Before the weekend became a fixture of modern life, time itself was the most contested resource of the industrial age. This book examines how the battle over working hours transformed not only labor conditions but the entire structure of human experience—splitting life into measured units of productivity and rest. From the mills of Manchester to the factories of Berlin, it shows how the commodification of time reshaped families, communities, and the very idea of freedom. A shopkeeper's heir who innovated amid retail slumps, sharing self-help for bold decisions, business models from retail revolutions, and histories of merchant dynasties through the ages.