Ben Hunnicutt: Leisure, the (Forgotten) Basis of American Progress

Musing Mind Podcast

My guest today is the historian and professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa, Ben Hunnicutt.

His scholarship focuses on a simple, perplexing question: why, after 100 years of shortening working weeks, did America abandon the pursuit of leisure?

I feverishly read two of his books - Work Without End, and Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream - that chronicle the history of the relationship between America’s political economy and the pursuit of leisure time for all.

He brings the precision of a historian together with the sensibility of a poet (nowhere more visible than his deep study of Walt Whitman) to make sense of a fascinating time period during which America changed its mind.

In our conversation, we cover:

• The history of the ideas of shorter working weeks and leisure time from 1830 until today.

• The difference between “economic progress” and “higher progress”.

• How children who spend more time at play grow into adults better suited to handle leisure time

• The psychologies of labor and leisure

• Strategies to reintroduce leisure into the U.S. political economy.

Enjoy!