there.
It lingered on in some occasions until the early years of the
twentieth century. (See his 'Weddings, weekdays, work and leisure in
urban England 1791-1911: The decline of Saint revisited', Past and
Present, no. 153 (Nov. 1996), pp.135-163). When I claim that
chronology was different on the continent, I am not thinking about
the decline of Saint Monday. I do not know whether it was as
prevalent on the continent as it seems to have been Britain, nor
whether it ended earlier, at the same time or later. Gary Cross, who
has compared work time reduction in Britain and France, thinks that
Saint Monday survived longer and more widely in France, namely until
the end of the nineteenth century (A Quest for Time. The Reduction of
Work in Britain and France, 1840-1940, Berkeley 1989, p. 234). But he
also writes that this is an area in which comparative research needs
to be done.
The free Saturday afternoon came for most workers on the European
continent only with the introduction of the eight hour day after
1918. I have read scores of pamphlets and articles by French, Dutch
German employers that argued against the eight hour working day. They
often insisted that now the work day was reduced from 10 or 12 hours
to eight, workers should accept measures that would increase
productivity. They sometimes mention being stricter in applying
arriving and leaving times. But I cannot recollect the demand that
keeping Saint Monday should end. Let alone that there was a formal
trade-off between Saturday afternoon and Monday. Working statistics
were discussed endlessly in the 1920s, but it is never mentioned that
the Monday was less than a full working day. Douglas asked for
citations in his message to this list of last Wednesday. It is hard
to find quotes of something that is not being discussed, but the fact
that it was not discussed suggests that it was no issue. If many
workers were taking Mondays off, employers would not have failed to
use that as an argument in the eight hour debate.
Lex Heerma van Voss
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