The Puritan Influence on America’s Work Habits

As the first colonizers of the country that is now the United States of America, there is no doubt that the Puritans of the 1600s and their ideals impacted the development of twenty-first-century American society. However, though America’s governmental and economic systems were largely built on the Puritan concepts of predestination and Original Sin, as well as Puritans’ devotion to God, these principles are not nearly as significant in American society today, nor did they give rise to the phenomenon of Americans tending to work significantly more in a year than any other developed country. Since the seventeenth century, through three major historical events, Americans have gradually lost characteristics of the Puritan work ethic and obtained capitalistic ideals, such as the concept of private markets and “every man for himself” during the American Revolution, the introduction of hourly wages and mass production---and consequently mass consumption---in the Second Industrial Revolution, and most recently, the decentralization of the government and the union decline of the 1970s.

To demonstrate this point, when the Puritans made their pilgrimage to the New World from England in the mid-1600s, they did so in order to freely practice and spread religious beliefs which did not conform with those of the Church of England. Among these beliefs was the Calvinist concept of predestination, which directly affected how hard and how tirelessly the Puritans worked, as evidenced by Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, in which he recounts that “they committed themselves to the will of God and resolved to proceed” (5) through a thrashing storm on their way to the Americas. The Puritans believed it was God’s plan that they safely make it to the New World, thus they struggled through the storm and worked as hard as they could to complete their pilgrimage. This sense of predestination was present through much of American colonialism- that is, until the late eighteenth century, when Americans began to long for a sense of individualism: the American Revolution. As Richard Wike writes in his article analyzing the differences between modern America and Europe, “Americans are more likely to believe they control their own destiny… [as] 57% of Americans disagreed with the statement ‘Success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control,’ a higher percentage than in any of the European nations polled” (1). It was when American colonists finally rejected the British monarchy and its imperial rule and fought for their independence that Americans as a society lost the core concept of predetermination. This loss of Puritan values during the American government’s nascence also led to the American capitalist tenet of “every man for himself,” which is what directly influences the American work habit today, as the common American capitalist belief is that one is responsible for one’s own earning of money, as well as their subsequent well-being and quality of life.

Similarly, another aspect of Puritanism was their intense devotion to God in everything they did; every facet of their lives was attributed to and committed to Him. Edward Taylor’s “Huswifery” exhibits this fact when the poem’s persona says, “Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning wheel complete… Then mine apparel shall display before Ye / That I am clothed in holy robes for glory.” The speaker relates through an extended metaphor God’s will for him to an item of clothing which God is "[weaving] the web [Himself]" for the speaker to wear, and the speaker himself as the "spinning wheel complete" with which the cloth is made that he may communicate his complete trust in and devotion to God (1, 9, 17-18). Today, however, dedication to religion and God to such an intensity is less common- modern Americans simply have a different interpretation of religion than did the Puritans of the seventeenth century. This change in interpretation occurred when the impoverished working people of nineteenth-century America, those who most needed an idol upon which to put their faith, found hope in something other than God: their work. As Thorsten Latz states in a comparison of his experience working in Germany to that in America, the current “German attitude is: [They] do not live to work, [they] work to live,” while for Americans today, “work seems to be what defines them. If they do not work, they do not feel good” (De Vries, Latz, Ryan 2). Nearly a century after the American Revolution, there occurred the Second Industrial Revolution; with the invention of the light bulb and the ensuing development of shift work and hourly wages, as well as the founding of factories and corporations, the American people began to work as much as they could to earn as much as they could. The earning of money soon became to equate living well and being happy to working-class Americans such that they would often forsake the sabbath day to work seven days per week. This development is what gave rise to the immense consumerism culture in America and the capitalist belief that money buys happiness, motivating Americans to put in as many hours of work as possible, even if it detrimentally affects personal relaxation or quality time with their family.

As a final illustration, a key pillar of seventeenth-century Puritanism is the belief in Original Sin, and that they must commit their entire lives to fearing and obeying God that they may earn His forgiveness. Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards says in his famous sermon, “However you… may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but His mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction” (14), demonstrating the idea that, though a person can work to commit oneself to God and keep a religious lifestyle, humans are all still sinners whose fates fall ultimately to the whim of an angry God. This concept of Original Sin is not nearly as influential on twenty-first-century American society; rather than an irritated God, Americans feel subject to the whims of an unstable market and a corrupt legislation often working in conjunction with corporate leaders. Among other events, it was the devastating union decline in the 1970s, in a time of trade globalization and government decentralization, which resulted in this newfound fear and uneasiness in regards to the corporate leaders under which the great majority of the working class is employed. As Dwyer Gunn states, “management, labor, and the government  wanted to keep the production lines moving,” so “in the wake of the Great Depression and wartime rationing… factories innovated to meet rising consumer demands [and] productivity… increased dramatically,” while wages stayed stagnant (1). Labor unions in America, having been inhibited by corporate bosses, the increase of unemployment rates, and legislation like the Taft-Hartley Act, gradually decreased in both amount and authority- to put this into perspective, most European countries today are over two-thirds unionized, while the United States has a mere 10% membership (Gunn 2). The decline in unions directly influenced a sharp decline in wages which was disproportionate to the rising rate of production- the consequences of which are still felt today- as well as an intense fear in the working class of losing their jobs, a need to work for survival. Low wages and workers’ lack of government-instituted aid is what now drives Americans to work as much as they can- no longer the threat of God’s anger.

In essence, yes, the Puritan work ethic was real and yes, it did influence the first generation of Americans, but it no longer holds the power over the American working class that it once did; rather, modern capitalistic concepts such as private markets, a decentralized government, and the cultural biases of consumerism and living to work are what motivate Americans to consistently work more per year than any other developed country. It is clear through the gradual loss of Puritan ideals through the past four centuries that though the United States was built on and by Puritanism, American society has simply grown out of the Puritan work ethic.

Works Cited

Bradford, William. “Of Plymouth Plantation.” Dutchess Community College, www.sunydutchess.edu/faculty/oneill/OfPlymouthPlantation.pdf.

Wike, Richard. “5 Ways Americans and Europeans Are Different.” Pew Research Center, 31 July 2020.

Taylor, Edward. “Huswifery.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46133/huswifery

De Vries, Latz, Ryan. "Why do Americans work more than Europeans? Is there a cultural bias to live to work?" Quora.

Edwards, Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th, 1741.” Electronic Texts in American Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Gunn, Dwyer. “What Caused the Decline of Unions in America?” Pacific Standard, 24 Apr. 2018.