Why Do We Have the Weekend?

We all love the weekend. Saturday and Sunday are very special days. On these days, most people do not go to school. They do not go to work. They can sleep more. They can play games. They can see their friends and family. But why do we have these two days of rest? Who made this rule?

Life Long Ago

A long time ago, there was no weekend. People worked almost every day. They worked on farms. They worked in factories. They worked in shops. They worked for six or seven days every week. They worked from morning until night. It was a very hard life. People were always very tired.

Religion and Rest

For a long time, religion helped people rest. Different religions have different holy days. For Jewish people, the holy day is Saturday. For Christian people, the holy day is Sunday. For Muslim people, the holy day is Friday. On these days, people went to their church, temple, or mosque. They did not work. This was the first step to having a rest day.

The Industrial Revolution

In the 1800s, many people moved to big cities. They worked in factories. The work in these factories was very hard. People worked twelve or fourteen hours every day. They worked six days a week. They only had Sunday to rest.

Workers were not happy. They wanted more time for their families. They wanted to rest their bodies. They started to ask for shorter workdays. They wanted a "half-holiday" on Saturday too.

Henry Ford and the Five-Day Week

In 1926, a man named Henry Ford changed the world. He was the boss of the Ford Motor Company. He made cars. Henry Ford decided to give his workers two days off: Saturday and Sunday. He did not reduce their pay.

Why did he do this? He had two reasons. First, he knew that tired workers make mistakes. Happy and rested workers do a better job. Second, he wanted people to have free time. If people had free time, they would travel and buy more things. They might even buy his cars!

The Weekend Becomes Law

Other companies saw that Ford's idea was very good. Their workers were happy and worked fast. In 1938, the United States government made a new law. This law made the five-day workweek official. It gave workers a two-day weekend. Soon, other countries around the world made the same law.

Today, the weekend is a normal part of life. We use it to relax, do hobbies, and enjoy our lives. We have the weekend because workers in the past fought for it.

What do you like to do on the weekend?