We have a complicated relationship with the weekend. These two days, long seen as a break from the standard 40-hour workweek, don’t always feel like much of a break anymore, especially for those juggling multiple jobs.
As a parent of two, my weekends are often packed with so much activity that I have to schedule downtime just to catch my breath. That’s not to say weekend work isn’t necessary. Many people rely on nontraditional schedules, working Saturdays and Sundays while taking time off during the week. Still, the idea of the “weekend” has shifted—from a shared pause to something more fragmented.
Instead, it often feels like a cycle. We get through Monday by holding onto the promise of Friday. When it arrives, there’s a kind of Christmas Eve excitement for the days ahead. But before long, the “Sunday Scaries” set in, and the dread of Monday crept back. Then it all repeats.
Now, as conversations around a three-day weekend gain traction, the tension between productivity and life balance continues. While the two-day weekend was created with good intentions, its history and its present are more complicated than they seem.
So go ahead, take a break, and explore 10 historical facts behind the two-day weekend.
1. Standard work days used to literally last from sunup to sundown
If we think we work long hours today, it’s nothing compared to hard labor in the 1800s. Workers were known to start with the sunrise and end with sunset. That’s 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Not until the Industrial Revolution did workers start lobbying for 8-hour workdays.
2. Sunday was the first unofficial day off
The modern version of an off day started in 19th-century Britain, when skilled trade workers would hit their quotas for the week and take off Sundays. Manufacturers didn’t like it. But since people attended church on Sundays anyway, taking off work slowly became a part of the unofficial religious holiday.
3. Monday was used as the second day of the ‘weekend’
British factory workers initiated a way to take Mondays off as well as Sundays, justified by their hard work Tuesday through Saturday. They first called it “Saint Monday” to make it sound like a continuation of religious Sunday. By the mid-19th century, it was pretty widely accepted in British society.
4. Saturday used to be a half-work day
The 1842 British campaigning group called the Early Closing Association was formed to establish an official structure for fewer working hours. With societal support, they were able to cut a 14-plus-hour working Saturday in half, making afternoons free. The trade-off was that workers had to return to work on Mondays again.
5. Australia was the next country to adopt reduced work hours
By the 1850s, British influence spread to Australia, where Early Closing Associations were established. The ECA branch in Melbourne initially worked on agreements to set universal business closing times in retail trade, proposing shops close at 7 pm on weekdays and 6 pm on Saturdays for recreation, leisure and improved mental development.
6. The term ‘weekend’ was first used in a British magazine
The first use of the “weekend” terminology is recognized to be from the British magazine Notes and Queries in 1879. It was described this way: "If a person leaves home at the end of his week's work on the Saturday afternoon... he is said to be spending his weekend at so-and-so."
7. The weekend was fueled by football
As half-day Saturday popularity grew into the 1890s, and finding more leisure activities was encouraged to boost business, football games started to take place on Saturday afternoons as a cheap outing. It was known as the “Football Craze” at the time. Not much has changed since, except the “cheap” part.
8. Workers getting full Saturdays off started in North America
In 1908, workers at a New England cotton mill were granted full Saturdays off. Since Jewish workers were often required to make up work on Sundays due to their custom of observing the Sabbath on Saturdays, mill owners established a five-day workweek to accommodate them and create fairness across the board.
9. Henry Ford popularized the 5-day workweek
Ford Motor Company implemented a full Saturday and Sunday off policy in 1926, based on Henry Ford’s theory to boost the economy. Ford believed that if workers had more time for leisure activities, it would result in well-rested employees boosting production and having more money to spend on cars and gas.
10. The two-day weekend has only been a national standard since 1940
Official two-day weekends aren’t that old. Following the Great Depression, the Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect in 1940. The law set a national 40-hour maximum workweek. If workers exceeded the maximum hours, they were to be paid “time and a half”, which equaled 150% their normal hourly rate.
