'In the proliferating scholarship on American working-class history, leisure has been among the last themes to be taken up. Thus, the appearance of Roy Rosenzweig's book is especially to be welcomed. It is an admirable study on several counts. For one thing, it fully exploits the advantages of local history … His exhaustive research has yielded rich materials, anabling him, for example, to show the changing composition of Worcester's saloonkeepers and to chart the opening history of the city's movie houses … especially impressive is his subtle assessment of the impact of the movies on Worcester's working people.' David Brody, Journal of American History

• Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. Context: 1. Workers in an industrial city, 1870–1920; Part II. Culture: The Working-Class World of the Late Nineteenth-Century: 2. The rise of the saloon; 3. Immigrant workers and the fourth of july; Part III. Conflict: Struggles Over Working-Class Leisure in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: 4. The struggle over the saloon, 1870–1910; 5. The struggle over recreational space: the development of parks and playgrounds; 6. The struggle over the fourth: the safe and sane july fourth movement and the immigrant working class; Part IV. Culture, Conflict, and Change: The Working-Class World of the Early Twentieth Century: 7. The commercialization of leisure: the rise of a leisure market and the persistence of the saloon; 8. From rum shop to Rialto: workers and movies; Conclusion; Abbreviations used in notes; Notes; A note on sources; Index.