By David Gould
Mary Oliver closes Poem 133: The Summer Day with a question: “Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Interestingly, that is the same question Ben Hunnicutt has asked in four books, and thousands of lectures, over a 50-year career.
Though Ben's first book, Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), was published six years before I arrived in Iowa City. I remember the University of Iowa campus still buzzing over the book’s success when I got here.
These were good days to be known as a “leisure studies professor” and Hunnicutt's questioning of the new theology of work had reignited a public debate. During this time, he regularly appeared in the national media, including The Charlie Rose Show, ABC News, The New York Times, and he played a central role in the popular PBS special, Running Out of Time.
In 1994, I was accepted into the Leisure Studies graduate program and was picked to be Ben’s first teaching assistant. Two years later, I stood alongside Ben as he spearheaded a national conference entitled, Our Time Famine: A Critical Look at the Culture of Work and a Re-evaluation of ‘Free’ Time. The list of presenters who traveled to Iowa City to join in the gathering was astounding. It included feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, acclaimed sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, economist Juliet Schor, and former United States Senator Eugene McCarthy. Not wanting to miss out on the event, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, 88 years old at the time and unable to travel, prepared a special video presentation. Even the Canadian government sent an observer. It was a transformational event indeed to witness some of our country’s leading sociologists, economists, and labor leaders gather in the Iowa Memorial Union to discuss how a more equitable, meaningful organization of work and leisure could be achieved. There were no honorariums offered or formal dinners planned, but this gathering of thought leaders chose to interrupt their big city lives to come to Iowa, nevertheless. Why? Because it was the home of Ben Hunnicutt.
"Ben is a towering figure in the history of work time. His analysis of developments in the first half of the twentieth century us remains the definitive account. For me personally, work without end has been one of the books that most influenced my thinking and my own research—that puts Ben in a category with Karl Marx, Pierre Bourdieu, and John Maynard Keynes."
-Juliet Schor, Economist and Sociology Professor at Boston College, April 28, 2o24
A beloved teacher, who is persistently learning, Ben’s classes are constantly evolving to reflect national issues of the day. While the majority of Ben’s fifty-year academic career has focused on the historical mystery behind “the end of shorter hours,” it has meaningfully intersected with countless disciplines including sociology, economics, women’s studies, classics, tourism, American studies, religion, health and wellness, and positive psychology. One need only look at how Ben’s four major books – Work Without End, Kellogg’s Six-Hour Day, Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream, and The Age of Experiences: Harnessing Happiness to Build a New Economy – are utilized around the world to see the impact of his scholarship. On our campus alone, the same work has been included in courses with content as diverse as work and family issues and social innovation.
In turn, Ben’s graduate courses are populated by a variety of young scholars hoping to add a unique layer to their studies. A longtime admirer of Ben’s scholarship, former University of Iowa President Willard “Sandy” Boyd once described Ben as among the “most important” UI faculty members of his tenure.
Being the torchbearer for a forgotten American Dream has never been easy, however. As higher education has slowly doubled down on preparing students for the workforce, and consumption continues dangerously unchecked, Ben’s message of more and more lives living freely has often been ignored. In fact, Ben writes about how a 2014 Politico article found him in the crosshairs of FOX News, receiving hate mail and death threats simply for choosing to teach and write about leisure.
"His writing has been pathbreaking. Moreover, unlike me, he has actually practiced what he preaches in the free time in his own life, even as he has continued to teach and write way past the age of his peers."
-Gary Cross, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Modern History Penn State College of Liberal Arts, April 28, 2024
A tireless advocate for the liberal arts, Ben argues that the eternal questions— “Who am I?” “Why am I here? “What is the meaning of my life?”—once framed in a context of loyalty to ideals bigger than oneself, are now being answered through the lens of work. Who am I? I’m a banker. A doctor. A teacher. A maid. “Purpose once reserved for the activities of the soul,” explains Ben, “is now found in the religion of work.” While financial success has certainly varied among Ben’s countless students, the common thread that runs through everyone Ben has mentored is a life committed to family, community, and service to others – the characteristics of a “good society.”
It has been said that Ben not only walks the talk but dances it. While I can still plot the 1920 – 1940 American fight over working hours on a blackboard, and lead a discussion on Plato’s Phaedrus, my favorite lessons from Ben are more subtle. Like the time a film crew came to interview Ben for the PBS special Running Out of Time. The visit took place during a historic flood, and the interview was moved inside Ben’s home to avoid the rain. When the interview was over, Ben played the piano for his visitors, before leading them on a hike along the flooding Iowa River. Ben then returned home to care for his grandson, and there is a scene in the documentary where Ben is seen pushing his grandson on a swing and tenderly singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Ben didn’t need to tell the filmmakers what he would do with more free time, he simply showed them.
"When America would seem to have forgotten the struggle for more time, Ben reminded us of it. And where many become pessimistic about controlling the monopolization of life by work, in the age of experiences, Ben Hunnicutt points to positive trends."
-Arlie Hochschild, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, April 25, 2024
Over the past month, I have corresponded with a number of distinguished scholars who see Ben’s work as fundamental to their own. Interestingly, the word that comes up over and over to describe Ben is “pathbreaking.” As economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin wrote me, “There are times in history where a single individual steps forward on the world stage with a new idea for improving the lot of humanity.” And Rifkin concludes, “We have an entire generation now coming of age who I think will be more than grateful.”
"When I first read Work Without End sometime in the late 1980s, I felt as if the missing piece of a large and frustrating jig saw puzzle had finally been found and put in its rightful place. Since then, Ben Hunnicutt’s work has been an ever-present guide to my own, explaining and exploring the most profound calculus that trades leisure for labor and how that misanthropic deal has done so much to reshape consciousness and conflict for tens of millions of workers both high and low."
-Nelson Lichtenstein, Research Professor, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbra, May 1, 2024
Biography
Professor Benjamin Hunnicutt received his MA and PhD in American History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has served as chair of Leisure Studies and head of the Division of Physical Education at the University of Iowa. He has worked as a consultant to unions and businesses interested in shorter work hours and the potential of leisure to improve the community and workplace. Hunnicutt is a member of the Academy of Leisure Sciences and past co-director of the Society for the Reduction of Human Labor. He has been a professor at the University of Iowa since 1975. For most of his academic career he has focused his research and writing on the historical mystery: "the end of shorter hours." With writers such as Joseph Pieper and Hannah Arendt, he has also explored the “rise of the world of total work”—the unique modern glorification of work as a crypto-religion and the resulting trivialization of leisure that for centuries was progress’ ultimate destination. Hunnicutt is the author of several books, book chapters, and articles, including Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work (1987), Kellogg's Six-Hour Day (1995) Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream (2013), The Age of Experiences: Harnessing Happiness to the New Economy (2020). Currently, he is working on a two-volume history of work, tentatively entitled: The Rise and Fall of Work (the second volume subtitled, Saving Work, A Failing Faith) and a trade, self-help book, What to Buy To Make You Really Happy, And Then Some. Hunnicutt has written for The Wall Street Journal, Politico, and the Huffington Press, and appeared in a variety of nationally and internationally broadcast television and radio programs including: ABC News, NBC News, the Canadian and British Broadcasting Corporations, the Today Show, the Charlie Rose Show, and appeared in the PBS special, Running Out of Time, and the German Television documentary “Frohes Schaffen - Ein Film zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral.”