A continuous seven day cycle that runs throughout history, paying no attention whatsoever to the phases of the moon and having a fixed day of rest, was most likely first practised in Judaism, dated to the 6th century BC at the latest.
In Ancient Rome (753 BC–476 AD), every eight days there was a nundinae. It was a market day, during which children were exempted from school and agricultural workers stopped work in the field and came to the city to sell the produce of their labor or to practice religious rites.
The French Revolutionary Calendar (1793–1805) had ten-day weeks (called décades) and allowed décadi, one out of the ten days, as a leisure day. From 1929 to 1940, the Soviet Union utilized a calendar with five and six-day work weeks, with a rest day assigned to a worker either with a colour or number.
In cultures with a four-day workweek, the three Sabbaths derive from the culture's main religious tradition: Friday (Muslim), Saturday (Jewish, Adventist), and Sunday (Christian).
The present-day concept of the relatively longer 'week-end' first arose in the industrial north of Britain in the early 19th century and was originally a voluntary arrangement between factory owners and workers allowing Saturday afternoon off starting at 2 pm on the basis that staff would be available for work sober and refreshed on Monday morning....
In 1908, the first five-day workweek in the United States was instituted by a New England cotton mill so that Jewish workers would not have to work on the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. In 1926, Henry Ford began shutting down his automotive factories for all of Saturday and Sunday, due to pressures stemming from the October Revolution, which witnessed the ruling class persecuted for not giving the laborers dignifying conditions....
There's the pressure of religion and the pressure of labor movements.
At the Wikipedia link, you'll find what countries around the world observe as the weekend or weekend equivalent.
Here in America, we're experiencing that variation on the weekend called the "long weekend." This is the 3rd year we're celebrating Juneteenth as a national holiday, giving us a long weekend just 2 weeks before another long weekend, the 4th of July, and 3 weeks after the long weekend of Memorial Day. It's a jam up of long weekends, but why not? Perhaps it shows the way to the future, when every weekend will be a 3-day weekend. But if that happens, people will want 4-day holidays for their weekends. Or maybe holidays will be returned to their original days, with the 4th of July celebrated on the 4th of July and Juneteenth on June 19th.
Actually, I'm not positive Juneteenth is done as a 3-day weekend and not June 19th. I asked Bard for the answer and got some classic A.I. ridiculousness:
Of all the mistakes! What real human could forget that Monday is part of the workweek and not the weekend?! It's the most workaday day of the workweek. That's why it's preferred over Friday as the day to make the third day of a long weekend. We already love Friday. Friday is already, unofficially and to some extent, part of every weekend. Here in Madison, it's obvious. You can hear the Thursday night revelry and if you want to see beer cans littering the forest path, go out for a Friday morning run.
Anyway, these are enough ideas to get you going on a Monday weekend morning. And happy Juneteenth to all.
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23 comments:
Everybody's working for the weekend.
I don't mind more three-day weekends over the summer. It seems like that's the time we should encourage people to get out and enjoy the world.
It just occurred to me that Althouse's insistence that comments be pertinent to each post is kind of a workaday approach. On weekends and holidays, everything should be open thread! Kind of like Thursday nights in Madison (or any other college town), just throw your Bud Light beer cans beside the trail.
Juneteenth is a young federal holiday. We're all adjusting ... :)
I have lots of work, but am having trouble starting work.
Seeing the "BC" in the first paragraph made me think of something I heard a few weeks ago on sports talk radio.
Sport talk radio in Texas is not left wing, but the radioheads were using BCE "Before Common Era" instead of "BC"?
First time I had heard that. Is that new? Is that a thing? Anyone else heard it? Sorry for the somewhat off topic.
Happy Julius and Ethel Rosenberg execution 70th anniversary to everyone! JUlius N Ethel, electrocuted on this nineTEENTH day of June 1953.
Before "Juneteenth" became a thing, I always just referred to it as "fry a communist" day. In other words, I was celebrating Juneteenth before it was cool. Take that hipsters!
One of the more tendentious sentences I've seen on Wikipedia:
"In 1926, Henry Ford began shutting down his automotive factories for all of Saturday and Sunday, due to pressures stemming from the October Revolution, which witnessed the ruling class persecuted for not giving the laborers dignifying conditions...."
In 1926, Calvin was sitting comfortably in the White House, having defeated his (conservative) Democratic opponent, John W. Davis, by about 25 points. Davis would go on to become the lead attorney for the Southern states in Brown v Board of Education, defending racial segregation. Moreover, not even the 1924 platform of the Progressive party nominee, Robert LaFollette, proposed a five-day work week (although it did take the time to "pledge a complete housecleaning in the Department of Justice . . . ." So, it was highly unlikely that Henry Ford's decision to establish a five-day work week for his workers stemmed from intense pressures created by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
More likely, Ford's decree came not from pressures from the communist Soviet Union (which, as the Wikipedia article reports, only imposed a five-and-a-half day work week in 1929--three years after Ford's action) than from Ford's capitalist analysis that workers needed extra time to be able to use the items they were working to earn money for (e.g., automobiles). As Ford explained:
"The industry of this country could not long exist if factories generally went back to the ten hour day, because the people would not have the time to consume the goods produced. For instance, a workman would have little use for an automobile if he had to be in the shops from dawn until dusk. And that would react in countless directions, for the automobile, by enabling people to get about quickly and easily, gives them a chance to find out what is going on in the world-which leads them to a larger life that requires more food, more and better goods, more books, more music -- more of everything. The benefits of travel are not confined to those who can take an expensive foreign trip. There is more to learn in this country than there is abroad.
I also celebrate this day as the 70th anniversary of the execution of those traitors and celebrated Leftist heroes, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
"This is the 3rd year we're celebrating Juneteenth as a national holiday, giving us a long weekend just 2 weeks before another long weekend, the 4th of July, and 3 weeks after the long weekend of Memorial Day. It's a jam up of long weekends, but why not?"
There aren't workers anymore, anyways.
The French Revolutionary Calendar (1793–1805) had ten-day weeks (called décades) and allowed décadi, one out of the ten days, as a leisure day
Ah, yes, the "revolution of the working man", that demanded that those "poor, oppressed people work MORE
Thank you for excluding the Mayan Calender from your post. The short count and long count years, along with the 2012 reset, make for confusing but accurate timekeeping. And who needs a weekend when the end of the year features 5 days of bad luck?
In six months:
"You are wrong. Monday is a weekend day, as has always been tradition in the U.S."
In one year:
"You are wrong. You should know That doubting me is a sign of either physiological mental deterioration, or obstinate political unorthodoxy."
23 Shot, One Dead, As Chicago Suburb Juneteenth Celebration Turns Violent
Nice substitute for Father's Day.
Cultural rot is a choice.
The Sabbath day is made for man. And closing on Sundays is now called a Bible Belt Blue Law, Gone with the wind except for no alcohol sales allowed until 12 noon on Sundays.
A then along came those horrible Cathy family owned Chik Fil A stores that are hated by all good northern liberals. Sunday off works again.
July 4th is, along with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day, observed on the day of the week on which it falls unless it occurs on Saturday or Sunday in which case the Federal holiday is the closer weekday (Friday or Monday). Juneteenth follows the same pattern. MLK is fixed as the third Monday in January.
June 19, 1865 was the date on which the Emancipation Proclamation was announced to the last group of slaves in an area of the country that had been under Confederate control. Slavery remained legal in all areas of the country that had not been affected by the Emancipation Proclamation until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.
Getting Saturday PM off was a common practice in 19th Century and didn't start with "an informal agreement between British factory owners and their workers".
It was even common practice in Big plantations to give the Slaves Saturday PM off so they could take care of their personal business. Tend their small gardens, clean out their cabins, wash their clothes, etc. That way, they could spend Sunday resting and going to Church.
Wikipedia is pretty much a crap shoot in terms of accuracy.
And to answer someone up thread. Just as the "Blob" has banned the phrase "Christmas" and replaced it with "Holiday", they've now decided to ban the 1600 year old tradition of saying BC (before Christ) and replace it with BCE.
No one asked for it, but soon conservatives and Christians will be using BCE. Why? Because they're losers. No doubt the Pope will adopting BCE in a few years. LOL! God, what zeros. They wont' even fight for a word.
One day off every ten days? Enough proof that leftist revolutionaries really hate the common working man and woman.
Not the pop singer.
Blogger khematite said...
As Ford explained:
"The benefits of travel are not confined to those who can take an expensive foreign trip. There is more to learn in this country than there is abroad."
6/19/23, 10:04 AM
That's beautiful. I've always thought so.
"The French Revolutionary Calendar (1793–1805) had ten-day weeks (called décades) and allowed décadi, one out of the ten days, as a leisure day"
It's too good to check, but if the leisure day was called "décadi" do you suppose that's where decadence décadence came from?
What is a weekend?
We are in the age when on a Wednesday people tell you to have a nice weekend (says I the retired curmudgeon for whom every day is the weekend.)
I disliked and resented the seven day week scam from about age 6 when I realized that 5 days out of 7 “they” get to tell you what to do, and “they “ were never going away. Observation of all the adults in my life confirmed this. A ferocious determination that my last day of high school would be the first day of a free life arose. I wake in the morning and decide what I will do, if anything, and have since 1970.
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