ABSTRACT
Whether people worked harder as the industrial revolution progressed has been a question of great interest to historians. There is no doubt that workers sacrificed some independence as they increasingly found it necessary to seek waged employment. Yet, historians have debated the extent to which people forfeited their control over the arrangement and the timing of their workday when regular hours of labour became standard.1 In his influential article, E. P. Thompson argued that a socialization process occurred that accustomed workers over time to the demands of capitalists so that these demands became internalized.2 While both British and American historians have adopted this model,3 others have contested the ease with which the factory masters imposed a regulated workday. They have argued that capitalism did not easily or uniformly turn time into a commodity. Instead, time was a potential commodity and managers and workers negotiated its control and discipline, creating diverse experiences of time and work. While the impetus for managerial science may have lain with the manufacturers,4 workers’ concerns and priorities, negotiating abilities and determination to control their working lives cannot be ignored.
