The idea that in 1924 people were working 84-hour weeks (including Sunday!) is preposterous. For example Ford introduced the 8-hour day at its factories in 1914.
You were responding to somebody talking about farm labor, by talking about industrial labor. I'm not gonna pick a side here, but to say that what you each present as fact is not in conflict.
The actual origin of kindergarten were 4 years old running the streets alone - while BOTH parents worked 12 hours a day in a factory. Maybe excluding Sunday, I am not sure now. Industrial revolution was brutal on people.
Ford could introduce 8 hours long day only because 8 hours a day was far from norm at that time.
if you go back another 100 years to 1824 then yes you have a truly awful system. The "infernal mills" of England were fed by cotton exported from Southern slave plantations. Most people took Sunday off but 12-hour days were common. This period was absolutely not seen as normal or acceptable by the people living through it and gave rise to massive social unrest as well as the socialist movement. It is immortalized in fictional works like "Oliver Twist" and "Les Miserables" which show widespread concern for the shocking plight of the urban poor at that time. By 1924 material conditions had improved vastly, industrial action and labor movements worldwide had won legal concessions, and 12-hour days were much more rare. Ford's 8-hour day was less than the average but not radically so.
