Did you know the “weekend” and working only 8 hours per day used to be considered a radical, liberal idea?
139 years ago today, in Bay View, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 7 workers (including a 13 yo) lost their lives to advance this revolutionary idea.
A 🧵
Labor history should be a required course in all high schools.
The 8-hour day, paid vacations, health care, the end of child labor, and the right to negotiate a contract are all victories paid for with the lives of working-class warriors. No one knows their names.
I was taught all this in high school in the late 2000s, even the Haymarket Affair. I think people just see history as static, or don't care after studying it for tests.
for me when I was young I took plenty of history courses and found them intellectually stimulating, but most of it just felt so abstract. Now I’ve got a few decades on this planet, I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for the power & relevance of so-called “history” and what it means for us today
May 8, 2025 19:51
