1943-1944: (Leisure Was About Choice: in the First Months of Programming the LFAS Prioritizing Relaxation and Play as Pillars, Sylvain-Bouchereau Initially O…

1943-1944: (Leisure Was About Choice: in the First Months of Programming the LFAS Prioritizing Relaxation and Play as Pillars, Sylvain-Bouchereau Initially Observing “It Seems the Idea of Entertainment Is So Distant” and Buying “All Kinds of Games Cards and Dominoes”: Yet When the Girls and Young Women Came to the Foyer After 80-to-90-Hour Work Weeks with a Minimum of Ten Hours Walking to Work Most Women Chose Studying Over Games, Sylvain and Sylvain-Bouchereau Quickly Learning: Leisure Was About Choice and the Women Chose Skills and Language Training): In the first months of programming, the LFAS prioritized relaxation and play as pillars of the Foyer’s function. Sylvain-Bouchereau initially observed that it seemed the idea of entertainment was so distant; attempting to address this she bought all kinds of games, cards, and dominoes. Yet, when the girls and young women came to the Foyer after eighty-to-ninety-hour work weeks with a minimum of ten hours a week committed to commuting by foot to work, most women chose studying over games. Sylvain and Sylvain-Bouchereau quickly learned and adjusted. Leisure was about choice. And the women of the Foyer chose skills and language training that supported their intellectual curiosities and access to alternative routes of social mobility. The women who worked ninety hours a week did not want to play dominoes; they wanted to learn English, and their choice was a rebuke to every assumption the LFAS had made about what working-class women needed.