“Eight Hours for What We Will!”: Rallying Cry for the Eight-Hour Work Day

Background: This poem, titled “Eight Hours,” was written by I. G. Blanchard in 1866. Six years later, Blanchard’s poem was set to music by the Reverend Jesse H. Jones, who was closely associated with Boston’s Eight-Hour League. The song became a rallying cry during the 1886 strike wave that demanded an eight-hour workday.

We mean to make things over,
We’re tired of toil for naught,
With bare enough to live upon,
And never an hour for thought;
We want to feel the sunshine,
And we want to smell the flowers,
We’re sure that God has willed it,
And we mean to have Eight Hours.
We’re summoning our forces
From shipyard, shop and mill;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will!

From the factories and workshops,
In long and weary lines,
From all the sweltering forges,
From all the sunless mines;
Wherever Toil is wasting
The force of life to live;
Its bent and battered armies
Come to claim what God doth give.
And the blazon on its banner
Doth with hope the nations fill.
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will!

The voice of God within us
Is calling us to stand
Erect, as is becoming
To the work of His right hand.
Should he, to whom the Maker
His glorious image gave,
The meanest of His creatures crouch,
A bread-and-butter slave?
Let the shout ring down the valleys
And echo from ev’ry hill,
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest,
Eight hours for what we will!

Source: I. G. Blanchard, Boston Daily Voice, August 7, 1886.