WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.960 Imagine like the ultimate weekend. Okay. Now 00:00:03.960 --> 00:00:08.140 imagine that to get it entire cities of workers 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:10.519 just collectively decided to ghost their bosses 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:13.960 and go on a massive coordinated bender every 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:16.640 single Monday which is just a wild concept today 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:18.519 right I mean we look at our calendars today and 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:21.300 we think of the two -day weekend as like a law 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:24.260 of nature the Sun rises the Sun sets and Monday 00:00:24.260 --> 00:00:26.679 through Friday you work yeah it feels completely 00:00:26.679 --> 00:00:29.219 permanent exactly it feels so ingrained in the 00:00:29.219 --> 00:00:30.920 human experience that you think it was etched 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:33.179 into stone tablets at the dawn of civilization 00:00:33.179 --> 00:00:35.689 mm -hmm but when you actually look into the history 00:00:35.689 --> 00:00:39.009 of how we spend our time. That neat, rigid schedule 00:00:39.009 --> 00:00:41.689 completely falls apart. The shape of our week 00:00:41.689 --> 00:00:44.109 isn't a law of physics at all. Not even close. 00:00:44.210 --> 00:00:47.560 It's a messy, chaotic invention. And the historical 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.740 records we're looking at today, drawing from 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:53.000 a truly fascinating piece of labor history, show 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.500 exactly how messy that invention really was. 00:00:55.700 --> 00:00:58.240 They really do. So welcome to another Deep Dive. 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:01.420 Today, our mission is to explore how a centuries 00:01:01.420 --> 00:01:03.880 -old tradition of workplace rebellion shaped 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:06.519 the exact way you and I think about the modern 00:01:06.519 --> 00:01:09.260 work week. That's a great topic. OK, let's unpack 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:11.659 this, because we have to go back to a time before 00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:13.920 the weekend even existed. Right. And to really 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.099 grasp the magnitude of what these workers pulled 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:19.060 off, I need you to imagine the standard working 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:22.489 life going back centuries. Way back. Yeah, long 00:01:22.489 --> 00:01:24.549 before the steam engines and assembly lines of 00:01:24.549 --> 00:01:27.469 the Industrial Revolution. Picture the 17th century. 00:01:27.590 --> 00:01:30.769 Okay, setting the scene. The absolute expectation 00:01:30.769 --> 00:01:34.269 for craft workers, so we're talking shoemakers, 00:01:34.569 --> 00:01:39.450 weavers, cutlers, was this grueling nonstop Monday 00:01:39.450 --> 00:01:41.109 through Saturday schedule. Which just sounds 00:01:41.109 --> 00:01:43.790 exhausting. Oh, it was. You worked six days a 00:01:43.790 --> 00:01:46.510 week from sunrise to sunset. There was no two 00:01:46.510 --> 00:01:49.650 -day weekend to recharge. No TGIF. No, definitely 00:01:49.650 --> 00:01:52.079 not. There was no concept of a work -life balance 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.299 at all. It was just relentless, backbreaking 00:01:54.299 --> 00:01:57.780 labor. Right. So the question becomes, how does 00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:00.680 a human being or an entire workforce cope with 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:03.560 that kind of crushing structural exhaustion? 00:02:03.739 --> 00:02:06.299 And the answer is they invent a saint. Exactly. 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:10.099 They invent a saint. And they don't name it after 00:02:10.099 --> 00:02:12.639 a martyr or some holy figure. They name it after 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.099 a day of the link. Saint Monday. Yes. They called 00:02:16.099 --> 00:02:18.969 it Saint Monday. And let's define exactly what 00:02:18.969 --> 00:02:21.689 this phenomenon was because it is wild. It really 00:02:21.689 --> 00:02:24.509 is. St. Monday was a massive widespread tradition 00:02:24.509 --> 00:02:28.830 of worker absenteeism on Mondays. It was incredibly 00:02:28.830 --> 00:02:31.030 common among these craft workers, going back 00:02:31.030 --> 00:02:33.310 to at least the 17th century. Just a complete 00:02:33.310 --> 00:02:36.150 shutdown. Yeah, huge swaths of the workforce 00:02:36.150 --> 00:02:38.449 just decided they simply weren't going in on 00:02:38.449 --> 00:02:40.969 Monday. It's like taking a mental health day 00:02:40.969 --> 00:02:44.229 to cure the Sunday scaries, but done en masse. 00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:47.050 Right. and there was even an escalated slightly 00:02:47.050 --> 00:02:50.250 rarer version of this called Saint Tuesday where 00:02:50.250 --> 00:02:53.590 this phantom holiday just kept rolling into the 00:02:53.590 --> 00:02:55.569 next morning. It was essentially the ultimate 00:02:55.569 --> 00:02:57.729 unauthorized extension of the weekend pulled 00:02:57.729 --> 00:02:59.650 off by people who didn't actually have a weekend 00:02:59.650 --> 00:03:01.610 to begin with. Which immediately makes me wonder 00:03:01.610 --> 00:03:04.270 about the basic mechanics of 17th century capitalism, 00:03:04.509 --> 00:03:06.530 you know. Yeah, how does it survive? Exactly. 00:03:06.770 --> 00:03:09.590 If I run a business today and my entire staff 00:03:09.590 --> 00:03:12.430 ghosts me every single Monday to go drink, I 00:03:12.430 --> 00:03:14.789 am firing everyone and the business probably 00:03:14.789 --> 00:03:18.129 goes under. So if everyone was doing this, how 00:03:18.129 --> 00:03:21.120 did the whole system collapse? if the workforce 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:23.800 just vanished for a day or two every week? Well, 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:26.099 what's fascinating here is that the system didn't 00:03:26.099 --> 00:03:29.080 collapse because business owners, the master 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:32.580 craftsmen, essentially had no choice but to adapt. 00:03:33.180 --> 00:03:35.599 Really, they just took it. They had to. It became 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:38.280 an ingrained cultural expectation that masters 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:41.580 simply had to put up with. The sheer scale of 00:03:41.580 --> 00:03:44.740 the absenteeism gave the workers incredible leverage. 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:46.639 Because everyone was doing it. Exactly. This 00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:49.159 wasn't just a few isolated people sleeping in. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.659 But to understand why the master's put up with 00:03:52.659 --> 00:03:54.900 it, we have to look at the mechanics of how work 00:03:54.900 --> 00:03:57.919 was actually done back then. OK. In the era before 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:00.259 factories, a lot of craft work was done on a 00:04:00.259 --> 00:04:02.919 piece rate basis. Oh, right. So the master wasn't 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.340 necessarily paying for the worker's time by the 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:07.439 hour he was paying for the finished product. 00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:10.879 Ah, I see. So if you're making shoes, the boss 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:12.300 doesn't care if you're sitting at your bench 00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:14.240 on Monday morning as long as he gets the 10 pairs 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.699 of shoes by Saturday night. Precisely. The workers 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:20.240 had a really high degree of autonomy over their 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:23.220 own pacing. If a shoemaker took Monday and maybe 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:27.040 even Tuesday off to drink and socialize, he would 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:30.139 just make up for it by working incredibly long 00:04:30.139 --> 00:04:32.439 hours later in the week. Just cramming it all 00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:34.660 in at the end. Yeah, often by candlelight on 00:04:34.660 --> 00:04:37.699 Thursday and Friday. And the master still got 00:04:37.699 --> 00:04:40.889 his goods to sell. Interesting. Now the Masters 00:04:40.889 --> 00:04:43.629 hated the unpredictability, of course, but because 00:04:43.629 --> 00:04:46.009 they didn't have a massive factory with, you 00:04:46.009 --> 00:04:48.509 know, heavy overhead costs burning a hole in 00:04:48.509 --> 00:04:51.279 their pockets every hour, it sat empty. They 00:04:51.279 --> 00:04:53.540 could afford to be a little more flexible. Exactly. 00:04:53.579 --> 00:04:56.180 They could absorb that erratic schedule. They 00:04:56.180 --> 00:04:58.500 were prepared to put up with it because the economic 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:00.939 structure allowed for that flexibility. That 00:05:00.939 --> 00:05:03.660 flexibility completely changes the power dynamic, 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:05.779 though. I mean, the bosses didn't officially 00:05:05.779 --> 00:05:08.360 grant this day off. The workers just seized it. 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:10.439 Right. And the piece rate system gave them the 00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:12.720 cover to do it. But let's look at the physical 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:15.319 reality of pulling something like this off. OK. 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:17.779 If you're a working class crafts person in the 00:05:17.779 --> 00:05:22.600 1700s. How do you actually execute a weekly coordinated 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:25.480 hooky day without starving? It's a good question. 00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:27.360 Because if you aren't working those first two 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:30.199 days, your cash flow is severely disrupted, right? 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:33.199 Well, that brings us to the logistics of leisure. 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:36.100 St. Monday wasn't just a random act of rebellion. 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:39.660 It was the result of a perfect storm of economic 00:05:39.660 --> 00:05:42.060 and social factors aligning. A perfect storm 00:05:42.060 --> 00:05:46.209 how? First, consider the economy of Monday. Payday 00:05:46.209 --> 00:05:49.050 during this era was almost universally on Saturday 00:05:49.050 --> 00:05:51.470 night. OK, so the end of the six -day grind. 00:05:51.829 --> 00:05:54.529 Exactly. You grind through your week, and finally, 00:05:54.670 --> 00:05:58.170 Saturday evening, you get your wages. In a society 00:05:58.170 --> 00:06:00.649 without modern banking, that meant you were physically 00:06:00.649 --> 00:06:03.350 holding your entire week's survival in your pocket. 00:06:03.529 --> 00:06:05.649 Right in your hand. Right. By Sunday, you've 00:06:05.649 --> 00:06:08.569 rested a bit, maybe attended church. Come Monday 00:06:08.569 --> 00:06:10.910 morning, you still have a spare cash burning 00:06:10.910 --> 00:06:13.009 a hole in your pocket. So you actually have the 00:06:13.009 --> 00:06:15.410 funds. You have the temporary financial independence 00:06:15.410 --> 00:06:18.370 to buy yourself a day of freedom. Wow. It's that 00:06:18.370 --> 00:06:20.750 incredibly dangerous window right after the paycheck 00:06:20.750 --> 00:06:23.310 clears, before the reality of next week's rent 00:06:23.310 --> 00:06:25.750 sets in. Yeah, we've all been there. And then 00:06:25.750 --> 00:06:28.149 you add in the food factor. Food factor. Yeah. 00:06:28.470 --> 00:06:30.889 Historical records show that workers usually 00:06:30.889 --> 00:06:34.980 had a large meal on Sunday. a roast, perhaps, 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:37.639 and they would have significant leftovers on 00:06:37.639 --> 00:06:39.759 Monday. Well, that makes sense. This sounds like 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:43.300 a minor detail, but it's crucial. In many trades, 00:06:43.779 --> 00:06:46.939 daily meals were provided by the employer or 00:06:46.939 --> 00:06:48.939 they were tied to the workplace infrastructure. 00:06:49.139 --> 00:06:51.399 So you had to go to work just to eat. Normally, 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.379 yes. But having your own food at home meant you 00:06:54.379 --> 00:06:56.339 were physically independent from the master's 00:06:56.339 --> 00:06:58.120 canteen. Yeah. You didn't have to show up just 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:00.339 to get a hot meal. Pocket money and cold cuts. 00:07:00.459 --> 00:07:02.199 Mm -hmm. They basically built their own little 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:04.560 survival bubble that lasted exactly one extra 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:07.740 day. Exactly. And the final mechanism that kept 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:10.660 this alive was the social draw. The taverns. 00:07:10.779 --> 00:07:13.579 Right. Because this absenteeism was a collective 00:07:13.579 --> 00:07:16.220 action, if you decided to take St. Monday off, 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.019 you knew for a fact you wouldn't be sitting at 00:07:18.019 --> 00:07:19.829 home alone. Well, your friends are off too. There 00:07:19.829 --> 00:07:21.730 was guaranteed company waiting for you at the 00:07:21.730 --> 00:07:24.569 local tavern. It became this self -sustaining 00:07:24.569 --> 00:07:27.449 social ecosystem. Pure pressure, basically. Yeah, 00:07:27.550 --> 00:07:29.230 you didn't go to work because your friends weren't 00:07:29.230 --> 00:07:30.610 at work, and your friends weren't at work because 00:07:30.610 --> 00:07:32.750 they knew you'd be at the pub. OK, but let me 00:07:32.750 --> 00:07:34.649 push back and challenge the romantic framing 00:07:34.649 --> 00:07:37.029 of this for a second. Go for it. We're calling 00:07:37.029 --> 00:07:40.589 it leisure and framing it as this grand noble 00:07:40.589 --> 00:07:44.069 tradition of the working class resting up and 00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:46.569 reclaiming their time. Right. But if they had 00:07:46.569 --> 00:07:49.490 a pocket full of fresh wages and they were all 00:07:49.490 --> 00:07:51.889 gathering at the tavern, were they engaging in 00:07:51.889 --> 00:07:54.629 mindful recuperation, or was this basically a 00:07:54.629 --> 00:07:58.149 massive city -wide bender? That's the real question. 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:01.370 Because a coordinated tavern takeover sounds 00:08:01.370 --> 00:08:04.569 less like a labor movement and more like a weekly 00:08:04.569 --> 00:08:07.490 riot. Well, that tension is exactly what we see 00:08:07.490 --> 00:08:10.329 when we look closely at the primary texts from 00:08:10.329 --> 00:08:13.529 the era. OK, so the sources show this. Yes. These 00:08:13.529 --> 00:08:15.899 practical logistics, the timing of the Saturday 00:08:15.899 --> 00:08:18.339 payout, the Sunday leftovers, the tavern culture, 00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:21.100 they organically built a ramp straight into the 00:08:21.100 --> 00:08:23.519 pub. It is a brilliant example of how structural 00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:26.810 systems dictate human behavior. But to answer 00:08:26.810 --> 00:08:28.670 your question about what they were actually doing, 00:08:28.709 --> 00:08:30.949 we have to look at the cultural artifacts they 00:08:30.949 --> 00:08:33.730 left behind. The firsthand accounts. Right. And 00:08:33.730 --> 00:08:36.570 they paint a very vivid, often conflicting picture 00:08:36.570 --> 00:08:39.210 of what St. Monday actually looked like on the 00:08:39.210 --> 00:08:41.570 ground. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:08:42.129 --> 00:08:44.669 Because the historical texts provide us with 00:08:44.669 --> 00:08:47.730 two drastically different perspectives on the 00:08:47.730 --> 00:08:50.289 reality of this day. They do. And the first one 00:08:50.289 --> 00:08:52.990 comes from a name everyone listening will recognize, 00:08:53.669 --> 00:08:56.529 Benjamin Franklin. Yes. Long before he was a 00:08:56.529 --> 00:08:58.750 founding father, Franklin worked as a young man 00:08:58.750 --> 00:09:01.110 in a printing house in London. Right. And in 00:09:01.110 --> 00:09:03.769 his autobiography, he reflects on this period 00:09:03.769 --> 00:09:06.590 and explicitly uses the tradition of St. Monday 00:09:06.590 --> 00:09:09.230 to draw a sharp contrast between himself and 00:09:09.230 --> 00:09:11.909 his English peers. Oh, he definitely does. He 00:09:11.909 --> 00:09:19.129 writes very proudly, I find this detail absolutely 00:09:19.129 --> 00:09:22.590 hilarious. This very him. It is. Benjamin Franklin 00:09:22.590 --> 00:09:25.129 essentially reveals himself to be the ultimate 00:09:25.129 --> 00:09:28.509 corporate brown -noser. He's looking around the 00:09:28.509 --> 00:09:31.490 printing press, seeing all his fellow craftsmen 00:09:31.490 --> 00:09:33.990 nursing massive hangovers or just completely 00:09:33.990 --> 00:09:36.509 blowing off work. And instead of joining the 00:09:36.509 --> 00:09:39.690 Brotherhood, he thinks... Perfect. Less competition 00:09:39.690 --> 00:09:42.429 for me. He seized the opportunity. He weaponized 00:09:42.429 --> 00:09:45.389 his own sobriety to get ahead. He didn't view 00:09:45.389 --> 00:09:47.809 St. Monday's a hard -won right of the working 00:09:47.809 --> 00:09:50.850 man. He viewed it as a gross inefficiency that 00:09:50.850 --> 00:09:52.889 he could exploit for his own career advancement. 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:56.320 It is the absolute embodiment of the Protestant 00:09:56.320 --> 00:10:00.080 work ethic. Franklin is actively framing himself 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:03.379 as the ambitious exception to a culture of widespread 00:10:03.379 --> 00:10:06.759 idleness. But while Franklin gives us the perspective 00:10:06.759 --> 00:10:09.840 of the sober, upwardly mobile worker trying to 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:12.539 impress management, we also have texts that provide 00:10:12.539 --> 00:10:14.740 a window into the actual celebrations of the 00:10:14.740 --> 00:10:17.000 day. From the people actually at the pub. Exactly, 00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:19.980 from the perspective of the revelers. And it 00:10:19.980 --> 00:10:22.740 fundamentally challenges that romanticized labor 00:10:22.740 --> 00:10:24.870 movement. narrative you mentioned earlier. It 00:10:24.870 --> 00:10:27.090 really does. Take the 18th century folk song 00:10:27.090 --> 00:10:29.529 from Sheffield, England called the Jovial Cutler. 00:10:29.990 --> 00:10:33.529 A Cutler being a highly skilled craftsman who 00:10:33.529 --> 00:10:36.210 makes knives and hand tools. The song starts 00:10:36.210 --> 00:10:39.009 off sounding like this glorious idyllic ode to 00:10:39.009 --> 00:10:41.110 the brotherhood of the working man. Very poetic. 00:10:41.509 --> 00:10:43.710 Yeah. The Cutler sings, brother workmen cease 00:10:43.710 --> 00:10:46.289 your labor. Lay your files and hammers by. Sounds 00:10:46.289 --> 00:10:48.929 great so far. Right. He describes sitting by 00:10:48.929 --> 00:10:51.029 the warmth of the smitty fire on a beautiful 00:10:51.029 --> 00:10:53.850 St. Monday, balancing a pitcher of ale on his 00:10:53.850 --> 00:10:56.809 knee, cheerfully conspiring and telling tales 00:10:56.809 --> 00:10:59.970 of Sunday with his friends. It sounds incredibly 00:10:59.970 --> 00:11:02.330 cozy. It sounds like the working class joyfully 00:11:02.330 --> 00:11:04.409 sticking it to the man. It sounds like a triumph 00:11:04.409 --> 00:11:07.889 of the human spirit until the trap door opens. 00:11:08.149 --> 00:11:12.129 Oh, man. That is the pivotal moment. The color 00:11:12.129 --> 00:11:14.809 is sitting there with his picture, enjoying his 00:11:14.809 --> 00:11:17.149 hard -won freedom, and suddenly he hears the 00:11:17.149 --> 00:11:20.429 trapdoor rise up from the floor below. His wife 00:11:20.429 --> 00:11:23.509 is standing on the ladder, and she is absolutely 00:11:23.509 --> 00:11:26.570 not participating in this cheerful mirth. Her 00:11:26.570 --> 00:11:30.029 opening line to him is brutal. She says, damn 00:11:30.029 --> 00:11:32.450 thee Jack, I'll dust thy eyes up, thou leads 00:11:32.450 --> 00:11:35.879 a plaguey drunken life. It strips away the entire 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:39.039 romantic veneer in a single sentence. Just immediately. 00:11:39.220 --> 00:11:42.240 Yeah. And she goes on to list the specific devastating 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.919 costs of his so -called leisure. The real world 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.940 consequences. Exactly. She calls him a bright 00:11:48.940 --> 00:11:52.509 fat idle devil who sits around. reveling while 00:11:52.509 --> 00:11:55.330 she slaves away. Wow. She points out the stark 00:11:55.330 --> 00:11:57.909 reality of their household. She has no soap. 00:11:58.190 --> 00:12:00.850 She has no tea. Her gown and her petticoats are 00:12:00.850 --> 00:12:03.009 half rotten, and she doesn't have a whole stitch 00:12:03.009 --> 00:12:04.950 in her hose. She's desperate. And then she drops 00:12:04.950 --> 00:12:06.669 the hammer that shatters the whole illusion. 00:12:07.289 --> 00:12:08.990 She asks him when he plans to get his work done 00:12:08.990 --> 00:12:11.610 because, quote, Thy master wants him in today. 00:12:11.809 --> 00:12:14.090 Thy master wants him in today. The master needs 00:12:14.090 --> 00:12:17.110 the work. Yeah. That one line forces us to ask, 00:12:17.210 --> 00:12:19.889 who is actually subsidizing this rebellion? Right. 00:12:19.889 --> 00:12:22.370 It's not free. No, it's not just the frustrated 00:12:22.370 --> 00:12:24.809 business owner footing the bill. It's the domestic 00:12:24.809 --> 00:12:28.850 partner. The folk song lays bare a deeply unequal 00:12:28.850 --> 00:12:31.830 domestic economy. Completely unequal. The husband's 00:12:31.830 --> 00:12:33.970 grand stand against his employer is effectively 00:12:33.970 --> 00:12:36.690 paid for by his wife's suffering, starvation, 00:12:36.990 --> 00:12:39.889 and uncompensated emotional labor. That's such 00:12:39.889 --> 00:12:42.409 a heavy realization. He gets the pitcher of ale 00:12:42.409 --> 00:12:46.169 in the carotery, she gets rotting shoes, no basic 00:12:46.169 --> 00:12:48.769 hygiene supplies, and the crushing stress of 00:12:48.769 --> 00:12:52.230 the looming deadline from the master. It entirely 00:12:52.230 --> 00:12:55.169 reframes the narrative. The craftsman's leisure 00:12:55.169 --> 00:12:57.629 wasn't some victimless crime against capitalism. 00:12:58.129 --> 00:13:01.190 It was a direct tax on his own family. Exactly. 00:13:01.370 --> 00:13:02.809 Now obviously we're just looking at what the 00:13:02.809 --> 00:13:05.529 sources tell us without taking sides, but it's 00:13:05.529 --> 00:13:08.629 clear the fallout from this drunken absenteeism 00:13:08.629 --> 00:13:11.190 wasn't just contained to domestic misery. No, 00:13:11.309 --> 00:13:13.750 it spilled over. It poisoned the workplace atmosphere 00:13:13.750 --> 00:13:16.419 for the rest of the week. There's a great observation 00:13:16.419 --> 00:13:19.019 from the author Arnold Bennett in his 1910 novel, 00:13:19.159 --> 00:13:21.200 Clayhanger. Oh, I love this quote. He notes that 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:23.799 a factory master might not be a bad man at heart, 00:13:23.980 --> 00:13:27.179 but quote, on Tuesdays after Sunday and St. Monday. 00:13:27.669 --> 00:13:30.190 masters were apt to be capricious. Capricious 00:13:30.190 --> 00:13:32.769 is a very polite literary way of saying the bosses 00:13:32.769 --> 00:13:35.070 were furious, stressed to the breaking point, 00:13:35.289 --> 00:13:37.049 and deeply unpredictable. Right, they were losing 00:13:37.049 --> 00:13:39.350 their minds. Because they had deadlines to meet, 00:13:39.690 --> 00:13:42.110 supply chains to manage, and their workforce 00:13:42.110 --> 00:13:45.789 was essentially hung over and completely unreliable 00:13:45.789 --> 00:13:48.289 for a third of the week. So you have a society 00:13:48.289 --> 00:13:52.440 dealing with a starving... angry wife, capricious, 00:13:52.659 --> 00:13:55.159 volatile masters, and a chaotic, unpredictable 00:13:55.159 --> 00:13:58.320 workforce. That level of social friction is just 00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:00.639 unsustainable. Something had to give. And it 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:03.200 did. Which brings us to the death of the tradition. 00:14:04.179 --> 00:14:06.480 How do we go from the chaos of the trap door 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:10.100 and the capricious masters to the highly structured, 00:14:10.519 --> 00:14:13.000 rigid Monday through Friday week that you and 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.200 I live with today? Because society eventually 00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:18.019 had to kill St. Monday. Right. How did they actually 00:14:18.019 --> 00:14:21.029 do it? Well, It was a slow, deliberate execution 00:14:21.029 --> 00:14:23.730 driven by the overwhelming engine of industrialization. 00:14:23.809 --> 00:14:26.389 The factories? Exactly. As we move through the 00:14:26.389 --> 00:14:29.110 19th century, the physical nature of work fundamentally 00:14:29.110 --> 00:14:32.149 changed. We transitioned from those small, decentralized 00:14:32.149 --> 00:14:34.389 craft workshops where a guy could make shoes 00:14:34.389 --> 00:14:37.730 at his own pace to massive factories dominated 00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:41.210 by heavy machinery. And the mechanics of a factory 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:43.029 do not allow for autonomy. Because everything 00:14:43.029 --> 00:14:46.110 is connected. Right. If you run a textile mill 00:14:46.110 --> 00:14:49.190 powered by a massive steam engine, That engine 00:14:49.190 --> 00:14:53.250 requires continuous, expensive coal to run. You 00:14:53.250 --> 00:14:56.070 cannot operate the factory profitably if 30 % 00:14:56.070 --> 00:14:58.129 of your Loon operators decide to stay at the 00:14:58.129 --> 00:15:00.669 pub on Monday. It just doesn't work. The machinery 00:15:00.669 --> 00:15:04.149 demands interdependence. If three guys on the 00:15:04.149 --> 00:15:06.669 assembly line are missing, the entire line halts, 00:15:06.909 --> 00:15:09.350 and the factory owner's massive capital investment 00:15:09.350 --> 00:15:12.460 bleeds money by the minute. So the random absenteeism 00:15:12.460 --> 00:15:14.639 had to be stopped to protect the machinery and 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:17.039 the investment. But you couldn't just beat the 00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:18.919 tradition out of the workers, right? Yeah. It 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:21.679 was a centuries old cultural institution at this 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:23.740 point. You really couldn't. So how did management 00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:25.740 actually get them to show up? They realized. 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:29.039 They had to offer a concession. A bribe, basically. 00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:32.720 Basically, yeah. To stop the random chaotic absenteeism 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:36.179 of St. Monday, employers had to officially legitimize 00:15:36.179 --> 00:15:39.019 a window of leisure time. OK. They negotiated 00:15:39.019 --> 00:15:41.600 a compromise by adopting half -day working on 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:44.740 Saturday. A half -day on Saturday. It is brilliant 00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:47.580 in a deeply calculated sort of way. It really 00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:49.799 is. Think about it like a pressure release valve 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:53.259 on a massive steam boiler. Good. Management realized 00:15:53.259 --> 00:15:55.340 that if they didn't let a little steam out on 00:15:55.340 --> 00:15:58.059 Saturday afternoon, the entire workforce was 00:15:58.059 --> 00:16:00.279 going to explode and ghost them on Monday morning. 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:03.320 That's a great analogy. It reminds me of a modern 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:06.200 corporate negotiation tactic, like when management 00:16:06.200 --> 00:16:08.460 offers casual Friday or summer Fridays where 00:16:08.460 --> 00:16:11.259 you can log off at 3 p .m. Oh, absolutely. It 00:16:11.259 --> 00:16:13.740 feels like this benevolent gift from leadership, 00:16:14.419 --> 00:16:16.960 but it's really a strategy to maintain total 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:20.360 control and boost morale. just enough to guarantee 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:22.200 you'll work twice as hard the rest of the week. 00:16:22.919 --> 00:16:25.440 Exactly. They gave up Saturday afternoon strictly 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:27.779 to guarantee that the workers would show up sober 00:16:27.779 --> 00:16:30.159 and ready to operate the machines on Monday morning. 00:16:30.299 --> 00:16:32.220 If we connect this to the bigger picture, that 00:16:32.220 --> 00:16:34.899 pressure valve analogy is spot on. The Modern 00:16:34.899 --> 00:16:37.320 Weekend was not a spontaneous gift from kind 00:16:37.320 --> 00:16:39.960 -hearted factory owners. No. It was a calculated 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:42.700 and negotiated settlement to buy back Monday 00:16:42.700 --> 00:16:46.159 predictability. They traded a few hours on Saturday 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:48.940 to kill the chaos of the work week. That's wild 00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:51.580 to think about. And once this half -day Saturday 00:16:51.580 --> 00:16:54.500 took hold, the wider economic culture shifted 00:16:54.500 --> 00:16:57.659 rapidly to support it. Oh, so? Historians point 00:16:57.659 --> 00:17:00.279 out that this is when we see the rise of organized 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:03.120 mass entertainments, like railway excursions 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:06.539 to the seaside. Oh, the day trips. Right. Initially, 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:08.920 railway companies actually ran these special 00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:11.740 leisure trains on Saturday and Monday to cater 00:17:11.740 --> 00:17:14.259 to the traditional skivers. Playing both sides. 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:17.240 Yeah. But as the half -day Saturday became the 00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:19.880 sanctioned norm, the railway and the broader 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.579 leisure industry shifted their focus strictly 00:17:22.579 --> 00:17:25.000 to the weekend. So the whole society shifted. 00:17:25.079 --> 00:17:28.180 The entire infrastructure of fun moved away from 00:17:28.180 --> 00:17:30.500 Monday. It's like the whole economy conspired 00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:33.480 to herd the working class into this new officially 00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:35.839 sanctioned window of free time. Exactly. But 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:37.559 surely there were holdouts, right? People who 00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:40.099 just refused to let the tradition die. Oh, absolutely. 00:17:40.460 --> 00:17:42.819 And the demographics of those holdouts tell us 00:17:42.819 --> 00:17:45.359 everything we need to know about class and autonomy 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:47.680 during the Industrial Revolution. Who were they? 00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:50.200 The tradition of St. Monday lasted the longest 00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:52.740 among the better -off workers, specifically those 00:17:52.740 --> 00:17:55.279 who were self -employed or highly specialized. 00:17:55.400 --> 00:17:58.440 The ones with leverage. Right. These were people 00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:01.480 who still retained some say over their own hours 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:04.640 and weren't economically forced to punch a clock 00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:07.079 for a rigid factory shift. So they could afford 00:18:07.079 --> 00:18:09.079 to keep doing it. Exactly. If you controlled 00:18:09.079 --> 00:18:12.119 your own time and you had enough financial cushion 00:18:12.119 --> 00:18:14.740 to survive without the master's canteen, you 00:18:14.740 --> 00:18:17.279 kept St. Monday alive for as long as you possibly 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:20.119 could. Wow. It transitioned from a widespread 00:18:20.119 --> 00:18:23.819 coping mechanism to a luxury of the autonomous 00:18:23.819 --> 00:18:26.589 worker. That makes perfect sense. So what does 00:18:26.589 --> 00:18:29.369 this all mean for us today? That's the big question. 00:18:29.569 --> 00:18:32.069 Because even though the five -day work week obviously 00:18:32.069 --> 00:18:34.990 won the war and became the global standard, the 00:18:34.990 --> 00:18:37.450 Ghost of St. Monday never really left our cultural 00:18:37.450 --> 00:18:40.450 consciousness. No, it's still with us. The spirit 00:18:40.450 --> 00:18:42.799 of it pops up everywhere. You have the English 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:46.059 musician Billy Bragg who recorded a track literally 00:18:46.059 --> 00:18:49.160 called St. Monday on his album England, Half 00:18:49.160 --> 00:18:52.279 English. Great song. You have modern folk groups 00:18:52.279 --> 00:18:55.539 like Magpie Lane still recording new vibrant 00:18:55.539 --> 00:18:58.259 versions of the jovial Cutler. Right. And you 00:18:58.259 --> 00:19:00.799 even have the comedian and activist Mark Thomas 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:03.700 who dedicated an episode of his show, The Manifesto, 00:19:04.140 --> 00:19:06.799 to publicly calling for the return of St. Monday. 00:19:06.980 --> 00:19:09.299 People just can't let it go. People are still 00:19:09.299 --> 00:19:11.940 fundamentally drawn to the idea of reclaiming 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:14.220 that time from the machine. Well, it speaks to 00:19:14.220 --> 00:19:17.500 a deep, lingering dissatisfaction with the rigid 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:19.640 structures we've inherited. Yeah, I think so 00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:21.380 too. And I think that leaves you with a really 00:19:21.380 --> 00:19:24.500 vital question to consider. What's that? We've 00:19:24.500 --> 00:19:27.140 seen through all this history that the weekend, 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:30.220 which we treat as an unshakable natural law of 00:19:30.220 --> 00:19:33.119 the universe, was actually just a negotiated 00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:35.720 19th century settlement to stop workers from 00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:38.180 hungover skeeving. Right. It was a temporary 00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:41.059 compromise to fix a specific industrial problem, 00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:43.599 which means the five -day week is just a treaty. 00:19:43.940 --> 00:19:45.859 It's just a deal. It's not a law of physics. 00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:50.059 So what current unspoken workplace rebellions 00:19:50.059 --> 00:19:52.440 are happening right now that are going to force 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:56.500 the next compromise. Oh wow like the massive 00:19:56.500 --> 00:19:59.420 uncoordinated push for remote work over the last 00:19:59.420 --> 00:20:02.680 few years. Exactly or the phenomenon of quiet 00:20:02.680 --> 00:20:06.380 quitting or how artificial intelligence is completely 00:20:06.380 --> 00:20:09.539 decoupling productivity from hours worked. Right. 00:20:09.759 --> 00:20:12.940 What chaotic unofficial habits are workers adopting 00:20:12.940 --> 00:20:16.119 today that will eventually force society to tear 00:20:16.119 --> 00:20:18.440 up the current calendar and create the work schedule 00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:20.480 of the future. That is definitely something to 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:22.259 think about the next time your alarm goes off. 00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:24.369 on a Monday morning. For sure. Thank you so much 00:20:24.369 --> 00:20:26.549 for joining us on this deep dive. We'll be back 00:20:26.549 --> 00:20:28.549 next time to unpack another stack of sources 00:20:28.549 --> 00:20:30.710 and find the hidden history in the world around 00:20:30.710 --> 00:20:33.970 us. Until then, maybe take it a little easy this 00:20:33.970 --> 00:20:35.009 week. Take care, everyone.