Alan Derickson Books
Alan Derickson is a historian specializing in labor, health, and social policy. He has written extensively on occupational health and the history of medicine in the United States, focusing on how work and cultural expectations shape public health outcomes.
Known for: Dangerously Sleepy: Overworked Americans and the Cult of Manly Wakefulness
Books by Alan Derickson
Dangerously Sleepy: Overworked Americans and the Cult of Manly Wakefulness
This book explores the historical and cultural roots of sleep deprivation among American men, tracing how ideals of masculinity and productivity have led to chronic overwork and health consequences. Derickson examines the intersection of labor, gender, and medicine, revealing how the pursuit of wakefulness became a symbol of strength and success in American society.
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Early Industrial Era
In the early factories and workshops of the nineteenth century, sleep became the first casualty of progress. I uncover in this period the origin of a uniquely American faith in wakefulness—a belief that a man who could labor beyond fatigue was demonstrating both moral and physical superiority. Indus...
From Dangerously Sleepy: Overworked Americans and the Cult of Manly Wakefulness
Scientific and Medical Perspectives
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as medicine became more professionalized, scientists began to study sleep and fatigue with new rigor. But their findings rarely challenged the economic and cultural imperatives of the day. Medical authorities often aligned with industry, fram...
From Dangerously Sleepy: Overworked Americans and the Cult of Manly Wakefulness
About Alan Derickson
Alan Derickson is a historian specializing in labor, health, and social policy. He has written extensively on occupational health and the history of medicine in the United States, focusing on how work and cultural expectations shape public health outcomes.
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Alan Derickson is a historian specializing in labor, health, and social policy. He has written extensively on occupational health and the history of medicine in the United States, focusing on how work and cultural expectations shape public health outcomes.
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