Weekends

This passage describes how weekends came to be work-free days.

Lexile Level: 640L

Categories: History

Nearly everyone looks forward to the weekend. In the United States, many adults do not work on the weekend. Most schools do not have classes. But it was not always this way. For many years, men, women, and sometimes children had to work seven days a week. In some places, they had to work as long as sixteen hours per day. In the 1860s, workers began to demand more time off. First, they asked for shorter days. They wanted to work a maximum of eight hours per day. Workers also fought to have more days off. In the early 1900s, some workers were given Saturday or Sunday off. In 1940, the eight-hour workday finally became law across the country. At the same time, workers were given two days off per week, and the weekend was born.