Changes

In the late 19th century, factory workers and others in the United Kingdom were using their Sunday's, as their one day off, to enjoy at local pubs or gamble. This often meant that Monday became a day when many workers simply did not show up to work or were very late to work. Business owners responded by giving their workers half of Saturday off as a way to compensate for the fact that they wanted their workers to come to work on Monday. Effectively, they gave them an extra night to enjoy in exchange for coming to work back on time on Monday. Soon, writing around the late 1870s and later, began to refer to this period as the week-end or the period that was the end of the week when workers would have Saturday night and Sunday off. In fact, the first known instance of the use of the term 'weekend' or 'week-end ' was used in the magazine <i>Notes and Queries</i> in an article published in 1879.<re>For more on the emerging concept of the weekend, see: https://www.etymonline.com/word/weekend </ref>

A key moment in the modern workweek came in 1908, when a mill in New York became the first business to give workers Saturday all of Saturdays and Sunday Sundays off, that is the first modern weekend and workweek. This occurred because the factory had a substantial number of Jewish and Christian workers. Jewish workers celebrated the Sabbath from Friday night to Saturday, while Christians wanted Sunday off. What began as an incentive to the Jewish workers soon became established for all workers in the factory.<ref>For more on the 1908 five day workweek, see: Negrey, C. (2012).<i> Work time: conflict, control and change</i>. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity Press.</ref>

Nevertheless, despite the use of the five day workweek and two day weekend, this concept did not catch on in the rest of the United States at this point. In 1926, Henry Ford began to implement a five day workweek by closing his factories on Saturday and Sunday. His reform was popular as he did not reduce pay but cut one day off from work. Major clothing and textile factories also began to follow this example soon after. Some factories and workplaces did institute a five day workweek, but it only became routine during the Great Depression. For companies that were struggling financially during this time, one remedy to diminish costs was to shorten the workweek, which was often six days, to five days. In fact, it was during the Great Depression that businesses switched to a 40 hour workweek, whereas the standard before then was close to 49 hours. This helped many businesses stay viable during a very difficult economic periods period for the US and the world. By 1940, what solidified the modern weekend in the United States was the Fair Labor Standards Act, that made the 40 hour workweek the norm. In effect, this meant that two days off were needed and Saturday and Sunday were the most convenient for this given their cultural background and norms already practiced in parts of the country. As companies had already began to widely implement a 40 hour workweek, Congress helped make the modern workweek to be standard even after the Great Depression when corporate profits returned to normal levels. Other countries, including the Soviet Union, did not adopt the concept of 40 hour work week, although after World War II it increasingly became common in Western countries as economies began to align (Figure 2).<ref>For more on how the 40 hour workweek and two day weekend became national fixtures, see: Ehrenreich, J. (2014).<i> The altruistic imagination: a history of social work and social policy in the United States</i>. Cornell University Press.</ref>