Free time The forgotten American Dream

Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt

Book - 2013

"Hunnicutt examines the way that progress, once defined as more of the good things in life as well as more free time to enjoy them, has come to be understood only as economic growth and more work, forevermore."--

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Subjects
Published
Philadelphia : Temple University Press 2013.
Language
English
Main Author
Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt (-)
Physical Description
xi, 237 p. ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781439907146
9781439907153
  • The kingdom of God in America : progress as the advance of freedom
  • Labor and the ten-hour system
  • Walt Whitman : higher progress at mid-century
  • The eight-hour day : labor from the civil war to the 1920s
  • Infrastructures of freedom
  • Labor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's new dream
  • Challenges to full-time, full employment
  • Labor turns from shorter hours to full-time, full employment
  • Higher progress fades, holdouts persists
  • The eclipse of higher progress and the emergence of overwork.
Review by Choice Review

In his rather intriguing book, Hunnicutt (Univ. of Iowa; Work without End, CH, Nov'88, 26-1604) examines the erosion of the pursuit of what today might be called "quality time," achieved by working just enough to provide basic sustenance. Thus, labor was to be only the ends to a means, the ultimate goal being what Hunnicutt calls "Higher Progress." His argument begins in Colonial America with a close reading of Jonathan Edwards's texts and moves forward in chronological fashion but with a rather disparate cast of characters. From Edwards to the Lowell mill women workers and Walt Whitman, from late-19th-century labor activist Ira Stewart to Frank Lloyd Wright and Fannia Cohn (labor educator for the ILGWU), Hunnicutt traces the ways in which various Americans sought to limit the hours people worked. The goal was to leave them sufficient time and energy for personal enrichment, first spiritual then secular, ensuring democracy in the process. Hunnicutt concludes that with the post-WW II entrenchment of Franklin Roosevelt's "Full-Time, Full-Employment" policy first introduced during the New Deal, and the increased commercialization and passivity of leisure, Americans have forgotten why and what they are working for. See related, Juliet Schor's The Overworked American (CH, Sep'92, 30-0420). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate students through professionals. K. B. Nutter Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this ambitious, episodic book, Hunnicutt (Work Without End), a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa, traces the debasement of the "American Dream" from its original intent as a means for personal and community development to its current usage as the pursuit of material wealth. Drawing on the writings of a panoply of historical thinkers, from Walt Whitman to Frank Lloyd Wright, and the labor movement's fight for fewer working hours, the book hopscotches through the past two centuries, tracing the progress and devolution of a concept. This concept, which, pace Whitman, Hunnicutt labels "higher progress," is intimately tied up with the idea of leisure. Tweaking current thinking, which labels work as a good in itself, the author shows that Americans didn't always view labor as an object of intrinsic merit. For example, labor activists fought for shorter work days because they wanted people to be free from toil and able to pursue higher goals, at first understood as religious, but later articulated as secular tasks, such as continuing education. While Hunnicutt's focus on the history of ideas makes his book at times feel too abstract to bring home his argument, he offers a provocative and valuable history of a neglected idea. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Expanding on his earlier book Work Without End (1988), Hunnicutt (leisure studies, Univ. of Iowa) argues that shortening current work obligations will give Americans time to live more contemplative lives studying, listening to music, and, generally, finding a "higher purpose" to their existence. The author casts a wide net, gleaning examples from the lofty (the University of Chicago's "Great Books" program) to popular culture (Taco Bell's "fourth meal" is evidence of people working late into the evening). He offers a chronological description of the developments that have, over time, stymied our pursuit of the "American Dream." Hunnicutt's tenacious, years-long dedication to this topic is impressive, and the array of pro-leisure personalities cited (John Adams, Julia Child) may keep up interest for the reader, but other names, such as Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Henry Luce, may leave non-baby boomers confused. VERDICT The cross-disciplinary approach suggests that this book might find a place in academic libraries. For a more amusing-but no less thoughtful-counterpoint, see Tom Lutz's Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America.-Ellen Gilbert, Princeton, NJ (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.