In 1903, Salt Lake City’s coffin makers went on strike to assert their right to make merry. “A thousand workmen have laid aside their tools and say they will not take them up again unless they are assured of a nine and one half-hour workday and a three-hour day on Saturday,” the Salt Lake Telegram reported. The workers argued that the nature of their work made them gloomy and melancholy. Because they worked 10-hour days, six days per week, they were unlikely to regain a positive frame of mind until late Sunday evening, by which point it was time to prepare for another week’s work. They told reporters the situation “curtails their pleasure and renders them undesirable associates for their friends.”
If they couldn’t get time, how else could coffin makers have cheered themselves up? What other occupation should go on strike for the opportunity to be cheerful? Could you get away with that today? What would happen is you called in melancholy to work? What happens next?
