Peasants Dancing Outside the Crescent Tavern

The Harvesters

Gathering of Enslaved People on one of the Plantations of Jonas Witsen in Surinam

Leisure and Labor

Portrait of Three Farmers

The Close of Day

New England Factory Life – "Bell-Time"

Political Discussion in a Lumber Shanty

Collection by Blake Palmer The right to rest has an important place in labor movements across the world. Under feudalism, capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, rest has been a tactic of resistance, an object of struggle, and a relief from the dehumanizing demands faced by people working under oppressive forms of labor. Work slowdowns have been used by enserfed, enslaved, and colonized people to resist unjust treatment. During the Industrial Revolution, labor unions fought for the right to weekends and eight-hour workdays, sometimes facing brutal, even deadly violence from police and employers. Leisure activities like singing, dancing, and storytelling have been ways of asserting agency and humanity outside of one’s role as a laborer. Under systems that attempt to reduce working class people to laboring machines, rest becomes a form of resistance that deserves to be celebrated. Pieces in this collection show workers at rest, enjoying moments of leisure, care, and revelry that constitute a life beyond labor.

Workers at Rest: Leisure, Labor, and Resistance

About this Collection

Make a curated collection.