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A Century of Misery for Retail Employees Just Before Christmas
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/a-century-of-misery-for-retail-employees-just-before-christmas/282628/
***SNIP
The daily headlines make it easy to imagine that long holiday hours are an innovation of our era. This year alone we've heard about "Black Friday" sales that began on Thanksgiving Day, Amazon.com deliveries arriving on Sunday, and Kohl's staying open 24 hours a day for the final countdown to Christmas morning.
But the holiday rush was an annual event in bygone eras too.
In 1896, when the New York State Legislature forbade stores to work women younger than 21 or boys younger than 16 for more than 10 hours per day or 60 hours per week, lawmakers exempted the days between December 15 and December 31. The consumer economy fueled intense demand for labor even then.
The organized effort to encourage consumers to "Shop Early" began in 1903, when progressive reformer Florence Kelley published her essay "The Travesty of Christmas."
