1. The main reduction in working hours took place between 1900 and 1920 -- down from 60.1 hours to 49.7 hours per week. In non-agricultural occupations the hours worked per week dropped from 55.9 in 1900 to 44.5 in 1929. J. Frederick Dewhurst & Associates, America's Needs and Resources: A New Survey, NY: Twentieth Century Fund, 1955, p. 1073.
2. From 1899 to 1929 manufacturing output increased 208%. A sharp rise in productivity per man-hour (over 100% from 1899 to 1929 for production workers) accompanied the decline in hours worked, the shrinkage in the portion of the labor force employed in production, and the increase in output. (See U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bulletin, January 1939; U.S. Bureau of Census, E.E. Day and W. Thomas, The Growth of Manufacturers, 1999 to 1923, Census Monograph VIII, 1928; United States Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, D.C., 1975, pp. 948-50.
3. Henry Ford (in collaboration with Samuel Crowther), Today and Tomorrow, NY: Doubleday, 1926, p.4.
4. Leaders such as Edward Filene observed that "productive machinery was so effective that even more so than before much greater markets were absolutely necessary than those provided by existing public buying power." Edward Filene, The Consumer's Dollar, NY: John Day Company, 1934, p.29.
5. Ernest Elmo Calkins, "The New Consumption Engineer and the Artist," in J. George Frederick, ed., A Philosophy of Production NY: The Business Bourse, 1930, p.117; The Consumer's Dollar, p.20.
6. David Riesman, et al., The Lonely Crowd, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950; Leo Lowenthal. "Biographies in Popular Magazines," in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton, eds., Radio Research. 1942-43, NY: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1944, pp.507-49.
7. Georges Friedmann, "Leisure and Technological Civilization," International Social Sciences Journal, 12, 4, 1960, pp. 512-13. The social theorist and economist Simon Patten set forth in 1907 the thesis that there was occurring a transition from a "pain economy" to a "pleasure economy" as the American system moved from a condition of scarcity toward one of potential abundance. Patten, The New Basis of Civilization. NY: Macmillan, 1912.
8. Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness, NY: McGraw Hill, 1976, pp.36, 54. Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown, pp. 81-82.
9. John Alt, "Beyond Class' The Decline of Industrial Labor and Leisure." Telos, 28, Summer 1976, pp. 55-90.
10. Contemporary accounts of this development directed attention to the dual forces of the demolition -- by the forces of industrial urbanization -- of community and the social traditions and institutions capable of "permit(ting) the spontaneous formation of new nuclei of social life," and the concomitant thrust of commercialization on the part of "business enterprise...quick to grasp the opportunity for material gain presented by the breakdown" of the neighborhood and the extended family as resources for recreation. John Collier, "The Lantern Bearers: Essays Exploring Some Thoroughfares of the People's Leisure," Survey, 34, June 5, 1915, p 217; George Counts, Social Formation of Education, Report of the Commission on Social Sciences, 1934, p.100.
11. John Alt, "Beyond Class," p. 58.
12. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Labor in the Twentieth Century. NY: Monthly Review Press, 1974.
13. Georg Lukács, History & Class Consciousness. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1971, p.100.
14. John D. Owen, The Price of Leisure. Rotterdam: Rotterdam University Press, 1969, p. 84; Dewhurst, America's Needs & Resources, p 347.
15. Martin Sklar, "On the Proletarian Resolution & the End of Political Economic Society," Radical America, 3,3, May-June 1969, pp. 1-41.
16. "We Spend About as Much for Fun as for Running the Government," Business Week, July 13, 1932, p. 20; see also Julius Weinberger Economic Aspects of Recreation," Harvard Business Review, 15, Summer 1937, p.449. There exists wide variation in estimates of non-governmental expenditures for leisure and recreation during this period. A crude estimate for consumption expenditures for recreation in 1890 is $150 million. By 1909 consumer expenditures for recreation products, services and vacation travel were close to $1 billion. (Dewhurst , America's Needs & Resources, p. 964ff; and Weinberger, p. 450ff.) Whereas in 1910 expenditures on sports alone were estimated at $73 million and permanent investment in the sporting goods business as $105 million, estimates for 1924 suggested expenditures on sports of $1.5 billion per year (Arthur Reeve, "What America Spends for Sport," Outing 57, December 1910, p.303; Walter Hiatt, "Billions Just for Fun," Collier's, 74, October 25 1924, p 50). Estimates of the total bill for leisure and recreation in the mid and late 1920s range from $6 to $21 billion per year. (See Jesse Steiner, Americans at Play. NY, McGraw-Hill, 1933, p 183. Stuart Chase, "Play," in Charles Beard, ed., Whither Mankind. NY, Longman, Greene & Co., 1928, pp.336-7.
17. An active leisure pursuit such as camping on the part of urban dwellers was incorporated into the marketplace, but still represented less frequently purchased commodities than such things as movies. Expenditures for active leisure participation increased, but less rapidly than expenditures for commercial amusements (Cf. Jesse F. Steiner, "Recreation and Leisure Time Activities," in Recent Social Trends in the US Report of the President's Research Commission, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1933, p.921-57.
18. For example, from 1895-1930 the number of cities having minor league baseball teams grew from 38 to 194; the number of leagues from 5 to 26. (Hy Turkin and SC Thompson, The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball, New York: Barnes and Co. 1951). From 1909 to 1929 baseball grew in attendance by 330% while its financial value increased 1130%; the increases for boxing were 1750% and 6645%, and for football, 500% and 1400% (Jack Kofoed, "A Dirge for Baseball," North American Review, 228, July 1929, pp. 107-8.
19. Steiner, Americans at Play, p 97; see also "Football or Baseball, the National Game," Literary Digest, 83, December 6, 1924, p.62 Hon the Ballyhoo Makes the Athlete," Literary Digest, 95 November 19, 1927, p.62. Surveys by Robert and Helen Lynd and by Howard Savage revealed considerable expansion in the amount of space devoted to sports in the newspapers. Howard Savage, et al., American College Athletics, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bulletin #23, 1929; Lynds, Middletown.
20. James T. Farrell, My Baseball Diary. NY, Barnes and Co. 1957, p.41. Farrell observed that "the conversations about baseball which I sometimes heard at home, the nostalgic recollections of players who had passed out of active play, the talk of players and games in an almost legendary way, all this was part of an oral tradition of baseball passed onto me, mainly in the home, during the early years of the century" (p.29).
21. Ernest Elmo Calkins. Business, the Civilizer. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1928, p. 191.
22. There had long been in American cultural life a tension between the commercialization of leisure and those who advocated leisure as self-improvement. While castigating the "commercial view of life" that viewed everything in terms of commodities, critics of commercialization maintained a distinction between leisure as an item of consumption and as commercialized recreation.
23. See for example, Dana Gitlin, "Amusing America's Millions," World's Work, 26, July 1913, p. 326; Douglas P. Haskell, "Football As Big Business," New Republic, 49, January 19, 1927, pp.224-5; W.O McGeehan, "Baseball: Business as Usual," North American Review, 224, May 1927, p. 119.
24. "The Business Side of Baseball," Current Literature, 53, August, 1912, p.168.
25. E.L. Godkin, "Athletics and Health," Nation, 59, December 20, 1894, p. 458.
26. A. A. Brill, "The Why of the Fan," North American Review, 228, October 1929, p.432.
27. E.M. Wooley, "Business of Baseball," McClure's, 39, July 1912, pp. 243-45; N.B. Beasley, "Baseball -- A Business, A Sport, A Gamble," Harper's Weekly, 58, April 11, 1914, p.27; Griffith, "Baseball, Now that's a Business," p 20.
28. "The Baseball Trust," Literary Digest, 45, December 7, 1912, p. 1090; "Baseball Players Who Are Sold," Literary Digest 85 December 6, 1924, pp. 73-74.
29. "Ban Johnson, the Roosevelt of Baseball," Literary Digest, 60, March 8,1919, p.78; "Something About Babe Ruth, Price $125,000," Literary Digest, 64, January 17,1920, p. 129.
30. Leverett T. Smith Jr., "The Diameter of Frank Chance's Diamond: Ring Lardner and Professional Sports," Journal of Popular Culture, 6, 1. Summer, 1972, pp. 142-44.
31. Taylor learned through athletics the "value of the minute analysis of motions, the importance of methodical selection and training, the worth of time study and of standards based on rigorously exact observation. Charles de Freminville, "How Taylor Introduced the Scientific Method into Management of the Ship: Critical Essays on Scientific Management, Taylor Society Bulletin, NY, 10, February 1925, p 32.
32. Carl Crow, "America's First in Athletics," World's Work, 27, December 1913, p. 191.
33. Physical education journals were replete with articles setting forth standardized rules for almost every game imaginable. Organizations such as the Athletic Officials' Association (formed to aid in obtaining "uniform interpretations of the football rules") and various athletic federations had as a primary purpose the formulation of standards and unification of eligibility codes. (See J.J. Lipski, "The Athletic Officials Association, Athletic Journal, 4, October 1923, pp.11-13; "National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations," Athletic Journal, 4, March 1924, pp. 34-35; "The Standardization of Sport," The Nation, 75, December 4, 1902, p.439. A popular type of article was the "how to do it" article -- how to throw the discus, how to box, how to fence, etc. These were often set forth in formula style -- e.g., "Tilden's Recipe: for Good Service in Tennis." (Fred Hawthorne, "Tilden the Hardest Hitter," Outing, 74, Mar 1919, p. 152; Robert Kilburn Root, "Sport versus Athletics," Forum, 72, November 1924, p.659.
34. John M. Murrin and James M. Rosenheim, "Americans at Play: The National Pastime versus College Football, 1860-1914," Princeton Alumni Weekly, October 6,1975, p.14.
35. Farrell, My Baseball Diary, p.76.
36. Saturday Evening Post, 196, November 1,1924, p. 150.
37. The attention given to sport and leisure in terms of administration, organization, and finance was remarkable. Working from the assumption that athletics for youth could not exist without supplies, permanent equipment, testing, etc., this literature proceeded to a detailed and "business-like" analysis of these factors. (See for example, John L. Griffith, "Organization and Administration of intercollegiate Athletics," Athletic Journal, 4, September 1923 through May 1924; Clara I. Judson, "The Budget for Athletics," Athletic Journal, 4 November 1923, pp.28-29; "A City Federation for Amateur Athletics," American City, 11, July 1914, p.63.)
38. "A Letter from George Eastman," Playground, 16, December 1922, p.409.
39. See Raymond Willoughby, "The Pursuit of Golf Balls," Nation's Business, 14, April 1926, p. 30; Robert Barnes, "Occupying Vacation Time," Nation's Business, 14, August 1926, p.88; "Work and Play," Independent, 52, October 11, 1900, p.2468. Even those who contended that recreation (e.g., golf) was a good investment in health expressed an alienated notion of the activity, as opposed to accepting it as a pleasurable activity which required no justification whatsoever. "Capitalizing the Outdoor Life," Nation. 89, November 11, 1909, p. 451-2.
The valuable resource/capital investment theme also penetrated the inner workings of various leisure activities. For example, advocates of scientific baseball argued that fewer games would be lost "When the pitcher learns that his four balls are to be treated as capital and not as surplus," and when batters learned to check[ing] the waste of batting capital at the home plate." Clarence Demming, "Flaws of the baseball Diamond, Outing, 44, May 1904, p.121.
40. Recent Economic Changes, p. xvi.
41. Robert S Lynd, "The People as Consumers "in Recent Social Trends in the United States. Report of the President's Research Committee, NY, McGraw-Hill 1933, pp. 866-7.
42. Samuel Gompers "The Shorter Workday: Its Philosophy," American Federationist, 22, March 1915, p.165; William Green, "The Five-Day Week," American Federationist, 33, November 1926, p.1299.
43. Daniel J. Tobin "Vacation with Pay," American Federationist, 34 July 1927, p. 795. See also Filene, The Consumer's Dollar, passim. Henry Ford cited in William T. Foster and Waddill Catchings, Business without a Buyer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927, p. 188.
44. Printer's Ink, Fifty Years, 1888-1938. NY: Printer's Ink Publishing Co.; Stuart Ewen, "Advertising as Social Production," Radical America 3, 3, May-June 1969, p.43.
45. "Sport of Bowling Featured in Posters," Printer's Ink. 102 January 10, 1928, p 69.
46. Advertisement for Coca Cola, American Magazine, 105, April 1928 p. 117.
47. Stanley Aronowitz, False Promises. NY, McGraw-Hill, 1975, p. 92. See also, H Addington Bruce, "The Psychology of Football," Outlook, 96, November 5, 1910. p. 541; H. Addington Bruce, "Baseball and the National Life," Outlook, 104 May 17 1913 p 104.
48. "The Psychology of Football," Literary Digest, 28 January 9 1904, p 48. Anyone who paid money at the gate felt he had the right to call the "official arbiter" a robber. See Charles E. Van Loan, "Kill the Umpire," Munsey's, 42, October 1909, p 152. See also Guy W. Carryl, "Marvelous Coney Island," Munsey's, 25 September 1901. p.814, who comments that "Coney Island has a code of conduct which is all her own."
49. McCready Sykes, "The Most Perfect Thing in America," Everybody's Magazine, 25, September 1911, p.441.
50. Nystrom, Economic Principles of Consumption. p.437; "Restlessness and Recreation," Nation, 123, November 10 1926, p.469; Charles Weller "Recreation and Industry," Playground, 11, September 1917 p.331.
51. Ewen, Captains of Consciousness, p 29.
52. Eugene T. Lies, "Organized Labor and Recreation," p 648.
53. Arthur Pier, "Work and Play," Atlantic Monthly, 94 November 1904 p.669; Nystrom, Economic Principles of Consumption, p.459
54. Steiner, "Recreation and Leisure Time Activities," p 925, 953.
55. James P. Wood, The Story of Advertising, NY: Ronald Press, 1958, p 276.
56. Jack W. Berryman, "From the Cradle to the Playing Field: America's Emphasis on Highly Organized Competitive Sports for Preadolescent Boys," Journal of Sports History 2, 2 Fall 1975 p. 125ff.
57. "In this orientation, man experienced himself as a thing to be employed successfully on the market. He does not experience himself as an active agent, as the bearer of human powers. He is alienated from those powers. His aim is to sell himself successfully on the market." (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, pp.29; for a fuller discussion see Fromm, Man for Himself, NY: Rinehart & Company, 1947, pp.67ff.
58. "Capitalizing the Outdoor Life," p. 451. This editorial mentions that sport was increasingly viewed as a major factor in preparing America for its destiny "to shape the future of the world." This theme stood out in Theodore Roosevelt's articulation of the "strenuous life." For a discussion of the role of the "new athleticism" in relation to jingoism and imperialism, see Robert Boyle, Sport: Mirror of American Society, Boston, 1963, p.84ff.
59. "Commercialism in College Athletics," Literary Digest, 30, June 3, 1905, p.807; Henry B. Needham, "The College Athlete: How Commercialism Is Making Him a Professional," McClure's. 25, June 1905, p.115; Ira N Hollis, "Intercollegiate Athletics," Atlantic Monthly, 90. October 1902, p.534.
60. Allen L. Sack, 'when Yale Spirit Vanquished Harvard Indifference," Harvard Magazine, November 1975, p.28; cf. Walter H. Cunningham, "The Great Game," System, 14, October 1908, p 399.
61. Walter L. Stone, What Is Boy's Work? NY: Association Press, 1931, p.28.
62. Adoption of the collegiate (middle class) model of athletics signified acceptance of athletics as embodying an arena of upward mobility. The letter-sweater in the factory was an emulation of middle class status considerations. The real fragility of the status claim associated with industrial athletics were, however, amply demonstrated during the depression of 1921-23: "Workers who had proudly worn silk shirts and patent leather shoes at great interfactory athletic events now wandered from factory to factory for non-existent jobs." W. Irving Clark, "The Place of Athletics in the Industrial Scheme," Industrial Management, 71, June 1926, p.387.
63. Nels Anderson, Work and Leisure, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961, p.79; Margaret Mead, "The Pattern of Leisure in Contemporary American Culture," in Erie Larrabee and Rolf Meyersohn, eds., Mass Leisure, Glencoe: Free Press, 1958, p. 11.
64. Advertisement for the American Boy, Printer's Ink, 107, June 12, 1919, p.11.
65. Erich Fromm, The Sane Society, p.129; C. Wright Mills, White Collar, NY: Oxford, 1956, p.182.
66. "Give your boy the benefit of this fascinating character building sport...teach[ing] him how to become a real 'sharp-shooter.' Millions of American men have bad this valuable training." (Advertisement for Daisy Air Rifles, Saturday Evening Post, 197, October 11, 1924, p.197.) This theme was also applied to other leisure activities: "...play in band or orchestra broadens his interests, builds character, uncovers the ability to lead. Among America's leaders-statesmen, hankers, 'captains' of industry -- are countless men whose musical ability has helped them to success." (Advertisement for Conn Band Instruments, Saturday Evening Post, 197, October 11, 1924, p.199.)
67. See for example, C.W. Eliot, "President Eliot's Report-Athletics," Harvard Graduate's Magazine, 2, March 1994, p.376; James B. Carrington, "Why Football Is Popular," Saturday Evening Post, 171, November 19, 1998, p.330; Theodore Roosevelt, "Professionalism in Sports," North American Review, 151 August 1890, p. 197ff,
68. Park H. Davis, "Football and its Satellites," North American Review, 224, November 1927, p.560; Reverend A. F. Colton, "What Football Does," Independent, 57, September 15, 1904, pp.605-7.
69. Donald A. Laird, "Recording the Worker's Personality," Industrial Management, 69, November 1924, p.307. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, "I.Q. in the Class Structure," Social Policy, November-December 1972 and January-February 1973, p.85.
70. Frederick W. Taylor, "A Comparison of University and Industrial Discipline," Science, n.s., 24, November 9 1906 p.577.
71. "Aim and Scope of Physical Education," Report of a Committee from the Society of Physical Education in Colleges, American Physical Education Review, 25, June 1920, p.259; see also E.O. Stiehm, "Athletics in War Time, Outing, 70, August, 1917, pp., 672-5.
72. Calkins, Business, the Civilizer, p.192. "There's a Golden Lining to the Athletics Game," Literary Digest, 16, September 19, 1925, p.72.
74. W. Livingston Larned, "Golf's Great Debt to Advertising," Printer's Ink, 11, July 1925, p.26.
75. Carl Naether summarized one major line of advertising directed at women: "My product will enable you to express pour various moods." Carl Naether, Advertising to Women, NY: Prentice-Hall, 1928, p.199; Advertisement for Willys-Knight, Saturday Evening Post, 196, April 12, 1924, p.100.
76. Lundberg, et al., Leisure, p. 17.
77. Stein, Eclipse of Community, p, 54; see also Patten, New Basis of Civilization, p.139.
78. Farrell, My Baseball Diary, p.7.
79. "A new public interest in things pertaining to the outdoor life, largely attributable to the automobile, created a major advance in advertising of outdoor and sports equipment beginning in 1909. Brought into the sphere of activity were advertisers of firearms, boats, tents, and hammocks, camp supplies, and fishing equipment." Printer's Ink, Fifty Years, p.249,) Camping for the urban worker was a prime example of privatization, a retreat into nature which signified release from institutional constraints. But for the urban dweller this quest for the outdoor life was dependent on commercial provision of equipment and gadgets.
80. Rose Feld, "Now that they have it," Century, 108, October 1924, p.747.
81. The Leisure Hours of 1000 People.' A Report of a Study of Leisure Time Activities & Desires (NY: National Recreation Association, 1933). A survey taken in 1929 found that 60% of those surveyed owned phonographs and 90% had "backyards (areas where leisure activities were pursued shielded from public scrutiny)" (Eugene T. Lies, The Leisure of a People [Indianapolis: C.E, Crippin & Son, 1929, p.93).
82. Annual of Advertising Art (NY Watson Guptil) 1928
83. Helen McAfee, "Menace of Leisure " Century 114 May 1927 p 97.
84. In his study "The Ideology of Privacy and Reserve," Paul Halmos notes how the "individualist ideology of the era of competitive capitalism secularized the Christian ideal of the uniqueness of the individual." And we already knew thanks to Weber's study of Protestantism that Protestantism generated a profound mistrust for even the closest human ties. In Eric Larrabee and Rolf Meyersohn, eds., Mass Leisure. 1958, pp. 125-36.
85. George B. Cutten, The Threat of Leisure (New Haven Yale University Press 1926), p 75.
86. "The Benevolent Brotherhood of Baseball Bugs Literary Digest 79 July 7 1923, p. 94. Charles D. Steward, "The United States of Baseball " Century 74 July 1907 p 309. Sportswriters dealt endlessly on the theme of baseball as "democracy-in-action" describing the masses mingling with politicians, judges, and bankers. The claim that athletics were democratic was intended to signify that they were classless. Thus baseball was described us "second only to Death as a leveler" (Sangree "Fans and their Frenzies," p. 397.) Citing changes in the percentage of seating given over to bleachers, the editor of Nation's Business argued "that tells the change in America's economic conditions better than a bookful of statistics, and gives the living lie to the demagogues whose hearts bleed for the people who are struggling patiently to free themselves from the intolerable power of greedy monopoly." "Through the Editor's Spectacles," Nation's Business, 13, June 1925, p. 12.
87. Steven A. Riess, "The Baseball Magnates and Urban Polities in the Progressive Era, 1995-1920," Journal of Sport History, 1, Spring 1974, p.41-61; W, Kee Maxwell, "The Baseball Mascot," Collier's, 52, March 7, 1914, pp.5-6, 25; "Games for the Gate's Sake," North American Review, 227, February 1929, p.170.
88. Howard M. Wilson, "Basketball Team Brings Community Harmony," American City, 35, October 1926, p.551.