Male social life and drinking gravitated to a new, largely working-class institution, the saloon. By the 1890s Carnegie’s twelve-hour day was unusual. In Massachusetts the usual workday had shrunk to ten hours. The gradual decline of the working day and the limited space available to workers in their tenements and small houses, which left workers no room to entertain or meet friends at home, made the saloon a preferred site for male camaraderie.
