Dangerously Sleepy: Overworked Americans and the Cult of Manly Wakefulness by Alan Derickson (review)

The fraught relationship between sleep and work in modern American history is the topic of this book, which focuses on “wakefulness as a measure of masculinity” (p. x) and the impact of working conditions on health (p. xi). In the first chapter, “Sleep is for Sissies,” men of achievement such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, and Donald Trump cite a reduction in their sleeping hours not only as a reason for their success, but also as a measure of their self-discipline and virtuous work ethic. Derickson argues that “these iconic figures, along with many others, fashioned a tradition of heroic manly sleeplessness that valorized wakefulness” (p. 26).

The second chapter argues that restrictions on night-time labor and the protection of workers’ rights to sleep in the United States were motivated mainly by the potential impact on other people rather than damage to the health of the workers themselves. As women played a vital role in ensuring the health of the future generation by bearing and raising children, they were more likely to be protected from (or restricted to) night-time work, whereas working hours for men were reduced only for the sake of public safety or greater efficiency for the employer.

The three main chapters introduce case studies of shift workers in the steel industry, Pullman sleeping car porters, and long-haul truck drivers. Derickson discusses the struggle by the labor unions and individual workers for longer sleep breaks, and the resistance they encountered from employers.

Steel production in America was characterized by long, irregular shift work and cramped housing conditions, which resulted in sleep disorders, exhaustion, on-the-job injuries, and alcoholism. With a seemingly inexhaustible pool of willing immigrants, steel industrialists felt little pressure to improve working conditions, despite pressure from social scientists. It was only in 1923 that the twelve-hour working day was abolished, due partly to the insight that better working conditions could lead to improved efficiency.

From the outset in 1867, Pullman hired only African Americans as sleeping car porters, as he “considered former slaves particularly appropriate candidates for jobs involving … personal service” (p. 87). Pullman allowed his workers hardly any time for sleep, and even during their short rest periods they were required to remain alert to the needs of the passengers. Unlike most workers groups that focused on public safety issues, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters included the effect of exhaustion on workers’ health in its fight for better conditions.

Work regulations for truckers have remained essentially unchanged since the late 1930s with ten hours on and eight hours off the job (pp. 118–19). Despite recent medical studies that show the adverse health effect of these long and often drug-enhanced shifts, governments have been reluctant to improve their situation.

The book reads fluently and provides interesting details of the struggle for work-time regulations for three groups of male workers that were under great pressure to curtail their sleep time. However, it would have been helpful if these cases had been compared with the same jobs in other countries and also related to the wider context of the work-sleep dynamic in mainstream jobs in the United States. Were these examples typical or exceptional in the workplace? Were they forerunners in the fight for workers’ rights? Did sleeping car attendants in other countries experience the same conditions as the Afro-American Pullman porters, or was it the result of a uniquely paternalistic policy?

The lack of any discussion in the case studies of “the cult of manly wakefulness” as a potential cause for the “overworked American” is also disappointing. Pullman sleeping car porters were told by the brotherhood to stand up for their rights and “be a man” rather than being childishly servile, but no evidence is provided that indicates that lack of sleep was viewed as a sign of manliness. For truckers, working hours were considerably...