ABSTRACT
This chapter presents historical sketches of main types of serious leisure, and examines their motivational foundation. It explains that the leisure lacks necessity, obligation, and utility. The chapter discusses that the serious leisure motivation—rewards, costs, social arrangements—has been necessarily abstract. It argues that the serious leisure motivation is to understand much of the meaning of and motivation for occupational devotion. The chapter describes how amateurs and professionals have determined continuity in subjective careers work and leisure lives-how they see themselves as progressing or declining. It uses the definitive history of hobbies written by Steven Gelber as a principal source. He holds that industrialism quarantined work from leisure in a way that made employment more work like and nonwork more problematic. Most research on serious leisure motivation has used qualitative methods for the direct exploration of particular amateur, hobbyist, and volunteer activities.
