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Frederick Taylor and Frank Gilbreth: Competition in Scientific Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Milton J. Nadworny
Milton J. Nadworny
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Commerce and Economics at University of Vermont
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Extract

The vital task of measuring jobs in order to establish equitable incentive wage rates is usually accomplished by a combination of techniques involving both time and motion studies. Yet for many years a highly personal competition between leading exponents of each type of study prevented a union of techniques from taking place. In the early days of the scientific management movement, Frank Gilbreth was a fierce admirer of Frederick W. Taylor, but Taylor and his disciples rejected Gilbreth, whose micromotion techniques came into competition with the Taylorites' stop watches. Thereby scientific management was split into two antagonistic camps and the course of the movement decisively influenced.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , Spring 1957 , pp. 23 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1957

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References

1 See Taylor to Charles R. Pratt, Dec. 8, 1906; Taylor to F. P. Luther, Feb. 4, 1907; Taylor to Henry R. Towne, Dec. 2, 1910; Taylor to Lewis H. Kilbourn, Nov. 9, 1911, Frederick W. Taylor Collection, Stevens Institute of Technology.

2 Yost, Edna, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (New Brunswick, 1949), p. 155Google Scholar.

3 Taylor to Sanford Thompson, Jan. 6, 1908, Taylor Collection.

4 Thompson to Taylor, Jan. 11, 1908; Taylor to Horace K. Hathaway, Nov. 20, 1908; Thompson to Taylor, Nov. 24, 1908; Thompson to Hathaway, Dec. 7,1908, Taylor Collection.

5 Morris L. Cooke to Taylor, Sept. 9, 1910; Taylor to Carl Barth, Jan. 12, 1911, Taylor Collection.

6 See Taylor to Gilbreth, March 21, 1913, Taylor Collection, and Taylor Society Bulletin, Vol. 6 (June, 1921), pp. 117–18Google Scholar.

7 These answers took the form of a book, namely, Primer of Scientific Management (New York, 1912Google Scholar).

8 Taylor to Barth, Oct. 2, 1912, Taylor Collection.

9 Taylor to Hathaway, Sept. 2, 1912, Taylor Collection.

10 Hathaway to Taylor, Sept. 2, 1912, Taylor Collection.

11 Hathaway to Taylor, Feb. 19, 1914, Taylor Collection. See also, Yost, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Chapter XVI.

12 Taylor, Frederick, Shop Management (New York, 1911), p. 65Google Scholar.

13 Gilbreth Looseleaf Notes (n.d., 1912), courtesy Edna Yost.

14 Gilbreth to Taylor, July 29, 1912, Taylor Collection.

15 Taylor to Gilbreth, Aug. 24, 1912, Taylor Collection.

16 Royal R. Keely reported to Taylor from New England Butt that Gilbreth was compounding his “mysterious” activities at the company by making preparations to take time studies by means of a motion picture machine(!); Keely to Taylor, Aug. 31, 1912, Taylor Collection.

17 See, for example, Gilbreth to Taylor, Nov. 14, 1912; May 14, 1913; Sept. 15, 1913, Taylor Collection.

18 Taylor to Hathaway, March 10 and 14, 1914; Hathaway to Taylor, March 16, 1914, Taylor Collection.

19 Taylor to Hathaway, Feb. 3, 1914; Hathaway to Taylor, Feb. 27, 1914, Taylor Collection.

20 Taylor to Hathaway, March 18, 1914, Taylor Collection.

21 See Gilbreth Correspondence, Taylor Collection.

22 Hathaway to Taylor, May 16, 1914; see also, Taylor to Cooke, May 22, 1914; Cooke to Taylor, May 27, 1914, Taylor Collection.

23 N.p. Herald, June 8, 1914, Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings, Taylor Collection; New York Times, July 14, 1914, Sec. 3, p. 3.

24 Barth to Taylor, July 20, 1914; Taylor to Barth, July 28, 1914; Taylor to Gantt, Aug. 7, 1914; Albert R. Shipley to Taylor, Aug. 10, 1914, Taylor Collection.

25 Taylor to Lionel S. Marks, Aug. 29, 1914, Taylor Collection.

26 Gilbreth Looseleaf Notes, Gilbreth Library of Management, Purdue University.

27 Gilbreth to C. B. Thompson, June 19, 1916, Gilbreth Library.

28 Frank, B. and Gilbreth, Lillian M., “An Indictment of Stop-Watch Time Study,” Bulletin of the Taylor Society, Vol. 6 (June, 1921), 102Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., 100, 106.

30 Ibid., 103, 107.

31 Ibid., 108.

32 Ibid., 117. As early as 1906 or 1907, Thompson was in the business of selling stop watches, and Merrick had recently published a book on time study methods.

33 Ibid., 117–18.

34 Lillian M. Gilbreth to Morris L. Cooke, April 16, 1921, Gilbreth Library.

35 Frank Gilbreth to Cooke, Sept. 22, 1921, Gilbreth Library.

36 Thompson to Gilbreth, April 18, 1924, Gilbreth Library.

37 Gilbreth to Thompson, April 23, 1924, Gilbreth Library.

38 Gilbreth to Thompson, June 10, 1924, Gilbreth Library.

39 When Gilbreth died in 1924, note was finally made of his role in forming the S.P.S.M. in the obituary in the Bulletin, and the story was told in some detail by Robert Kent in 1931. See Kent, , “The Taylor Society Twenty Years Ago,” Bulletin, Vol. 17 (Feb., 1932), 39–41Google Scholar. See also, Nadworny, Milton J., “The Society for the Promotion of the Science of Management,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, Vol. 5 (May 15, 1953), 244–17Google Scholar.