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E-book
Author Mirola, William A. (William Andrew)

Title Redeeming time : Protestantism and Chicago's eight-hour movement, 1866-1912 / William A. Mirola
Published Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2015]

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Description 1 online resource
Series Working Class in American History
Working class in American history.
Contents Cover -- Title page -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: Protestantism and Labor Reform Movements -- 1. A City of Industrial and Religious Extremes -- 2. Opening Eight-Hour Protests and the 1867 Eight-Hour Law -- 3. Eight Hours and the Financial Crisis of 1873 -- 4. Marching to Haymarket and the 1886 Eight-Hour Campaign -- 5. A New Consciousness for Contructing a Morality of Leisure -- 6. Shifting Eight-Hour Reform from Consciousness to Creed in the Twentieth Century -- Conclusion: Religion and the Trajectory of Labor Reform Movements -- Notes
Summary "During the struggle for the eight-hour workday and a shorter workweek, Chicago emerged as an important battleground for workers in "the entire civilized world" to redeem time from the workplace in order to devote it to education, civic duty, health, family, and leisure. William A. Mirola explores how the city's eight-hour movement intersected with a Protestant religious culture that supported long hours to keep workers from idleness, intemperance, and secular leisure activities. Analyzing how both workers and clergy rewove working-class religious cultures and ideologies into strategic and rhetorical frames, Mirola shows how every faith-based appeal contested whose religious meanings would define labor conditions and conflicts. As he notes, the ongoing worker-employer tension transformed both how clergy spoke about the eight-hour movement and what they were willing to do, until intensified worker protest and employer intransigence spurred Protestant clergy to support the eight-hour movement even as political and economic arguments eclipsed religious framing. A revealing study of an era and a movement, Redeeming Time illustrates the potential--and the limitations--of religious culture and religious leaders as forces in industrial reform"-- Provided by publisher
"Exploring the intersection between Chicago's eight-hour movement and Protestant religious culture over a fifty-year span, this project considers how workers and clergy contested the religious meaning of the eight-hour system and the legitimacy of legislating limitations on overwork. Showing that behind every religious appeal was a contest over whose religious meanings would define industrial conditions and conflicts in Chicago, William Mirola examines how both workers and Protestant clergy wove and rewove working-class religious cultures and ideologies into strategic and rhetorical frames around the issue of an eight-hour workday. Mirola traces the successive framing of eight-hour reform from pre-1880s, when most Protestant clergy supported long hours to keep workers from idleness, intemperance, and secular leisure activities, through the 1890s, when eight-hour support among Protestant clergy gained ground as the result of a new social consciousness spurred by intensified worker protest and ongoing employer resistance to limiting working hours, into the early decades of the twentieth century, as religious framing of the eight-hour movement declined in favor of political and economic arguments. Mirola argues that the ongoing conflicts between Chicago workers and employers transformed both how clergy spoke about the eight-hour movement and what they were willing to do, through alliances with the labor movement, to see the eight-hour day enacted as industrial policy. By examining religious framing within the eight-hour movement, the author illustrates the potential and the limitations of religious culture and religious leaders as forces in industrial reform"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-224) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Eight-hour movement -- Illinois -- Chicago -- History
Hours of labor -- Illinois -- Chicago -- History
Labor movement -- Illinois -- Chicago -- History
Labor movement -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.
Protestant work ethic -- Illinois -- Chicago -- History
Protestantism -- Illinois -- Chicago
Eight-hour movement -- History
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Labor & Industrial Relations.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Sociology of Religion.
RELIGION -- Religion, Politics & State.
Eight-hour movement
Hours of labor
Labor movement
Labor movement -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
Protestant work ethic
Protestantism
Illinois -- Chicago
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019718137
ISBN 9780252096792
0252096797