Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt

Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt is the professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Iowa.^[1]

Career

Hunnicutt's major focus is upon the question of work, chiefly in terms of the length of time that we spend pursuing it, and its relationship with our leisure time. He has explored the history of movements for reduced working hours and shorter working days as well as working weeks.

His work contrasts current working patterns, including long hours culture and a culture of 'overwork', with some of the utopian visions of reduced working time envisaged during the productivity leaps during the early twentieth century (or earlier, such as in the ideas of the theologian Jonathan Edwards in the religious 'First Great Awakening' of the 18th century who foresaw labour-saving devices providing more space for religious worship). He has documented the movements behind such ideas as the institutionalised 40-hour week or, more radically, the 4-hour working day.^[2]

Works

• Kellogg's Six-Hour Day (1996)
• Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work (2010)
• Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream (2013)^[3]

References

1. "Benjamin Hunnicutt's Home Page". University of Iowa. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
2. Harrop, Froma. "The Long, Hot Summer of Work". Nation of Change. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
3. "Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt". Amazon.com. Retrieved 11 August 2014.