Аннотация:Shorter work hours was a vital issue during the formation of the labor movement in the 19th century and continued to be important until the end of the Great Depression. Some of the most dramatic and significant events in the history of labor (such as the strikes of 1886, the Haymarket disaster, the steel strike of 1919) and some of labor's most notable achievements (such as the ten hour day and the eight hour day) were parts of labor's century-long struggle for shorter hours. Recent writers have also noted that workers valued shorter hours because it was necessary for the expression of the nonpecuniary values, motives, and activities which the new labor historians have shown to be of such significance. But the history of shorter hours transcends the labor movement. Shorter hours was a political issue almost as long as it was a labor cause. It was part of reform politics from before the Civil War through Franklin Delano Roosevelt's second term. It was an issue for the idealistic, antebellum reformers. It had a prominent place in the Populists' Omaha platform and the Bull Moose platform, and appeared in both the Democratic and Re-
