40 Hours to Freedom: The Invention of the Weekend
Conflicted: A History Podcast
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The Eight-Hour Song Quote
The Knights of Labor, a particular labor organization, opened and closed their meetings and rallies with songs that evoked this desire for freedom from the long arm of the job. Their anthem was the eight-hour song quote. We're sure that God has willed it and we mean to have eight hours. This rising tide of eight-hour sentiment reached its fever pitch in May of 1886 in the city of Chicago. Here in the great showdown between the forces of labor and the forces of gilded age capitalism would reach a bloody, tragic climax.
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