America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism 0394499832, 9780394499833

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One. Technology as Social Production: Industry, Education, and Engineers
1 The Wedding of Science to the Useful Arts - I
The Rise of Science- Based Industry
2 The Wedding of Science to the Useful Arts - II
The Development of Technical Education
3 The Wedding of Science to the Useful Arts - III
The Emergence of the Professional Engineer
4 Preservation Through Change
Corporate Engineers and Social Reform
Part Two. Corporate Reform as Conscious Social Production
5 Laying the Foundation
Scientific and Industrial Standardization
6 The Corporation as Inventor
Patent-Law Reform and Patent Monopoly
7 Science for Industry
The Organization of Industrial and University Research
8 Technology as People
The Industrial Process of Higher Education—I
9 Technology as People
The Industrial Process of Higher Education—II
10 A Technology of Social Production
Modern Management and the Expansion of Engineering
Epilogue
Notes
Index

Citation preview

America by D esign

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Pritchett focused upon the problem s o f technical education; he real­ ized, as had Jew ett, that the U nited States, because o f wartim e draining o f the universities, was approaching a “state where scientific manproducing m achinery no longer existed.*’117 H is solution was cooper­ ation between the industries and the schools, whereby the schools would be financially supported and replenished, and the industries would benefit from m ore research and a steady flow o f technically trained manpower. His overriding them e, however, was th at o f effecting coordination o f diverse research efforts for industrial progress. In the United States the relations between research men in the universi­ ties and institutes of research and those operating industrial plants have not yet come to a stage as intim ate and fruitful as that which has existed for many years in Germany. It is today a part o f our plan of progress for the future to establish such relations that the investigator and the m anufacturer shall understand each other and shall cooperate for the promotion of science and industry.11*

President Vail o f AT&T elaborated on the same them e—that coordi­ nated knowledge and organized knowledge-producers were the sine qua non o f the knowledge-based industries.

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Organization and coordination o f research for industrial purposes is urgently necessary-----Plans should be form ulated at once------W hat­ ever is done should be national in its com prehensiveness.. . . Industry may be expected to support generously any organization which prom ­ ises to effectively coordinate and correlate efforts for the increase of knowledge, since it is now generally recognized that industrial progress and success are chiefly dependent upon our knowledge.11*

Decades later, when rebellious students and professors began to rail against the “knowledge factories”— m achines which produced them and then employed them to produce others like them —few suspected how consciously those factories had been designed; because they could not share the larger corporate perspective which comes with being on the top of the process and looking down, few could perceive themselves as Pritchett and his colleagues perceived them : “The research men o f a nation,” Pritchett wrote, “are not isolated individuals but an orga­ nized and cooperating arm y.” 120 In 1918, of course, Pritchett was talking in term s o f potential; the N ational Research Council was geared to realize th at potential. The executive order which created the perm anent council clearly indicated the scope o f the undertaking, charging the council with six functions: to stim ulate and prom ote scientific research; to conduct surveys o f scientific and technical resources; to coordinate research efforts on a national and international scale; to bring scientists into active cooper­ ation with the W ar and Navy departm ents and other government agen­ cies; to direct research efforts tow ard the solution o f m ilitary and industrial problems; and to collect scientific and technical inform ation for “duly accredited persons.” W ritten during the war, the order re­ flected the needs of the m ilitary as well as industry; at the close o f the war the focus became exclusively industrial, and the “duly accredited persons” became the executives o f industry.121 Early in 1919 the council was structurally reorganized on a perm a­ nent basis. Divisions were established to serve particular functions: Divisions o f M ilitary, Federal, Foreign, States, and Industrial Relations (to facilitate cooperation in each o f these areas); Divisions of Physical Science, Chem istry and Chemical Technology, Geology and Geogra­ phy, Medical Science, Biology and A griculture, and A nthropology and Psychology (to prom ote cooperation in the sciences); an Educational Relations Division (to provide cooperation with educational institu­ tions and associations); and a Research Extension Division (to prom ote research in industry). In addition, a Research Inform ation Service,

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created during the war, was expanded* to carry out the inform ationgathering function of the council. The key to the council’s effectiveness in each of these undertakings was its quasi-govem mental status and intim ate working relationship with the other bureaus o f government. The council had official sanction to coordinate the efforts of scientists and technical men with the re­ search facilities and inform ational resources of the country, and thereby to serve the nation’s industry. As within the sm aller domain of the industrial lab, the catchw ord o f this new nationwide industrial laboratory was “team work.” “M ost o f us are not geniuses,” Vernon Kellogg declared to the scientists o f the Entomological Society of America. “We are ju st capable, industrious, well-trained workers . . . able and willing t o . . . work together.” Isolated genius, rendered obso­ lete by the industrial research laboratory, was to be superseded by Pritchett’s- “organized and cooperating arm y” o f researchers. “ Let us not be afraid o f organization,” Kellogg continued. It means no real surrender of individual freedom or achievement. It only means that we direct our efforts more intelligently, to more impor­ tant undertakings, with more m aterial aid and more m utual encourage­ ment. Organization lies in the very spirit of America. See what great things it has accomplished in American industry?. . . No one wants to organize the geniuses; no one proposes to; no one can. But I am no genius and most of you are no geniuses. Yet you and I counseling together, planning together, working together, can do something steadily to advance scientific knowledge.t3S

In addition to the “horizontal” organization of an arm y o f com petent researchers, the council was able to facilitate the “vertical” integration o f science to engineering which was the essence o f the science-based industries. “The gap between the engineers and the scientists is gradu­ ally closing, but is still wide in places,” Com fort Adams, chairm an o f the Engineering Division o f the council, reported in 1921. Adams, who had been the prim e mover behind the establishm ent of the American Engineering Standards Committee, well understood that only the basic sciences, firmly wedded to engineering and industrial practice, could solve m odern industrial problems. “A nything we can do to assist in this closing process,” he urged, “will contribute largely to the progress o f both groups.” 183 The industrial orientation of the council was m ore than rhetorical. O f its various divisions, four provided invaluable service to industry.

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These were the Divisions o f Anthropology and Psychology, and Educa­ tional Relations; the Research Inform ation Service; and the Industrial Relations, Research Extension, and Engineering Divisions, which were formally combined in 1941. The Divisions o f Anthropology and Psychology and o f Educational Relations brought to a focus the prew ar industrial efforts to transform the educational institutions of the country into “m an-producing m a­ chinery” capable o f meeting changing industrial specifications. They also extended the field of management in both the industrial plant and the classroom. In the first division the work o f Robert Yerkes and W alter Dill Scott in intelligence testing, begun during the w ar for the Arm y, was refined for industrial use. In addition, extensive work was carried on, under council auspices, in the development o f student per­ sonnel techniques, college entrance testing, vocational guidance, and general personnel research. In the Educational Relations Division, co­ ordination of educational institutions for the w ar was perpetuated for industrial purposes. The division conducted surveys o f university re­ search facilities and conditions and prom oted research at educational institutions; it also pioneered, through the efforts o f Dean Seashore o f Iowa and Frank Aydelotte of M IT, in “sectionalizing” students accord­ ing to aptitude and setting up honors courses for prom ising students as an aid to educational efficiency. Staffed by men such as H. W. Tyler of M IT, C. R. M ann, then professor o f education at M IT, and Samuel P. Capen, who had become the first director o f the recently established Am erican Council on Education, the division cooperated extensively with other organizations in the fields of educational research and m an­ agement—the ACE, the Society for the Prom otion o f Engineering Education, and other branches o f the N RC itself.*124 “There is a common saying that ‘Knowledge is Power,* ” observed Charles L. Reese, research director o f Du Pont, and founder o f the Association of D irectors of Industrial Research. “Inform ation and knowledge are so closely related th at it m ight be said th at inform ation is power and coordinated inform ation is power plus.**122 The Research Inform ation Service was the council’s agency for providing “power plus** for industry. It was established in 1917 at the behest of Howard Coffin and Hollis Godfrey; as the Research Inform ation Committee, under the direction of Samuel Stratton, its function was to effect infor­ m ational cooperation between the U nited States and her European allies and to secure, classify, and dissem inate scientific, technical, and •The activities of these divisions are discussed more fully in Chapter 9.

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industrial research inform ation for the m ilitary and naval intelligence agencies. In January of 1919 it became the Research Inform ation Ser­ vice and began to reorient its activities for industry. For George Hale, the service constituted the very heart o f the peacetim e council. Properly regarded, the Inform ation Service may be considered the pioneer corps of the Council, surveying the progress of research in various parts of the world, selecting and reporting on the many activi­ ties of interest and im portance . . . and disseminating it to men and institutions which can use it to advantage.1,4

From the outset, the Inform ation Service prepared com pilations, source books, bibliographies, handbooks, and bibliographies of bibliog­ raphies in order to organize and system atize available inform ation for those who could “use it to advantage.“ It provided a reference service and a photostat service, furnished inform ation on specific subjects, and prepared indices along the lines of the Engineering Index (which had been established by M IT electrical engineer Calvin Rice o f G E when he became secretary of ASME in 1906). In addition, the servie? pre­ pared and continually updated scientific abstracts (along the lines o f Chem ical Abstracts, begun by W. A. Noyes in 1907), and lists o f scientific and technical societies, industrial research laboratories, re­ search personnel, doctorates in science, current investigation, and in­ vestment in scientific education. The service also developed a library o f sources o f research inform ation and reported on scientific inform a­ tional services throughout the world. Between 1923 and 1925, when the service became an adm inistrative operation o f the Executive Council o f the N RC with restricted activities, it prepared an inform ational survey o f scientific bureaus in W ashington, D .C., a catalogue of available scientific apparatus throughout the country, lists of fellowships and scholarships supported by industry, a catalogue o f graduate research in chem istry, and a census of graduate students in chem istry. The Re­ search Inform ation Service thus functioned as an active “intelligence agency,“ in Reese's phrase, which system atized scientific and technical inform ation m uch as M agnus A lexander's “research arm o f industry," the N ational Industrial Conference Board, system atized economic in­ form ation. Both agencies were clearly directed tow ard the same end: the corporate comprehension of, and thus power over, the vicissitudes o f a “knowledge-based" industrial society.127 W ithout question, the most active divisions o f the council—and those with the m ost explicit industrial orientation— were the Industrial Extension Division and the Engineering Division. Together they were,

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in effect, the practical arm o f the council, and had the most direct im pact on industry. The Industrial Extension Division was organized as the Industrial Relations Division, and was officially launched with the banquet at the University Club. It subsequently became the Industrial Research Division, created "to consider the best m ethods o f achieving [efficient] organization o f research w ithin an industry o r groups o f industries,” *** and finally the Division o f Industrial Exten­ sion. A lthough the prestigious advisory comm ittee never did function as an active part o f the division—owing largely to the death o f Theo­ dore Vail—its advice was never really necessary. The division was composed of men who fully appreciated the needs o f industry and devoted their energies on the council tow ard meeting them.* Their work in the early years o f the council was impressive. They established cooperative research program s among m anufacturers o f enameled wares, refractories, glass, ceramics, and even m acaroni, and initiated research projects with the Bureau o f Standards in such areas as electroplating, m etal cutting, and m etal alloys. T heir most enduring achievements, however, involved the establishm ent o f industrial re­ search institutes in cooperation with various trade associations.*** The Engineering Division was bom in 1918, during the war, and from the outset was tied very closely to the industry-controlled Engi­ neering Foundation. In May 1918 the Engineering Foundation for­ mally became the research branch o f the Am erican Engineering Council (the unified association of the Founder Societies) and as such, cooperated with the N ational Research Council in the creation o f an Engineering Division, with Ambrose Swasey o f the foundation becom­ ing a member o f the new division. The foundation provided funds for the division and an office in the Engineering Societies Building in New York. The proper relationship between the private, industrially con­ trolled foundation and the quasi-govem m ental council division was a *The membership of the division included chairman John Johnston, of United States Steel, F. K. Richtmeyer of GE, Mees of Kodak, Carty of AT&T, F. G. Cottrell of the Bureau of Mines, C. P. Townsend, a patent attorney, Whitney, and Baekeland. Although Theodore Vail resigned as chairman of the advisory committee due to the pressures of his other corporate responsibilities, he nevertheless remained until his death one of the more ardent champions of coordinated research. He wrote to John Johnston that “noth­ ing which has been done is comparable with what can and will be done by an effective organization of all independent efforts-----There is no question in my mind but that education and industry would be mutually benefitted, and through the voluntary contri­ butions of the proceeds of industry, [the NRC) and educational institutions could be co-related so that the institutions could be better maintained and enlarged and brought within the reach of all desiring.” See Gano Dunn, letter to Albert Barrows, June 12,1922, Division of Industrial Relations Records, NRC Archives.

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point o f controversy for a few years. Some members o f the division, such as H arvard’s Com fort Adams, wanted the two entities to merge entirely, so th at the engineering profession would have a unified voice in research m atters and the research arm o f the profession would have quasi-govem m ental status. O thers, including Swasey, preferred close cooperation but separate identities so th at the foundation would be free to pursue m atters outside the council. A nother group—some scientists w ithin the council—wanted to abolish the Engineering Division al­ together, relegate its activities to the foundation, and have the council become an association of scientists exclusively. The controversy eventu­ ally subsided by 1923 and the relationship between the division and the foundation remained essentially as it had been at the outset. It was this intim ate relationship which strongly tied the N ational Research Coun­ cil to the engineering profession and, through it, to the industries which dom inated the profession.130 In 1918, under the chairm anship o f Henry M. Howe, a prom inent M IT-trained m etallurgist, the division was preoccupied with warrelated activity; at this point it was not yet clear where the emphasis w ithin the division would be placed, w hether on basic research or on applied industrial research. G E ’s W illis W hitney urged th at the focus be upon basic research in the schools, thereby ensuring the cultivation o f new areas for potential industrial research, and providing the train­ ing o f research workers for the schools and the industries.* “Isn’t it possible,** he wrote to Howe, “to so steer your good ship that you can support scholastic, academic, or scientific research so th at the schools will gain m ore than the industries, at least at first?** W hitney was wary o f direct council aid to the industries. “I am not in sym pathy with philanthropically supported industries . . . ; it is the risk o f gaining som ething irregularly . . . which I do not want to take, because if I do (or if anyone else does), there will ultim ately be a ju st com plaint that some o f the industries have taken unfair advantage of [philanthropists and the government].*’ C. E. K. Mees o f Kodak expressed sim ilar fears; these men in the established industrial research laboratories were reluc­ tant to endorse quasi-govem mental support of fledgling industrial re­ search, support which they had never had in the development of their "W hitney was at this time trying to set up cooperative arrangements with Union College toward these same ends, and was a member of the committee on cooperation between the universities and the industries of the American Chemical Society, which maintained that “the most im portant contribution which the universities can make to the develop­ ment of industry in this country is to supply the industries with sufficient numbers of men thoroughly and broadly trained— ”

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own operations. Mees stressed th at the council should concentrate cm basic research in the universities rather than applied research in the industries—that the University o f Illinois, for example, “would do much better to study the structure o f the am ino acids, than to study the best m ethod of isolating them from w ater in which com had been steeped.“ Mees argued that “assistance o f specific industrial corpora­ tions is not in the best interests o f the nation, the universities, and industry at large.” *1*1 By the tim e Com fort Adams became chairm an of the division in 1919, the m atter had been settled: it would concentrate upon direct industrial research, while the prom otion o f basic research and research training would be left to the research fellowship program of the council and the Rockefeller Foundation. The division would devote its atten­ tion to the prom otion of efficient research, and the coordination of the resources within the universities and governm ental bureaus for specific industrial purposes. And it would strive to do so with as little cost to industry as possible. The Division of Engineering, Com fort Adams w rote to the members of the A IEE, seeks to stim ulate engineering research by industrial establishments, universities, governmental bureaus and other interested agencies; an­ other rather general way of defining this objective is: to encourage and stim ulate the application of scientific knowledge and scientific method to the solution of industrial problems. Funds for any considerable research work are supplied . . . by the interested industry-----However, much valuable work has been done by our committees without the collection or direct expenditure of any funds, by members of the committees in Government bureaus, univer­ sity laboratories and industrial plants or laboratories, the Division acting as the stimulating, organizing and coordinating agency.>9t

To direct these activities, the division established two advisory comm it­ tees, both of which were dom inated by industry peopled The first *The question of industrial support for academic research was raised again during the campaign drive for the unsuccessful National Research Endowment. Many industrialists were reluctant to fund research which promised little immediate return on the invest­ ment. See Tobey’s discussion in his Ideology o f National Science, pp. 200-25, and Lance E. Davis and Daniel J. Kevles, “The National Research Fund: A Case Study in the Industrial Support of Academic Science,” Minerva. X II (April 1974), 207-20. t The committee for electrical engineering was composed of Jewett, Whitney, Skinner, Craft, E.W. Rice, Dugald Jackson, Comfort Adams, and Elmer Sperry; the committee for mechanical engineering included A. A. Potter and Samuel Stratton, and was chaired by E. M. Herr, president of Westinghouse.

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project undertaken by the division was a large-scale study o f the fatigue phenom ena o f metals; financed by the Engineering Foundation and G E, it was conducted at the engineering experim ent station of the University o f Illinois. O ther early work included a study of the heat treatm ent o f carbon steel and a program of highway research; the expenses for the form er were borne by the Bureaus o f Standards and Mines, while those for the latter were covered by federal and state governm ent appropriations. In addition to these, a m ajor research study o f electric insulation was begun, under division auspices, by Jackson and W hitney.133 In 1923 Frank Jewett, head o f the Laboratories o f the W estern Electric Company (AT&T), became chairm an o f the division and his assistant at AT&T, E. B. C raft, became vice-chairman; Dugald Jackson was elected second vice-chairman. Jew ett immediately saw the need for an adm inistrative director for the division, a person who would provide continuity for the division’s activities beyond the relatively short term s o f the chairm en, and he appointed M aurice Holland, an M IT electrical engineer and form er engineer with the Boston Edison Electric Illum i­ nating Company; Holland had organized and directed the Industrial Engineering Bureau o f the U nited States A ir Service during the w ar and in that capacity had m ade a survey o f the research operations of AT&T, W estern Electric, D u Pont, and GE. U nder Jew ett’s leadership, the scope o f the division’s activities was expanded significantly; the separate divisions of Research Extension and Engineering were consolidated, and prom otion of research became an official function o f the new Division of Engineering and Industrial Research. Between 1923 and 1930 the many research projects spon­ sored by the division concerned the m ethods o f locking screw threads; the welding o f structural steel and steel tubing for aircraft; the fatigue phenomena o f alum inum alloys; the strength o f steel piers, brick walls, and columns; the waterproofing of concrete; the acoustic properties o f building m aterials; the physics o f plumbing systems; the efficiency o f fan wheels in ventilators; the explosive properties of gaseous mixtures; the properties of oils used for insulating fluids; the gumming character­ istics of m otor fuels; heat transmission; and the therm al properties o f liquids used as antifreezing compounds in automobiles. In addition, the division helped to establish the Am erican Petroleum Institute and the Am erican Bureau of W elding, which greatly stim ulated the growth o f the electric welding industry in the U nited States. Beyond the scope o f industrial research proper, the division em barked upon an am bitious investigation o f the “relation of quality and quantity o f illum ination to

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efficiency in industry.” Conducted by Jackson, Vannevar Bush, and their colleagues from M IT at the Chicago plant of Jew ett’s com pany, the project evolved into the famous H aw thorne studies, which laid the groundwork for industrial psychology and sociology.134 Dugald Jackson, who initiated the industrial research activities o f M IT’s electrical-engineering departm ent in 1907, became chairm an o f the division in 1930. He expanded upon Jew ett’s policy of inviting bankers and industrialists to division meetings by taking them on tours of the country’s leading research laboratories, and published surveys and various prom otional m aterials including the widely distributed Research: A Paying Investm ent. In addition, he broadened the divi­ sion’s scope by deliberately including w ithin it such problems o f re­ search management as the training o f research personnel, job analysis in the laboratory (a carry-over o f industrial job analysis), the relations of the laboratory to the production and sales departm ents in industry, financial incentives for researchers, and patent policies for industrial research. (M uch of this work eventually became the responsibility o f the division’s Industrial Research Institute, which was created in 1938 “to provide a forum for the study and discussion o f problems o f com ­ mon interest affecting the utilization o f science for industrial pur­ poses.”) This new emphasis upon research m anagem ent reflected a conscious shift in the division’s approach to research prom otion from “why do research” to “how to do research.” The cum ulative efforts o f three decades had awakened industry to the im portance of research in m odem profit-m aking enterprise; the new problem was to teach indus­ trial leaders how best to conduct and manage it.138

Technology as People The Industrial Process of Higher Education—I

The very word university comes from the Latin word for corporation and the college dorm itory is simply a continuation o f the plan of the guilds by which the m aster workmen not only trained their apprentices but took them into their households to live. T hat is where our circle began, but as it swung out on its wide arc, the world of education drew further and further away from the world of industry-----The Sorbonne and Oxford scarcely knew of the world o f science and for the world of industry they had only disdain. But the two circles went swinging on, bringing industry and education ever closer and closer, until tonight they are closing back once more at the point o f origin where industry and education are one; where corporation and university again mean the same thing.1 —William E. Wickenden

Like every other social process, technology is alive. People—particular people in particular places, times, and social contexts—are both the creators o f m odem technology and the living m aterial of which it is m ade. Designers and builders o f an ever m ore sophisticated productive apparatus, they are at the same tim e the critical constituents o f that apparatus, w ithout which it could not function. The corporate engi­ neers of science-based industry, people very m uch aware of their role in the technological enterprise, understood this fact. In their various reform efforts, therefore, they strove to achieve the necessary produc­ tion and organization of not merely the m aterial elements o f m odem technology but the hum an elements as well. As they worked to standardize scientific and industrial processes and secure corporate command over the patent system, the engineers strove 167

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also to direct the hum an process o f scientific research and to create an educational apparatus which could meet the dem and for research m an­ power. T heir concern with education, m oreover, was not lim ited to the rarefied realm o f scientific laboratories. In their view, education was the critical process through which the hum an parts o f the industrial ap­ paratus could be fashioned to specifications. These hum an parts fell into tw o general categories: the skilled and unskilled workers who executed the designs of the engineers, attended the m achinery, and perform ed the hum an labor o f production, and the engineer-m anagers who designed and supervised the capitalist production process. A ccord­ ingly, education was divided into two categories. “Industrial educa­ tion” was the means for producing the form er—a “new apprenticeship system ,” as it was called, to replace the m oribund apprenticeship sys­ tem of craft-based industry. H igher education, and especially engineer­ ing education, was the means for producing the latter, the process through which the corporate engineers could reproduce themselves. Both form s o f education were prom oted, in the rhetoric o f progressive educational reform , as “education for life.” The one, however, was to prepare people for a life o f labor; the other to prepare people for a life o f managing labor. The integration o f form al education into the industrial structure weakened the traditional link between work experience and advance­ m ent, driving a wedge between m anagers and managed and separating the tw o by the college campus. Engineers, o f course, were not alone in em phasizing form al education as the key determ inant o f occupational mobility. The legal and academ ic professions were growing in strength on the basis o f strict educational requirem ents for m embership, and leaders o f the medical profession—the paradigm for all professionals— were upgrading their own educational standards in the wake o f the Flexner Report o f 1910. The efforts o f the corporate engineers, how­ ever, had the m ost far-reaching im pact upon industrial society as a whole. Because o f their unique social identity, they autom atically inte­ grated professional requirem ents with industrial and corporate require­ ments. In emphasizing the role of form al education as a vital aspect o f their professional identity, they at the same tim e laid the groundw ork for the education-based occupational stratification o f tw entieth-century corporate America. < Representing those industries which were the first to employ college graduates in significantly large num bers, the corporate engineers also led industry and the schools in effecting close industry-university coop-

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eration over m atters o f curriculum and recruitm ent. In their various m anagerial and executive capacities, m oreover, and as educators, they prom oted the industrial education o f workers. In their own corporation training program s and through the reform o f the public school system, they sought to habituate both the working population and potential workers to industrial discipline and to educate them to carry out the directives o f management m ost efficiently. By 1920 the transform ation brought about in large part through the efforts of these corporate engineers was becoming apparent. Com menting on the incorporation o f the N ational Association o f Corporation Training, an editor o f the New York Tim es observed th at "in the past we have cited it as a trium ph o f free institutions and a prim e cause o f our industrial effi­ ciency th at so many of our corporation presidents have risen from the ranks; but th at past is closing behind us. Specialized science is yearly taking a larger part in industry. If advancem ent is to rem ain free, it can only be on the basis o f liberal education for the deserving w orker.”** Engineering education was viewed by the corporate engineers in a rath er special light; the recruiting mechanism o f their profession, it was the source o f their imm ediate subordinates as well as their potential successors. In their reform efforts, therefore, they sought to bring both the form and the content o f th at education into line with w hat they perceived to be the imm ediate m anpower needs of industry and the long-range requirem ents o f continued corporate development. The var­ ious schools throughout the country, for example, each operating ac­ cording to its own unique requirem ents, had to be m ore closely coordinated with the industries and with each other. The procedures for rating and evaluating students had to be stream lined and standard­ ized, and the inform ation about the "educational products” had to be m ade accessible to the consum ers o f those products, the industries. The m eans through which the graduates were employed had also to be system atized as a cooperative operation o f the industries and the schools. In short, the transform ation o f engineering education into a u n it o f the industrial system dem anded the creation o f an educational apparatus for the production, selection, and distribution of higher tech­ nical manpower, according to changing industrial specifications. •Since corporate engineers perceived industrial education as an aspect of management, this subject will be discussed in the final chapter. Here we will focus upon developments in higher education, with particular emphasis upon engineering education.

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The content o f engineering education, like its institutional form , had to be m ore closely correlated with industrial requirements: the content o f the education determ ined the kind and quality o f product ju st as th e form of the education facilitated the proper selection and distribution o f the p ro d u ct The content o f the education had to provide the training necessary for technical work, especially for the early years o f employ­ m ent; it had to instill in the student a sense o f corporate responsibility, team work, service, and loyalty; and it had to provide the fundam ental training in the social sciences and hum anities which was increasingly being perceived as the key to effective management. D uring the first few decades o f the tw entieth century, engineering education in the U nited States was progressively geared to habituate engineering students to corporate life—to prepare them for, and to facilitate their fitting into, industrially defined “positions”; as such, it constituted the vanguard o f reform in higher education as a whole. “W ith the growth of the technical industries,” Frank Jew ett recalled in 1924, “the engineering side o f the business was the first to wake u p to the necessity o f taking college, university and technical school trained men into the business. The engineers were the first ones to organize college recruiting on a consistent basis, . . . to create . . . sm ooth working machinery for making contacts and getting in touch with the right type of men.”3 Like the development o f research, the transform ation o f higher edu­ cation evolved at three levels. C orporate industry established in-house training program s, and coordinated their activities through the N a­ tional Association o f Corporation Schools; educational institutions form ed cooperative program s with industry, independently and collec­ tively through the SPEE; and, finally, new agencies were created during the war, such as the N RC and the Am erican Council on Education (ACE), to coordinate these activities on a nationwide scale. A t all three levels, the electrical industry, which had the greatest need for college graduates, provided the reform leadership. Just as the larger corporations first instituted in-house research labo­ ratories to provide the scientific advances which underlay industrial progress, so too did they first undertake the establishm ent o f engineer­ ing-education program s within the plant. Corporation schools, as they were called, dated back to the early sales-training program o f the R. Hoe Publishing Company and the apprenticeship schools o f the Balti­ m ore and Ohio Railroad, and were designed to meet the im m ediate m anpower needs o f the company. The m ajority o f corporation schools

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were established by the electrical, railroad, gas, and m achine industries, and were devoted to commercial, sales, office, and apprentice training.* Prom inent among the innovators were the three m ajor corporations o f the electrical industry: AT&T (and W estern Electric), G E, and W est­ inghouse. These companies, moreover, gave attention to another area im portant to science-based industry—graduate education for collegetrained engineers.4 The corporation graduate-training program s were designed to meet the needs o f industry: to guarantee the technical proficiency o f college-trained employees, to ensure their proper habituation to corporate life, and to prepare them for m anagerial re­ sponsibility. In addition, the program s served as the institutional apparatus for th e recruitm ent, selection, and distribution o f graduates. In the early 1890s G E set up elaborate program s a t both Schenectady and Lynn to m eet these needs. Charles Steinmetz explained th at the Test Course, as it was called, “originated from the experience th at in the work of an electrical m anufacturing company to secure efficiency to carry out operations, a theoretical knowledge is necessary.“ * The electrical-engi­ neering training then offered in the colleges—with a few exceptions like M IT and W isconsin—lagged seriously behind the industrial develop­ m ents in the field; the expensive equipm ent necessary for “state o f the a rt“ instruction was available at only a few o f the larger schools, and this situation restricted m ost instruction to blackboard fundam entals. T he industries, rather than the schools, were at the forefront o f discov­ ery in the field, and the corporation schools thus served the purpose o f updating theoretical training in addition to linking the fundam entals to the exigencies o f engineering practice. F or these reasons, the m ajority o f electrical-engineering graduates flowed into corporation school pro­ gram s to complete their professional training. Providing the crucial preparation for careers in designing, m anufacturing, construction, con­ sulting, research, education, and m anagem ent, the corporation schools were a necessary part of the training o f professional electrical engineers in the U nited States. The Test Course at G E was, as Steinm etz rem inded his colleagues, “ not a philanthropic question . . . ; it is merely a necessary part o f the w ork of the corporation . . . ; it is p art o f the corporation.“ The post­ • Among the earliest schools were those set up by the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, Yale and Towne M anufacturing Company, American Locomotive Company, New York Central Railroad, Carnegie Steel, Curtis Publishing Company, National Cash Register Company, International Harvester, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and Travelers Insurance Company.

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graduate education of the college “raw material** was o f critical im por­ tance to industrial development, and the Test Course at G E w as designed “to supply the dem and, not only o f the corporation, but also o f the industry at large.** O f the testm en trained at G E before 1919,54 percent stayed within G E while the rem aining 46 percent assum ed prom inent positions in the railways, governm ent, utilities, com m unica­ tions, mining, and m anufacturing. The form er group did not lim it th eir activities to domestic enterprise, but played a role in Am erican expan­ sion abroad as well; a 1919 survey o f ex-testmen indicated th at the graduates of the Test C ourse. . .a re scattered over the four quarters of the globe, doing their share in the fascinating work of electrifying China, harnessing waterfalls in India, installing electrical drive in the sugar mills in the W est Indies, substituting electricity for steam or hand labor in the mines of Alaska and South Africa, building railways in A ustralia and refrigerating plants in the Philippine Islands.

The Test Course, therefore, was not merely a training program for G E engineers and executives; it was p art o f the common experience o f a generation of corporate-m inded engineers who devoted their energies to the “modernization** of the U nited States and those parts o f the “open door*’ world which contained the resources upon which A m eri­ can corporate prosperity depended.* Since the testing departm ent of G E was scattered throughout the various G E plants, the testm en were a floating population, “continually shifted from one kind of work to another** according to their own career options and because “the apparatus was tested where it was m anufac­ tured.”7 The Test Course was designed to give the graduates a broad view of the operations o f electrical m anufacturing while at the same tim e meeting the specific needs o f the company. “The student course at Lynn,** course supervisor M agnus A lexander explained to his col­ leagues o f the A IEE in 1908, is planned to meet the requirements o f the G E Company, for designing, and estimating, construction and commercial engineers, and technical salesmen. The company takes graduates o f technical schools and trains them during a period of two years, giving them during this tim e practical experience in the handling and testing of apparatus, in order to fix in the students’ minds the practical application of engineering theories, to enlarge their engineering knowledge in general, to acquaint them with the competitive value of the product of the factory, and to develop them along lines of their future usefulness to the company.*

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In addition to the practical experience o f testing equipm ent, the gradu­ ates heard lectures on theoretical subjects bearing upon the engineering side o f the industry. Throughout the technical training program , em­ phasis was placed upon the business aspects o f engineering, the rela­ tionship between the design and the dollar; A lexander observed th at “ consideration o f the elements o f tim e and money in carrying out practical w o rk . . . although the im portant factor th at makes for success in industrial life . . . is entirely neglected at college." The Test Course w as thus the means by which the company instilled “the seriousness o f business" in the college graduates, and gave them the “proper concep­ tio n " o f business values.9 Training in technical subjects in the Test Course was supplemented by instruction in the comm ercial and m anagerial aspects o f the industry — preparation for future executives. In 1912 a “highly efficiently orga­ nized course for engineering salesm en" was introduced. “F or a college graduate" the Test Course had become “the best if not the only route" in to “responsible positions" in the industry.10 By 1919 the num ber o f form er testm en in the commercial and m anagem ent departm ents o f G E exceeded the num ber in strictly engineering work. In addition to the organized instruction, the testm en received their management training in a m ore inform al way. From the outset they were gradually initiated into the privileged world o f the professional and industrial elite. They were encouraged to participate in the meetings of the ASME, A IEE, Society of Engineers of Eastern New York, N ELA, and Illum inating Engineering Society (G E headquarters was the site of national as well as local meetings o f these organizations), and enjoyed social contact w ith company leaders at the Edison Club in Schenectady and its coun­ terp art, the Thomson Club, in Lynn. The Edison Club was form ed in 1904 and had over six hundred m embers by 1918. The members had “all pursued the same stu d ies,. . . undergone the same training in the test course, a n d . . . lived the same life while being initiated into the electrical industry. The ‘cam araderie’ [existed] not only between the younger members, but the various social and athletic activities [offered] opportunities for the student engineers to be brought in contact with m any o f the officials and engineers o f the com pany.’’11 The facilities included a library, bowling, pool, movies, tennis, canoeing, music, golf, and restaurants and were the setting for A IE E meetings and company-sponsored lectures. As a w riter for G E described it, the club had a “university spirit" and the alum ni were bound together like those o f any university; their common experience

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provided lifelong associations, institutional ties, and a shared social perspective: the corporate perspective o f the leaders of the industry and the profession. The Test Course at G E did not merely prepare technical and m ana­ gerial m anpower for the industry; it did so with unprecedented effi­ ciency. Elaborate m ethods o f recruiting and evaluating college graduates were devised, and, w ithin the company, personnel files were kept on all testm en in order to chart their progress and determ ine th eir potential usefulness. G raduates were tested periodically and rated in term s o f technical proficiency, willingness to learn, loyalty, dependabil­ ity, appearance, tact, efficiency, cooperativeness, and ability to handle men. They were then classified according to job requirem ents w ithin the organization and the industry. Such techniques o f evaluation and selection were constantly refined as m ore effective means of fitting th e individual to the job were developed. In effect, the program s like these w ithin G E and the other large corporations were the pilot program s in personnel development and m anagem ent which would transform Am erican higher education in the decades to follow. A t Pittsburgh, also in the late 1890s, W estinghouse developed a Special Apprentice program for graduate engineers sim ilar to the T est Course at Schenectady and Lynn. The educational work o f W estinghouse was under the direction o f two electrical engineers, Charles F. Scott, a Johns Hopkins graduate and inventor o f the famous Scott connector for transform ers, who became head of the electrical-engi­ neering departm ent at Yale in 1911, and Channing R. Dooley, a Purdue graduate who left W estinghouse after the w ar to direct educational and personnel activities for Standard Oil. “T he notable point o f contact between the engineering college and the electric company,” Scott ex­ plained to engineering educators and other corporation educators in 1907, “is the engineering graduate. He is the product o f the college and the raw m aterial which is to enter into the hum an organization underly­ ing the electric industry-----” Scott observed th at “probably in no other field has there been such a growing dem and for engineering graduates as in the electrical profession.” (By the dem and o f the profession, o f course, Scott m eant the dem and o f the industry.) “This dem and puts to a severe test the efficiency o f the schools which are to furnish these m en,” and the m anufacturing companies do not, therefore, “expect the graduate to be a ready-made engineer. They provide system atic courses for supplemental training.” 12 The supplemental training at W estinghouse, like th at a t G E, went far beyond technical instruction. Like Steinm etz, Scott explained th at the

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“c o u rse . . . had not been established for sentim ental reaso n s. . . but as a m atter o f necessity. The men need the experience and training and th e new point o f view which it gives before they are useful.” Thus, the training a t W estinghouse was also designed to adapt the graduate to corporate life. ‘‘The fundam ental difficulty,” Scott emphasized, “is lack o f adaptation to new circum stances and conditions. We do not under­ rate knowledge and training, but we w ant [the graduates] to be of use . . . we want men who can see the situation and fit themselves to it----T he possibilities and the outcom e depend . . . upon the ability o f the m an for harm onizing him self with his environm ent, and the m ore com plete and efficient this a d ju stm en t. . . the m ore useful the life.” Scott, Dooley, and m ost o f the industrial participants in the discussion agreed th at the college graduates did not have the proper “comm ercial o r business point o f view.” They were too individualistic, unwilling to cooperate effectively in the “team w ork” o f corporate enterprise. The m ajor problem in the view o f the representatives o f industry, one educa­ to r observed, was th at the graduates o f the colleges “did not know how to adapt themselves to new conditions,. . . to adjust their personalities to the wishes and desires o f their superiors. Preoccupied with the question 'H ow m uch can we get?* hardly once had the idea entered their m inds, ‘How useful can we make ourselves to somebody else? How can we be o f m ore service?’ ” “They do not realize,” the educator went on, “th at until they have learned to work first for the success o f the corpo­ ration, and only secondarily to consider themselves, and also have learned to subordinate their own ideas and beliefs to the wishes and desires o f their superiors, th at they can really be efficient [sic].” A nother W estinghouse spokesman summed up this discussion. The graduate m ust “go in for teamwork and seek the place he is best fitted for,” he argued. “Self-forgetfulness is w hat is required.” 19 Socialization for subordinate employment at W estinghouse was cou­ pled, as elsewhere, with socialization for management. The graduate m ust learn “to work effectively w ith those about him . . . he m ust understand men,” Scott argued. “His education should be one not o f engineering subjects only, but should include the hum anities.” 14 In an article for the Society for the Prom otion o f Engineering Education, Scott and Dooley described the growing need for m ore broadly trained engineers in industry. As the electrical industry increases and more exacting requirements are placed upon electrical apparatus. . . there is demand for greater ability on the part of the engineers and the managers who have to do with the

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production and operation of apparatus and the direction and manage* ment of m anufacturing and operating companies. M any of those who now hold responsible positions in the various departm ents o f such companies or as consulting engineers, have gained an im portant p art o f their experience in the training courses o f manufacturing companies. It is the aim in the plans which we have outlined. . . to keep pace w ith the new conditions and to prepare men for the larger duties and respon­ sibilities which they will face in the future as engineers.15

W estinghouse efforts to meet this need included intensive training pro­ gram s. By 1910 training in purely technical subjects was form ally supplemented by courses in sales, m anagem ent, economics, business law, and the like. In a m ore inform al way, the W estinghouse Club, like G E 's Edison Club, enabled students to rub elbows with corporate m anagem ent and thereby pick up the corporate point o f view. As it was at GE, the educational training for leadership at W estinghouse was conducted as an efficient operation o f the corporation. T he problem , as Scott saw it, was simply “how m any boys o f different kinds can be individually developed and fitted to varying needs.” To th at end, the educational departm ent devised personnel files, rating systems, job specifications, and recruitm ent procedures. In developing the system at Pittsburgh, Dooley, a Purdue graduate, worked closely with A. A. Potter, the form er G E testm an who had set up the student personnel system at both K ansas State and Purdue. P otter's system of personnel cards and routine evaluation focused upon the “character, personality, and physique” o f the graduates, in addition to their technical compe­ tence; it screened graduates for “good traits” (such as persistence, interest, loyalty, cleanliness, dependability, accomm odation, tact, prac­ ticality, and efficiency), warned graduates o f possible “deficiencies,” and suggested ways o f overcoming them to better fit the corporate mold. “The new way,” Dooley explained in 1913, “is to study each stu d e n t. . . and thus as far as possible scientifically to place each m an in th at line of work for which he is best fitted.” 16 Those responsible for the educational program s in the Bell System were concerned with the same problems. A lbert C. Vinal of AT&T in New York had by 1913 conducted “an extensive study o f the whole problem o f selection,” involving psychological testing and character analysis; in addition, his departm ent had developed a program of peri­ odic testing of experienced employees at different ranks as a m ethod o f determ ining job specifications, the requirem ents o f each position, and the basis upon which new employees were to be evaluated and “guided.” The most elaborate work in the Bell System was undertaken

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by another Purdue electrical engineer, J. W alter Dietz, at the Haw­ thorne works o f the W estern Electric Company. A lthough a form al education departm ent was not established at W estern Electric until 1910, various educational program s dated back to 1898. “As we look back,” D ietz reflected at a 1913 meeting o f corporation educators, “the im pression grows th at we have been letting employees try to fit them ­ selves to their work. Then came the period o f training employees for classes o f service . . . ; [now] we have arrived at a m ore encouraging period—th at o f the organized education o f employees.” 17 O f prim ary concern in the educational work of W estern Electric was th e G raduate Apprentice Course for engineering graduates. This course was designed to “help college men to take up their chosen work intelligently, prom ptly, and in an organized way.” In the words o f another W estern Electric official, Frank Jew ett, the Bell System, in common with all other of the larger industries which are growing and which are developing new applications of science all the time, find it necessary, no m atter how good and well-trained are the men who come to us, to ourselves put them through some sort o f a course o f training in order to fit them for the peculiar problems of their w ork. . . ; our specification for engineers is not essentially different from the specification which the G E or the W estinghouse or any big power or electrical development company would write.

Like the training program s o f the other companies, the Bell educational departm ents were geared to prepare graduate engineers for m anagerial as well as technical positions. “The way things are developing in the industries based on science,” Jew ett observed, it seems to m e. . . as though we m ust look in increasingly large measure to the group of technical graduates for the executives of the ftiture. The problems o f the industries which executives will be called upon to adm inister. . . are becoming increasingly involved in the just apprecia­ tion of fundamental physical science-----From the group of welltrained engineers should come many great executives.

T he Bell training courses thus focused upon the same problems tow ard which the other industrial postgraduate training program s were direc­ ted: technical and management training, habituation to corporate em­ ploym ent and ideology, and efficient rating, selection, and distribution procedures. D ietz's sum m ation o f the “state o f the art” o f corporate graduate education for engineers, m ade in 1913, reflects the situation in the industry at large. “The nature o f our engineering, m anufacturing,

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and commercial work demands men o f trained brains.** Recruitm ent o f the “raw material** from colleges, however, only begins to meet th is demand; the graduates m ust then be broadly trained, and, if proper selection has been made, we have men of character, capable of independent thought, possessing adaptability, loyalty, capacity for growth, and a willingness to get along agreeably with their fellows, and physically sound.

“We have not been able, as yet, to prepare definite specifications on these points,** D ietz reported, “so we are not surprised to find an occasional man with some ‘hum an nature* in his make-up.*’1* The corporation schools put the corporations in the education busi­ ness. In addition to the schools established by individual companies, trade associations began to create schools for trade and technical train ­ ing: the National Foundrym en’s Association conducted a foundry school at W inona Technical Institute in Indianapolis, and the N ational M etal Trades Association established a m achinists’ school and general apprentice school in Cincinnati.* Throughout the country, corporate educators experimented with different program s and published their results—evaluated in term s o f labor quiescence, productivity, and effi­ ciency—in the technical and trade journals. W hile there was thus some cooperation among them , however, they rem ained relatively isolated. In 1913 the National Association o f Corporation Schools was created to correct this situation. It was this organization which first developed fully the concept o f education as a vital function o f corporate manage­ ment; ten years later, with its activities significantly broadened, it became the American M anagement Association. The NACS grew out of the experience o f the New York Edison Company. As a means of developing its own educational program s for engineers and salesmen, New York Edison conducted a survey o f cor­ poration schools throughout the country and found th at there was a need for some central agency through which they could all cooperate. President A rthur W illiams o f New York Edison, an electrical engineer who had worked with the early Edison power companies, therefore called together the nation’s corporate educators, in January 1913, at New York University, to found the NACS. The meeting, like the new organization, was dom inated by representatives from the electrical in•O thers were instituted by the American Institute of Banking, Railway Education Bu­ reau, Insurance Institute of America, American Institute of Laundering, and United Typothetae of America.

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dustry: W illiams and F. C. H enderschott, educational director at New Y ork Edison; Alexander, Steinmetz, and others from GE; D ietz from W estern Electric; and Dooley from W estinghouse. O ther ,key figures included Lee Galloway, professor in the School of Finance and Com­ m erce at NYU; E. St. Elmo Lewis o f the Burroughs Adding M achine Company; and E. J. M ehren, managing editor of the Engineering R ecord and an associate in the efficiency-engineering firm o f H arring­ to n Em erson.*1* The concerns o f the NACS educators did not differ substantially from those of G E, W estinghouse, and AT&T. “Man-stuff,” in the view o f Elmo Lewis, was the “m ost im portant thing” with which the compa­ nies had to deal; it was the substance “out o f which they make their business.” E. A. Deeds of the N ational Cash Register Company agreed; “ I am m ost interested,” he said, “in increasing the efficiency o f the hum an machine.” In addition to technical proficiency, these educators all stressed the need for training for management. “Electrical engi­ neers,” A rthur W illiams observed, “are from the practical standpoint . . . men w ithout a peer in running m achines, in running plants, but not m en trained, necessarily, in runjiing hum an machines.”20 Edison's F. C. H enderschott outlined the im portance o f educational and personnel “m achinery” for the efficient development and utiliza­ tion of manpower, and shared with his counterparts in the other com­ panies New York Edison's three-pronged approach to the problem, focusing upon “positions to be filled” (job specifications, required quali­ fications); “the m an” (investigation o f types, tendencies, natural qualifi­ cations, adaptability); and “the means” (institutional training and guidance to fit the man to the position). “The field of activity opening fo r this body is unlim ited,” H enderschott declared. “Corporations are fast being converted to the theory o f training their own men. They no longer expect to find satisfactory help ready-made, but are now apply­ ing themselves to the task o f making men as well as commodities.” H enderschott, who became the NACS executive secretary and editor o f its publications, drove home the point w ithout stating it: the corpora­ tions were turning their energies tow ard the production o f men as commodities. Their approach to education, shared by all who gathered together in 1913, was perhaps m ost succinctly offered by C. D. Brackett •C harter members of the NACS included GE, W estern Electric, Westinghouse, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., Brooklyn Edison, Boston Edison Electric Illuminating Company, New York Edison, and Commonwealth Edison; others were Consolidated Gas Company of New York, Burroughs Adding Machine, National Cash Register, American Locomotive, Yale and Towne M anufacturing Company, Packard, Cadillac, Pennsylvania Railroad, Travelers Insurance, and Curtis Publishing Company.

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o f N ational Cash Register in his description o f th at company’s A gents Training School: “Product: men and cash registers.”*1 The NACS was conceived as a clearinghouse for corporation-school education, with the stated object o f “aiding corporations in the educa­ tional work o f their employees by providing a forum for the interchange o f ideas, and by collecting and making available data as to successful and unsuccessful plans in educating employees.“** Its m ost im m ediate functions thus included the prom otion o f corporation schools through­ out the various Am erican industries, the development o f educational m ethods and personnel procedures, the collection and dissem ination o f inform ation, and the training o f corporation educational directors. The visions o f the NACS organizers, however, extended far beyond these m odest tasks. They saw in education, properly guided according to corporate imperatives, the key to corporate prosperity and stability; by means o f education they sought to elim inate the problem s o f “labor turnover,“ “labor troubles,“ and “lack o f training,” to bring about greater productivity and industrial efficiency. The tem porary chairm an o f the organizing meeting, Lee Galloway, put their vision into words: We have associations formed for the consideration o f various features of manufacturing, we have associations formed for technical work, we have efficiency societies, associations for the advancement of scientific management, etc., but in the last analysis . . . we find that the whole thing rests finally on some educational feature that must be evolved. I wonder how long we intend to leave the education of the workmen in the hands of the trades unions, in the hands of the I.W .W ., and the Socialistic P arty?. . . If a school is organized. . . within the corporation itself, to bring out the strong, practical purposes of the institution, and to show the art, ability and skill which is necessary to carry on a great industrial institution—if the dissemination of knowledge is carried on in an ordinary educational way within the corporation its e lf. . . it would tend greatly to change the attitude o f the employees, and more than that, it would tend to change the attitude of the public, because it is the employee . . . who comes in contact with the public----T hat seems to be the highest kind of insurance that any industrial corporation can have—to insure itself by creating a strong educational system among its own industrial forces, and if big industries are to assume the proportions o f states, they must assume some of the respon­ sibilities of states, and one of these responsibilities is to educate the people, and the welfare o f these big corporations will be insured more safely by the education o f their employees than in any other way---- **

The wide range o f activity which Galloway and his corporatem inded colleagues envisioned for the NACS was implied in the three

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“ F ractio n s o f the Organization” form ulated by the F irst A nnual Con­ vention: “to develop the efficiency o f the individual employee” ; “to increase efficiency in industry” ; and “to influence courses o f established educational institutions m ore favorably tow ard industry.” W ithin the scope o f the first two fractions, the NACS, which changed its name in 1920 to the N ational Association o f C orporation Training (NA CT), undertook extensive projects to “fit the individual into his life's w ork.” Dooley o f W estinghouse chaired the com m ittee which supervised the training o f educational directors, first in cooperation with NYU and later at other schools. Vinal o f AT&T led the O rganization and Adm in­ istration Com mittee, which “determ ined the best m ethods of organiza­ tion o f educational work as a fractio n o f m anagem ent.” H. A. H opf o f D u Pont headed the com m ittee charged w ith the development of job analyses and job specifications, K endall W eisiger o f Southern Bell and W . M. Skill o f G E directed the program s o f technical and executive training, and C arl S. Coler o f W estinghouse guided the work w ith regard to unskilled labor “to determ ine best m ethods o f instruction to bring operators up to standard rates on specific tasks.” By 1917, when J. W. D ietz o f W estern Electric became NACS president, the organiza­ tion’s activities included trade apprenticeship schools, accounting and office-work schools, advertising, selling, and distribution schools, codi­ fication, employment plans, safety and health program s, special train­ ing schools (engineering graduate training), unskilled-labor training, vocational-guidance projects, personnel-rating systems, psychological testing, and records systems. In addition to these education-oriented activities, the NACS studied and prom oted profit-sharing and bonus plans, collective bargaining, workmen’s compensation, welfare pro­ gram s, life insurance for employees, employee representation in m an­ agem ent, cafeterias for employees, works councils, the use o f art, dancing, and music in personnel relations, medical departm ents, and Am ericanization program s for im m igrant workers. In short, the NACS expanded its educational work to include m uch o f m odem corporate m anagem ent. Underlying all o f these efforts were the them es o f corpo­ rate liberalism: cooperation rather than conflict, the natural harm ony o f interest between labor and capital, and effective management and adm inistration as the means tow ard prosperity and general welfare. Lee Galloway expressed the faith th at lay at the heart o f the new manage­ m ent approach. “We m ust strive to keep the men in a pleasurable fram e o f m ind,” he said, “because we know th at fear does not breed efficiency, and th at pleasure does.”84

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The third function o f the NACS, to “influence” the established edu­ cational institutions favorably tow ard industry, was essentially geared to put the corporation schools out of business by rendering the estab­ lished educational institutions outside the corporations capable of, and disposed toward, providing the services for which the corporation schools had been created. Galloway put forth this purpose at the first organizational meeting: “It is tim e that our educational system was brought into some correlation with the business world.”1* M. S. Sloan, president of the Brooklyn Edison Company, later explained how the NACS m ight work to bring about such a correlation: No m atter how willing educational institutions may be to train men better to fit the needs of industry and commerce, their training will be ineffective unless they know definitely what those needs are. [This] is the logical organization not only to promote the idea o f p ractical experience on the part of teachers, but also to assist teachers in getting the industrial point of view. [This] is certainly the logical organization to help to formulate the training needs of industry, insofar as they can be definitely stated for application by the schools.86

The NACS thus undertook to act as the agency for industry-educa­ tion cooperation. Through alliances with such organizations as the A IEE, which had its own “Cooperation with Educational Institutions” committee, the SPEE, the N ational Society for the Prom otion of Indus­ trial Education, the National Electric Light Association (the utilities trade association which carried on its own extensive propaganda cam ­ paign in the schools), the N ational Association o f M anufacturers, and many schools, the NACS worked to integrate the vocational, public, and higher educational institutions within the industrial system. This work was greatly facilitated by the steady flow o f high-ranking person­ nel back and forth between the industries and the schools, with the NACS serving as the prim ary medium for such interaction. Among the notable early NACS members were Ernest Hopkins, who represented New England Telephone in NACS before becoming president o f D art­ m outh in 1916; William W ickenden, who as an AT&T representative chaired the NACS committee on relations with collegiate institutions, headed the SPEE investigation o f engineering education, and later became president o f Case Institute; Charles Steinmetz, who directed G E’s educational program for testm en, was an early NACS president, professor and curriculum reform er at Union College, and longtim e president o f the Schenectady Board o f Education (in which capacity he reorganized the public school system); Frank Aydelotte, who taught English to AT&T employees while a professor at M IT and went on to

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become president o f Swarthm ore in 1921, organizer of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1924, and first director o f the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1939; W alter D ill Scott, the industrial psycholo­ gist who became president o f N orthw estern University in 1920; and Herm an Schneider, the father o f "cooperative education” and president o f the University of Cincinnati. In 1913 F. C. H enderschott observed th at "the universities and colleges are seeing in this new [corporation school] movement a link, long sought, between our institutions o f learning and the business w orld, and are anxious to affiliate and push forward this new educa­ tional system.” The corporate-m inded educators in the engineering schools, who enjoyed the closest contact with the industries, were the first to attem pt to close the education-industry gap from the educa­ tional side. E. J. M ehren, chairm an o f the NACS Committee on Allied Associations and Movements, reported in 1914 th at his committee was "in very close to u c h . . . with two movements in particular—the voca­ tional and continuation school movement and the cooperative technical m ethods being tried by the Universities o f Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.” " I f by proper development o f these systems, employees will be better prepared for the activities o f life than now,” M ehren observed, “it will mean a considerable curtailm ent o f the educational work of the corpo­ rations themselves.”*37 •This did not mean, of course, the elimination o f corporation schools altogether. Al­ though the movement, which had swelled its ranks considerably under NACS leadership, waned after the postwar economic slump, the science-based industries, while promoting cooperation with the schools, continued to develop their own in-house training opera­ tions. The electrical industry remained far ahead of the rest in this line of activity. Kodak, Dow, Du Pont, and the National Carbon Company had some of the earliest informal training programs for college graduates in the chemical industry, but it was not until 1934 that Dow set up the first comprehensive program similar to that established in the electrical industry over three decades earlier. Standard Oil of New Jersey led the pe­ troleum industry in the education business and established a Student Engineer Training Program in the early 1920s. Goodyear instituted its famous Flying Squadron training program in 1913, which, under the direction of M IT engineer Paul Litchfield, became the core of its Industrial University. In the automotive industry, Packard created its technical graduate courses and Ford established the Technical Institute, both in 1919. General Motors conceived the General M otors Institute in 1926. For further discussion of early corporation-school programs, see John Van Liew M orris, Employee Training: A Study o f Education and Training Departments in Various Corporations (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1921); John H. Greene, Organized Training in Business (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1937), p. 180; Nathaniel Peflfer, Educational Experiments in Industry (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1932); Don W hitehead, The Dow Story (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 83, 1218; William Câbler Moore, “Industry’s Interest in the Professional Training of Chemists,” Journal o f Chemical Education, XVIII (1941), 376; S. L. Starks, ’T raining in Industry,” Journal o f Chemical Education, XXI (1944), 283.

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The gap between the engineering schools and the industries had resulted from the historical fact th at the m ajority o f engineering schools had been created as extensions not o f the industries, but o f the estab­ lished schools o f science in the state and private universities. The college setting demanded th at the engineering schools adopt an academically respectable approach to engineering, with an emphasis upon scientific theory rather than industrial practice. As a conse­ quence, the schools rem ained relatively independent of industry and produced graduates who m ight be tem peram entally ill-suited for disci­ plined industrial work and poorly trained in the practical application o f their theories. Those who called most strongly for some bridging o f this gap were the “practicing engineers” in the industries and their like-minded pro­ fessional colleagues in the schools. Increasingly, by the turn o f the century, engineering-college alum ni who had become leaders in indus­ try put pressure upon their colleges to update instruction and bring it into line with the requirem ents of postgraduate professional practice. “In the college, the product is the workm an himself,” the president o f Tabor M anufacturing Company o f Philadelphia explained to SPEE members in 1912. “The molding of this m aterial for the m arket which awaits it is surely an industry of preem inent im portance.”*8 Frederick L. Bishop, SPEE secretary and dean of the College o f Engineering at the University o f Pittsburgh, agreed wholeheartedly: An educational institution resembles, in some respects, a m anufactur­ ing concern___ The goods produced must be of such design, finish, material, etc. as to satisfy its patrons; likewise, the graduates of educa­ tional institutions must meet the requirements of the concerns which are to employ them-----The inefficiency o f a graduate (and I apply the word “inefficiency" to include all the undesirable characteristics) may be caused by poor m aterial, due largely to improper preparation o f the student at entrance to the college or to poor instruction, poor teachers or antiquated and improperly correlated courses.*9

In Europe various means had been devised to bridge the same gap. In Germany, for example, young graduates o f the Gymnasium were required to work in mechanical shops for at least a year before gaining entrance to the Polytechnikum , or scientific school; a sim ilar scheme was adopted in the Scandinavian countries. Glasgow University in Scotland evolved the “sandwich system” whereby a six-m onth aca­ demic year enabled students to spend the other six m onths in the

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workshops o f industry, and thus earn money for their education. In the U nited States the technical schools conducted inspection trips to the industries as a way of introducing their students to “real world” condi­ tions.30 The so-called shop movement, which began at W orcester in 1868 and M IT a decade later, brought the shop into the college for instructional purposes and to sim ulate industrial conditions. The shop movement, however, which spread to m ost engineering schools by the first decade of the new century, was largely unsuccessful and came under attack on two fronts. The industries m aintained th at the school shop could in no way approxim ate the actual situation in industry, and only a few o f the best schools could even begin to afford up-to-date equipm ent such as existed in industry. The academics outside the engi­ neering schools, moreover, had nothing but disdain for lowly shopwork and were loath to perm it it on the cam pus, m uch less grant university credit for i t The m ost promising resolution o f the problem, one which intrigued engineering educators m ore than any other, was the cooperative course o f the University of Cincinnati, set up in 1907 by Herm an Schneider. A s a young instructor of civil engineering at Lehigh University, Schneider had between 1899 and 1903 conducted w hat he called “peda­ gogic research into the problem o f engineering education.” In the pro­ cess, he had visited “the largest m anufacturing concerns in the Eastern and M iddle States, in order to obtain from the employers of engineers their views on the subject. In a great m any cases the men consulted were graduates of the best institutions in the country.” In Schneider's view, and the view of those whom he consulted, the problem o f bridging the gap between the schools and the industries boiled down to three questions: “W hat requirem ents should the finished product of an engi­ neering school fulfill?” “W here and how shall we get the raw m aterial to make the required finished product?” A nd “Through what processes shall we put the raw m aterial in order to obtain the required finished product?”31 By 1903 Schneider, now a professor at the University o f Cincinnati, had reached his “somewhat radical and revolutionary” conclusions. He form ulated a plan for a “cooperative course” whereby engineering students would be required to alternate between the college classroom and the industrial workplace in the process o f earning their degree. In 1907, when he became dean o f the College of Engineering at Cincinnati, Schneider launched his project. Initially the course was a six-year program o f instruction in m echanical, electrical, and chemical engi­ neering, and was carried on in cooperation with a num ber of Cincin­

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nati’s electrical and m achinery companies. Students alternated week by week between the industrial shops and the college during the school year and were required to work full-time in the industries during the four-m onth "vacation.” In total, they spent four years in the industries and two years in the college classroom. Students were required to sign a contract whereby they were bound to meet the requirem ents o f the school when at school and o f the company when in the industries, and were paid at a starting rate o f ten cents an hour for tim e spent at the workplace. "The aim o f the course is not to make a so-called pure engineer,” Schneider explained, "it is frankly intended to make an engineer for commercial production----- ” This approach, he boasted, "will furnish to the m anufacturer a man skilled both in theory and practice, and free from the defects concerning which so m uch com plaint is m ade.” The Cooperative Course at the University o f Cincinnati—the first o f its kind anywhere in the world—focused on the same problems which con­ cerned the corporation-school educators. "T he shop discipline has had a m arked effect upon the character of the work th at they have done in the university,” Schneider observed, and, in addition, “the students have gained valuable knowledge o f the labor problem, and o f tim e as being the very essence of commercial production.” This course resolves itself down to a training in commercial production with a university preparation in the underlying science . . . ; we are operating our engineering college at the highest efficiency . . . ; we are educating only those who by mental, physical, and temperam ental adaptability are worthy of the expenditures made.**

The educational director o f one o f the cooperating companies at­ tested to the m erits of the Cooperative Course from the m anufacturer's standpoint. "The chief criticism s o f m odern technical education result from the fact that we try to take the shop into the school, whereas we should bring the school into the shop. The cooperative engineering course plan practically brings the school into the shop.” The plan also brings the students "in close touch with the m en,” he explained, giving them an intim ate knowledge o f the condition and attitude o f labor, which will be of value to them later as m anagers o f men; "and it instills in them . . . the commercial sense of tim e.” The cooperating company meanwhile is given the "opportunity to know the boys and form an exact knowledge of the abilities and possibilities o f each individual----W herever [it] will use them they will, each one o f them , be a known quantity.”**

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The Cincinnati plan was relatively well received by engineering educators and industrialists despite its “radical and revolutionary“ nature. The poor economic conditions after the panic of 1907 hindered its rapid expansion, but by 1919, seventy-five companies—some, like the Boston Edison Company, quite a distance from Cincinnati—had joined the Cincinnati program , and by 1929 some twenty schools had adopted the Cooperative Course plan with only m inor revisions, includ­ ing N ortheastern University, the Universities of Akron, Georgia, and Louisville, Georgia Tech, and A ntioch.34 The Cincinnati Cooperative Course grew into an im portant labora­ tory experiment for industrial and college educators, and Schneider him self became a leading spokesman in educational and industrial circles. In 1914 he addressed the NACS on the problem of “selecting young men for particular jobs," and the editor o f the NACS B ulletin prom ptly declared th at he had “given to industry the most authentic knowledge available at this time“ pertaining to this critical problem. Drawing upon his eight-year experience with the Cooperative Course and the production of over five hundred students, Schneider outlined a system of vocational guidance and personnel procedures based upon the “classification of m arked characteristics which furnishes a rational basis“ for manpower selection. U nder present conditions our youth blunder into jo b s . . . ; there is no method or agency to determine the general type of work for which a youth is talented and to classify the various jobs which fall under this type. Every individual has certain broad characteristics and every type o f work requires broad characteristics. The problem then is to state the broad characteristics, to devise a rational method to discover these characteristics in individuals, to classify the types of jobs by the talents they require and to guide the youth with certain talents into the type o f job which requires those talents.94

Among the various characteristics Schneider listed physical strength, music sense, color sense, m anual accuracy, m ental accuracy, and con­ centration. In addition, he cited certain polarities between which stu­ dents m ight be rated: m ental/m anual; settled/roving; indoor/outdoor; directive/dependent; creative/im itative; sm all scope/large scope; adaptable/self-centered; deliberate/im pulsive; and dynam ic/static. Be­ sides these characteristics o f individuals, Schneider outlined some gen­ eral racial guidelines which m ight help employers to select their personnel. The Chinese, he found, were “settled,“ Arabs were “rov­

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ing,” Sicilians were “impulsive,” H indus were “deliberate,” Japanese were “m anually accurate,” and Persians had a “refined color sense.” W hether he drew upon the empirical evidence from the experience at Cincinnati or fell back upon the racial stereotypes of his class, Schneider sought ways for industry to meet the new corporate chal­ lenge of “fitting the individual to his life's work.”96 His contribution was well received. One o f the first to recognize the potentials o f Schneider’s plan was M agnus Alexander, then director of the educational program s at the Lynn works o f GE. In June 1907 he w rote to the president o f M IT, Henry Pritchett, about a visit he had m ade to Cincinnati in order to observe the plan in operation. “The arrangem ent impressed me as a very practical one,” he w rote Pritchett, “and I wish to suggest a sim ilar cooperation between the M IT and the Lynn W orks o f G E .” Alexan­ der’s proposal involved a six-year course o f study leading to the Bache­ lor o f Science degree in electrical engineering and consisted o f “alternating fortnights” of classroom study and industrial work, and full-tim e work at Lynn during the summers. The cooperative program , he explained, would be supervised through the “joint-trusteeship” o f M IT and G E officials. A ttached to Alexander’s letter was a supporting note from Elihu Thomson o f GE: “I cheerfully endorse the proposal o f M r. Alexander,” Thomson wrote. A short while later G E Lab D irec­ to r W illis W hitney expressed sim ilar enthusiasm .67 W hile Alexander rallied support behind the plan at G E, D ugald Jackson did the same at M IT. In an article in the A IEE Transactions, Alexander outlined the advantages o f “The New M ethod o f Training Engineers.” He pointed out the great value o f the cooperative program as a means o f “bridging the gap between academic and practical train­ ing” and adapting engineering students to industrial and corporate conditions. The Cooperative Plan would “bring the regular engineering courses m ore fully into synchronism with the demands o f m odern industrial life,” Alexander argued, whereby “the ideal o f the college” could be “linked to the real o f the factory.” It would “well enable the student to adjust him self quickly to the interacting influence of the college and the factory,” to make o f him an energetic “industrial worker” in the classroom as well as the factory. “U nder such a plan,” Alexander contended, the freedom enjoyed by students during the college career is happily interrupted by the stem discipline that must prevail in a business organization; the advantage of this college freedom in the development

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of the young man’s character . . . is not lost, but his freedom is regu­ lated by frequently recurring intervals of discipline in the factory, so that he may be prevented from soaring to the skies in his fanciful ideas engendered by his personal irresponsibility and after four years find himself all too rudely pulled back to earth by the stern call of practical life with its demand for cooperation of all forces.3*

As far as expense to the company was concerned, Alexander pointed out th at “all engineering apprentices will be utilized by the factory’’ and th at “if the factory end of the cooperative course is well organized and efficiently conducted, an astonishing am ount o f good commercial work can be turned out by engineering apprentices.“ Unlike Schneider, Alex­ ander emphasized the plan’s value for the production o f executive talent for business leadership. “The underlying thought of the proposed plan,” he explained, “is to provide an education especially adapted to the needs of prospective engineers who are to specialize in life along adm inistrative and executive rather than purely engineering lines.” In the final draft of his proposal, Alexander indicated th at the Cooperative Course students would be required to spend their entire last year at M IT studying, along with the scientific curriculum , such subjects as salesmanship, cost-keeping, factory m anagement, and “the relation o f employer to employee.**39 Jackson conducted a quick survey o f opinion on Alexander’s pro­ posal among his colleagues at M IT and the industries. M ost o f the responses were favorable if not enthusiastic, and the m ajority o f those who opposed the plan did so merely on the grounds th at it appeared inadequate to achieve the ends outlined, ends which they themselves strongly endorsed. A. M. Basford o f the Am erican Locomotive Com­ pany, G E ’s neighbor in Schenectady and one o f its leading customers, urged acceptance of the scheme in light o f its “real advantages’’;40 H erm an Schneider was o f course m ost enthusiastic,41 and Charles F. Scott o f W estinghouse agreed th at “on the w hole. . . the proposed plan would accomplish your purpose o f producing young men of better training and larger vision than are now being produced by the usual processes.” Scott did offer, however, one note of “precaution” drawn from his own experience with the Special Apprentice Course at Pitts­ burgh. One o f the objects o f the present apprenticeship course is to get the young man away from his student point of view. It is to give him practical and commercial ideals and incentives___ If the short periods of shopw ork. . . are so fully imbued with the school idea that the young

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man, consciously or unconsciously, regards the whole course as a part of the college to such an extent that his ideas are academic rather than commercial. . . then the proposed course fails in an important particu­ lar.4* Jackson received only one response in his survey which did not reflect keen interest in this “im portant particular”; it was from A rlo Bates o f M IT 's English departm ent. “The scheme seems likely to produce a state o f things directly unfavorable to instruction in English composi­ tion and English literature,” Bates complained, and, furtherm ore, the “spasmodic periodicity of the proposed plan will probably be a disad­ vantage to ail Institute courses except those in the direct line o f the work done in the factory.” Bates’ criticism , however, while incisive, was dulled by the tim id way in which it was offered. Like many o f his academic contem poraries (and successors), Bates was awed by the obvious power of the industries and the “real world” savvy o f the engineers. He was thus caught between his own convictions and the fear o f appearing stubborn, perhaps reactionary, and, at worst, out o f touch with the times. “The D epartm ent of English has certainly no wish to appear as opposing [the plan],” he assured Jackson. It is “not so inflexi­ ble or so wedded to its present m ethods as to be unable to adapt itself to fresh conditions.” Recognizing th at the cooperative plan was an assault on the supposed autonom y of intellectual life, Bates was neither prepared nor willing to combat it. Consequently he took the m ost convenient way out. “In making this report,” he wrote Jackson, “I wish it to be clearly understood th at I am offering no opinion on the scheme proposed, since I do not regard m yself as able intelligently to form one.” Jackson did take Bates’ criticism to heart, however, proposing th at students in the Cooperative Course be required to write a them e each week while at work in G E 's factory at Lynn.43 Despite these promising beginnings, Alexander's proposal was shelved, in the wake of the economic dow nturn following the 1907 panic. W ith the return of war-stim ulated industrial prosperity, Alexan­ der reintroduced his plan, emphasizing even more strongly its prim ary purpose: preparation for management. “The object of the proposal,” he explained, “is the selection of a lim ited num ber o f especially qualified college students and their subsequent training . . . in order to develop junior engineers of high capacity.” The new plan differed even m ore from Schneider's Cincinnati pro­ gram: at M IT, students in the Cooperative Course would be selected

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rather than having all students participate; they would begin cooper­ ation in their junior year rather than as freshmen; they would receive a M aster's degree rather than a B.S. at the completion of the course; they would each be trained by only one "comprehensive com pany" throughout the period o f cooperation; and they would receive form al instruction at the company as well as the institute. In addition, the alternate periods o f training would be longer—thirteen weeks—to allow the lessons learned to "sink in," and the students would spend th eir last half-year o f the five-year program at M IT studying "busi­ ness law and organization" in courses "given by practical men o f affairs."44 In contrast to their hesitancy in 1908, G E officials were now pushing for adoption o f the proposal. A lthough "the proposed plan would cost the G E Company a large am ount per annum ," G E president E. W. Rice intim ated to M IT president M aclaurin, "we are w illing. . . for reasons m ore o r less selfish, to try the experim ent----- We believe [it] will m ark the successful introduction o f a greatly needed improvement in Engi­ neering Education." M aclaurin agreed. "T he experiment, if success­ ful," he replied to Rice, "is likely to have far-reaching consequences in higher technical education." (M aclaurin complained, however, th at M IT was in bad financial straits and th at G E would have to bear the larger burden o f cost. G E thus agreed to provide two thirds o f the expenses.) Soon after the course was form ally established, an Oversight Com m ittee was formed to facilitate the "joint trusteeship" o f the exper­ im ent, with Frederick P. Fish o f the M IT Executive Com mittee as chairm an. Representing G E were M agnus Alexander, Elihu Thomson, and Charles K. Tripp, supervisor o f apprentices at Lynn. From M IT were Dugald Jackson, Com fort A. Adam s, W illiam H. Timbie, and W illiam W ickenden. Jackson immediately sent out letters instructing all juniors to report either to the office o f W ickenden, who shared responsibility for the M IT side o f the course with Timbie, or to the office of Alexander at Lynn. In the case o f the latter, he advised them to “take overalls along.”4® A fter another brief delay caused by the war, the M IT Cooperative Course in electrical engineering was finally launched in the fall o f 1919. " I t is my opinion," Jackson wrote, "th at this is the m ost prom ising line o f endeavor for the education o f the future leading men in m anufactur­ ing lines, particularly those in the electrical branches, which has yet been undertaken.”46 A t G E, where the course was "as carefully laid out as the work at the Institute," students took form al courses in corpora­

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tion accounting, business psychology, contem porary English and Am erican literature, and “hum an relations.” Courses at the institute covered such subjects as contracts, purchasing, organization, produc­ tion, employment, sales, and m arket analysis. A t both sites, as Tim bie explained, students learned ‘‘to estim ate the strength and characteris­ tics o f men as well as the strength and properties o f m aterials.” In addition, Timbie continued, there is afforded an excellent opportunity to do some real training in teamwork and in the development of a sense of loyalty to the job----This is the reason why a student receives all of his practical experience with one company, where he can be given a unified conception of the organization and a real appreciation of the policies and spirit of the company-----If these qualities are not gained, the most rigorous intel­ lectual training is wasted.47

The success o f the course—one h alf of the students were hired by G E after graduation, and these increased their salaries (i.e., rose into m an­ agement) at a faster rate than regular engineering graduates—led to an expansion o f the program. A fter the publication of a widely read pro­ m otional article by Jackson and Alexander, other «companies entered the program , including the Edison Electric Illum inating Company o f Boston, the Boston Elevated Railway Company, and Stone and W eb­ ster. A few years later they were joined by AT&T, New Y ork Tele­ phone, the Bell Labs, W estern Electric, W estinghouse, and a num ber o f railroad companies.48 W hile the Course VI-A cooperative program enhanced the institute's "serviceability” (Jackson's word) to the electrical industry, a sim ilar program in chemical engineering did likewise with regard to the bur­ geoning chemical industry. This course in Chemical Engineering Prac­ tice, established at M IT w ith m uch fanfare in 1917, was the culm ination of a decade o f effort by chemical engineers to define their calling in term s of industrial and corporate needs. "In the primitive stages of chemical m anufacturing,” Alfred H . W hite, head of the chemical-engineering departm ent a t the University o f Michigan, recalled, the all-im portant aim was to produce the desired product, and effi­ ciency and cost were secondary factors. As competition became more keen [however] . . . and greater emphasis was laid upon mechanical operation and more economical production, the demand arose for men

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with special knowledge and the question of the proper training for such men aroused earnest discussion.4* The early industrial chemists, who had been trained in laboratory chem istry rather than in engineering or works management, recognized th e inadequacy o f their own education as preparation for industrial practice, they sought a new type o f training, one which would m ore satisfactorily link the laboratory with the industrial p lan t In 1910, for example, C. F. Burgess, a prom inent consultant and professor of chemical engineering at the University o f W isconsin, sug­ gested to his colleagues some ways o f enhancing the “efficiency o f the college graduate in the chemical industry.” Similarly rem iniscent o f the efforts o f men like Charles Scott and D ugald Jackson to define the educational needs o f the electrical industry was an article by J. H. Jam es, chemical-engineering professor at Carnegie Tech, outlining the proper “chemical education for the industries” and stressing the need for practical and management training. M. C. W hitaker, who estab­ lished the chemical-engineering course at Columbia in 1911, empha­ sized the im portance of creating an atm osphere o f m anufacturing and business efficiency in the classroom wherein the students could learn the basics o f plant organization and management in addition to the principles o f physics and chem istry and applied mechanics. In response to these challenges, the A IC hE a t its first meeting formed a standing com m ittee on chemical-engineering education to serve as a clearing­ house and advance guard for educational-reform activities. U nder the dynam ic leadership of A rthur D. Little, this committee conducted extensive educational surveys (at first independently and later in coop­ eration with the SPEE), form ulated guidelines for curricula, and even­ tually issued the report which set the criteria for accreditation of all courses in chemical engineering.*0 The real beginnings of chemical-engineering education in this coun­ try , however, and of modern chemical engineering itself, centered at M IT. The chemical-engineering departm ent was established in 1888 by chem ist W arren K. Lewis, and in 1904 cooperative industrial research was made a routine part o f the departm ent’s activities by W illiam W alker. The inspiration for the cooperative School of Chemical Engi­ neering Practice came a decade later, from W alker's form er partner, A rth u r D. Little. As chairm an of the visiting committee o f the depart­ m ents of chem istry and chemical engineering, Little proposed the cre­ ation o f the new course, one which would integrate training in chem istry, engineering, and management, and would be based upon

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L ittle’s key concept, unit operations.* “Chemical engineering,” L ittle wrote, “is not a composite o f chem istry and m echanical and civil engineering, but is itself a branch o f engineering, the basis o f which is those unit operations which in their proper sequence and coordination constitute a chemical process as conducted on the industrial scale.” *1 Two years after Little’s report to the M IT Corporation, the School o f Engineering Practice was established, although because o f the war­ tim e activities of its staff (W alker was head o f the Chemical W arfare Service) the course didn’t really start until 1920. The brainchild o f Little, it was funded by K odak’s George Eastm an and directed by W alker (who had also become director o f the Institute’s new Division o f Industrial Cooperation and Research). The course was open only to select graduate engineers and involved eight-week shifts at three field stations plus two semesters o f specialized study at the institute. T he plants a t the field stations served as learning laboratories, and all in­ struction was grounded upon the concept o f unit operations.** Throughout, theory was integrated with practice, the physics o f the laboratory with the economics o f production and management. Scien­ tifically trained chemists were geared to function as engineers, to incor­ porate autom atically the im peratives o f the m arket (and th eir superiors) into their scientific and technical work, and to organize and manage the activities o f corporate employees accordingly. “Chemical engineering has enabled the businessman and the investor to view the chem ical reaction from the standpoint o f the efficient and economical m anufacture o f a product and to accurately forecast the profits to be expected from the application of this chemical reaction,” Charles M. A. Stine, D u Pont’s chemical director, explained. “Chem istry views the •L ittk ’s revolutionary concept of unit operations—the resolution of the chemical process into a coordinated series of unit actions (e.g., pulverizing, mixing, heating, etc.) upon which plant organization is based—laid the groundwork for streamlined mass production in the chemical industry. Link had, in effect, done for the chemical industry what F. W. Taylor had done for the machine industry. As W alker and his colleagues W. K. Lewis and W. H. McAdams explained in the first textbook on modem chemical engineering, “ If the underlying principles upon which the rational design and operation of basic types of engineering equipment depend are understood, their successful adaptation to manufac­ turing processes becomes a m atter of good management rather than of good fortune.” Not surprisingly, then, Little emphasized that “to be successful and render his full measure of service, [the chemical engineer] must know men and be able to work with them effectively.” W. H. Walker, W. K. Lewis, and W. H. McAdams, Principles o f Chemical Engineering (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1923), Introduction; A rthur D. Little, “Chemical Engineering—W hat It Is and Is N ot,” Transactions o f the American Institute o f Chemical Engineers, XVII (192S), 172. For a discussion of unit operations, see W. A. Pardee and T. H. Chilton, “Industrial and Engineering Chemistry,” Journal o f Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X L III (1931), 293.

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chem ical reaction; chemical engineering views the pocketbook reac­ tion.”” Unlike those at Cincinnati, the cooperative courses at M IT in elec­ trical and chemical engineering were restricted to select engineering graduates, men who seemed capable o f becoming the successors of the corporate engineers who created the program s. W hen G erard Swope o f G E and Frank Aydelotte later initiated the M IT H onors Plan for superior students, they recognized th at the cooperative courses were already honors-type program s. The students enrolled in these courses, m oreover, were very m uch aware o f their distinction. “The social cohe­ siveness o f the VI-A groups was phenom enal,” K arl W ildes o f the electrical engineering departm ent remembered, “and probably un­ m atched in all M IT history.” Here, if anywhere, was an im portant new breeding ground o f A m erica's corporate elite.54 A nother o f the earliest and m ost prom inent cooperative plans o f engineering education, one which combined aspects o f the Cincinnati and M IT plans, was developed at the University of Pittsburgh in 1910 by Frederick L. Bishop, an influential leader o f the SPEE. A boyhood friend o f Calvin Coolidge, Bishop was an M IT-trained electrical engi­ neer; like Frank Jewett, he had gone on to Chicago to earn his Ph.D . in physics with Michelson, M illikan, and M ann. R ather than entering industry as Jewett had done, however, Bishop embarked upon a teach­ ing career, becoming a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, dean o f the College of Engineering, and a dom inant figure in Am erican engineering education as national secretary o f the SPEE from 1914 to 1947. As dean at Pittsburgh, Bishop’s “first notew orthy work” was the introduction o f the cooperative system with the Pittsburgh industries. T he Pittsburgh plan, like th at at M IT, was under the joint supervision o f the college and the participating companies, but, like the Cincinnati plan, it required all students in civil, m echanical, electrical, chemical, railway, and sanitary engineering to enroll.85 “The adoption of a cooperative system ,” Bishop explained, “is a logical development o f engineering education in the U nited States. W hen the engineering schools were first established they were really schools o f pure science. Those proving unsatisfactory, as judged by the output, shops were taken into the schools and shop-work made a part o f the curriculum .” But this educational m ethod also proved inade­ quate to meet industrial requirem ents, and the industries were thus forced to establish their own training program s, “an acknowledgement by these concerns th at the output o f our engineering schools [was]

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unsatisfactory.*' Bishop viewed the cooperative system as a necessary step further, a development which would enable educators to “break a man into his job*' in the early stages of his education, to “make him play the game** as early as possible.9* The Pittsburgh cooperative system, which began regular operation in 1911, involved the participation o f some fifty railroad, steel, pe­ troleum , utility, and chemical and electrical m anufacturing companies by 1916. From the industrial point of view, the cooperative system provided a valuable service. The supervisor o f cooperative students at the W estinghouse M achine Company (the m ajor participant in the program ) noted that, in return for the practical training received, they “earn their keep'* by producing for the company. Channing R. Dooley, W estinghouse's educational director, wrote Bishop th at the system enabled his company “to try out students each year and thus ultim ately obtain some excellent men for our organization.**97 The general m an­ ager of the N ational Electric Signaling Company told the membership of the SPEE th at the cooperative plan “is a strictly business proposi­ tion*’ allowing the m anufacturer both to advertise his product and to habituate students to his company. It puts him in touch with a number of young men who are just starting their training for lines of work in which he is interested as an employer. He is afforded an opportunity of looking over these men and picking out such of them as appear particularly good. He can then suggest certain lines of training that will fit them for his requirements, and he, in this way, has a chance of picking up trained men for his force w ithout expense to his company.99

The Pittsburgh industries, in cooperation with the University o f Pittsburgh, focused upon the production of industrially oriented teach­ ers as well as students. W illiam W ickenden, chairm an of the NA CT Committee on Relations with Collegiate Institutions, reported in 1922 th at the local chapter of the organization in Pittsburgh “is considering the question of requiring college graduates to hold an actual job for a year or two before teaching.*' M any business executives, W ickenden noted, “feel quite strongly on this point,** and the W estinghouse Elec­ trical and M anufacturing Company was already conducting “a special course for college professors whereby they may obtain such training.** In addition to teacher education, the local NACT chapter in Pittsburgh developed the “Pittsburgh Idea*'—cooperative program s and voca­ tional guidance within the local public schools—in cooperation w ith the Pittsburgh Board of Education and the national NACT Com mittee

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on Public School Relations, headed by C. S. Coler of W estinghouse. Pittsburgh was thus among the m ore “progressive” cities in adopting th e new corporate-industrial approach to the problems of education.” “ In dealing with these problems with a view to larger industrial effi­ ciency,” the Chancellor o f the University of Pittsburgh declared, We need not fear that our young people will be commercialized and the quality of our citizenship impaired-----It is quite possible to direct our education so that it will result in the largest efficiency, and at the same time guard against any possible danger of lowering the standard and the high aim of all education. In so doing we shall, I am sure, ultimately arrive at a much more sensible, more rational, more effective education in our entire system of instruction. The continual interchange of opin­ ion, of bringing together the various elements of our social, educational, and industrial units, cannot but result in great advantage, m aterial and educational, to every part of our country. I fail utterly as a prophet unless, as a result of the Corporation Schools movement and the calling in of these other institutions to consult and cooperate, there will be finally a very much more rational system of instruction throughout the country.*0

Cincinnati, M IT, and Pittsburgh were not alone in their pursuit o f a “rational” and industrially responsive educational system. Parke Kolbe, who founded and directed the new M unicipal University of A kron in 1913, prom ptly set up a cooperative plan for engineering students, a “second-shift plan,” and a “night college plan,” all “de­ signed to be o f the greatest benefit to the rubber industry and for training those who work in the rubber industry.” Similar arrangem ents were established at other universities, among them Case in Cleveland, D rexel in Philadelphia, Union in Schenectady, M arquette in Milwau­ kee, H arvard in Cambridge, and NYU in New York City.*61 Else­ where, valuable services were rendered to the industries w ithout the establishm ent of formal cooperative courses. “The engineering schools can serve the industries,” M IT’s Dugald Jackson observed, “by keeping m ore studious and accurate records o f the tastes, ambitions, and abili­ *Although not a school of college grade, the Rochester Mechanics Institute served as something of a model of industry-school cooperation. Kodak and Bausch and Lomb, two leaders in the cooperative and corporation-school movement, farmed out their educa­ tional work to the institute. Thus, as one student of industrial education explained, “the Institute [was] not a school for individuals but for corporations." In 1921 the cooperative system was formally established at the institute. It is interesting to note that William Wickenden, who did so much to transform engineering education in the U.S., first taught at this institute. See Nathaniel Peffer, Educational Experiments in Industry (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1932), p. 176.

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ties o f their students and accomplishm ents o f their alum ni, thus estab­ lishing an expanding store o f inform ation regarding the engineering intellect o f the nation—a record invaluable to our growing indus­ tries."61 As early as 1902, a com m ittee at C ornell's Sibley College— headed by an assistant professor o f electrical engineering—began to system atize that school's personnel records “in response to increasing inquiries from companies for technical graduates." The Cornell Fac­ ulty Committee on Employment within the next decade adopted a card and file system o f evaluating qualifications o f students and alum ni and was able to m atch Cornell personnel with industrial job specifications “prom ptly and system atically." Likewise, the associate dean o f D art­ m outh College reported th at “the inform ation on file concerning a student has been found o f value to companies seeking college trained men to enter their employ." The president o f D artm outh a t the tim e had been drafted from the New England Telephone Company, w here he had been company representative to the NACS.63 Probably the most elaborate personnel and placement system in these early days was th at developed by A. A. Potter when be became dean at Purdue.* Designed in cooperation with the Indiana M anufacturers' Association, it involved the accum ulation of extensive inform ation about students and alumni: school grades, intelligence-test scores, apti­ tude-test scores, career aspirations, teacher evaluations, practical expe­ rience, hobbies, employer references, and “character profiles." G ood traits o f character were the focus of P otter's system, and those students who rated low and were thus deemed “deficient" in such areas as loyalty, efficiency, and adaptability were counseled about ways of im­ proving their standing. “The personnel records and interviews," P o tter explained, “have been helpful in pointing out to a student his deficien­ cies and in impressing him with the fact th at good qualities o f personal­ ity can be developed."64 Potter was quite explicit as to what constituted a good personality; in his letters to employers o f Purdue graduates, he explained th at Purdue University is interested in developing not only the m entality but also the character, personality, and physique of its students. We are trying to train men to be efficient workers in the engineering field. We are anxious to prepare them for conditions as they are, so that they will waste as little tim e as possible in adjusting themselves to the •It should be noted that Potter got the job at Purdue in part as a result of strong support by two influential Purdue alumni, Dooley of Westinghouse and Dietz of Western Elec­ tric. See the biography of Potter by Robert Eckles, The Dean (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1973).

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needs of industry. O ur whole course is being constantly studied and revised with this point in view. The personnel system has been of considerable value in discovering the students* talen ts.. . . D uring the past two years the employers of engineering graduates have been making much use of the Purdue per­ sonnel system in selecting engineers to meet certain specifications. Letters have been received by Purdue . . . from many of the most prominent employers o f engineers commending the system in bringing the man and the job together.6*

Potter’s system was widely copied. It served as the basis of W estinghouse's personnel system, which Potter and C. R. Dooley developed together, and became a model for other universities as well. The Dean o f Engineering at the University of M innesota, for example, copied P otter's system, noting th at large employers o f graduates were greatly aided "by the inform ation included in this qualification record, espe­ cially th at which shows the appraisal o f the students' ch aracter. . . as distinguished from his scholastic record.” And at the Bell System Educational Conference for 1926, R. I. Rees, AT&T’s vice-president in charge o f education addressed educators and industry men on "T he Selection and Development o f Personnel,” explaining how he and Dean P o tter had "talked over the possibility o f Purdue furnishing men on specification.” AT&T had provided Potter w ith job descriptions and an outline of required qualifications and "we gave him a quota for Pur­ due.” “T hat was very sketchy, o f course,” Rees noted, "but the tim e was lim ited.” Upon receipt o f the specifications, however, Rees went on, “Dean Potter agreed to tu rn out twice as many men as the list called for.”## The cooperative-education movement, while it began in the engineer­ ing schools, was not restricted to them; the need for trained managerial m anpower turned the eyes of commerce and industry to the liberal-arts colleges as well. The N ational City Bank o f New York, under the leadership of Frank Vanderlip, led the way. " I know the m ajority o f businessmen trained in the school o f routine work,” Vanderlip con­ ceded, "will doubt the feasibility o f teaching in the classroom, in a scientific and orderly fashion, those principles which they have gained only through years of experience.” But, he argued, The engineers of an earlier day thought that blue overalls and not a doctor’s gown formed the proper dress for the neophyte in engineer­ ing-----We have come long ago to recognize that the road to success as an engineer is through a technical school. So, too, I believe, we will in time come to recognize. . . that the road to commercial leadership

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will be through the doors o f those colleges and universities which have developed courses especially adapted to the requirements o f commer­ cial life.*1

To this end, the bank established a business-fellowship plan with vari­ ous schools, involving one year o f employment at the bank during the four-year college career. The “training of men for the m anagem ent o f extensive affairs,” N ational City Bank Vice-President W. S. Kies w rote President Henry Suzzalo o f the University o f W ashington, m ust “be made m ore systematic and effective” in order to increase executive efficiency and thereby increase industrial efficiency.** Cooperative courses were established for sim ilar purposes in the liberal-arts schools of the universities o f Akron and Cincinnati and NYU. The most ambitious scheme for the production o f executive talent was th at devised by A rthur E. M organ, the country’s leading flood-control engineer and later the first director of the TVA. In 1920 when he became president o f Antioch, a sm all Ohio college founded by Horace M ann, M organ launched the famous Antioch Plan o f cooper­ ative education. Including such features as on-campus industries and very close correlation o f technical and liberal-arts training, the plan was designed for training “prim arily for proprietorship and m anagem ent, not for subordinate employment.” M ore than anything, it was geared to provide the country’s top executives: The central core o f all vocational and technical training at A ntioch is to be the preparation for carrying the ultim ate responsibility-----There exists in the United States a highly developed and enormously valuable technic of administration. This technic includes the ability and habit of analysis of a job into the factors that count for its success, such as cost analysis, plant operation, financial management, personnel orga­ nization, buying, salesmanship, development of morale, production methods, and analysis of supply and demand; while underlying all is the habit and ability of exercising responsibility and of being the final authority on m atters of policy. This technic in its modem, highly developed form is in the possession of very few men and women. It is the business of vocational courses at Antioch to be the medium for transm itting this technic to a select group of students.*9

M organ fully understood the im plications o f the popular tenet th a t “knowledge is power,” recognizing th at while knowledge alone did not bring power, it was indispensable to those who had power. A ntioch was thus designed not simply to educate its students but to groom them for

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power, while providing them with the habits and knowledge necessary for the effective use o f th at power. M organ adopted an elaborate per­ sonnel system for screening applicants and charting student progress, including, along with high academic perform ance, rigorous standards o f character and attitude. He observed th at “an educational institution has certain points o f resemblance to a factory“ and that, although “the academ ic type of educator may object to this com parison,. . . a study o f the points of sim ilarity m ight profitably be m ade by many colleges.“ T he sm all college, he found, was particularly well suited for the produc­ tion o f a well-defined product—such as top executives—the demand for w hich cannot be met by the standardized m ass production of the great university: The »nail college, like the small factory, m ust select an output that the larger institutions either have neglected or cannot deal with efficiently, and should fortify its position by selection of its m aterials in a m anner which the wholesale methods of its large com petitors have made im­ practicable.70

“Violins can be made m ost cheaply in large factories,” M organ went on to say, “but only the sm all shop could produce the Stradivarius.“ Since the rare, finely crafted products of A ntioch were to be the nation's to p adm inistrators, M organ selected trustees who would m ost appreci­ ate the im portance of such a product, top adm inistrators. They in­ cluded Frank Vanderlip, president o f the N ational City Bank o f New York; Charles K ettering, chief engineer at G eneral M otors; W illiam M ayo, chief engineer at Ford; George Verity, president o f the Am ercian Rolling M ill Company; H enry Dennison, president o f the Denni­ son M anufacturing Company and a prom inent leader in the m anagem ent movement; and Edw ard F. G ay, form er dean o f the H ar­ vard School of Business A dm inistration and an old hand at tutoring the pow er elite. T he A ntioch Plan, then, was designed especially to meet private industry's dem and for responsible executives. A t least one observer, an engineering professor from the University o f Toronto, noticed the em­ phasis at the outset. “W hile the idea o f training to carry ultim ate responsibility is stated and restated," he w rote to the editor of the Engineering News-Record, M organ “m akes no specific m ention o f training for adm inistrative public service. . . ; it would appear from his illustrations and from the outline o f the proposed practical work, th at it is the industrial field th at the college will prim arily serve." M organ

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responded th at A ntioch would indeed provide training for responsible public adm inistration as well as for corporate management; he failed to m ention, however, th at the growth o f the corporate industrial system involved the transform ation of political life no less than education; th at the process—by th at tim e well under way—signaled, above all, the collapse o f any rigid distinction between “public” and “corporate.” *71 On the industrial side o f the gap between industry and the colleges, local efforts to correlate education with the needs of industry were prom oted and coordinated through trade associations, the engineering societies, and, m ost im portantly, the NACS. In the colleges the m ajor national vehicle was the Society for the Prom otion o f Engineering Education. The SPEE was organized in Chicago in 1893 by the W orld Engineer­ ing Congress. D uring its first decade the society was dom inated by engineering educators from the state schools o f the Midwest, and con­ cerned itself prim arily with the problem s o f an expanding curriculum , the proper relationship between science and shop work, and academ ic tensions between the engineering educators and their liberal-arts col­ leagues. A t this stage, education and industry rem ained relatively iso­ lated from each other; as A. A. P otter recalled, “cooperation w ith industry in engineering education was little before 1910.”7* Thereafter, however, largely in response to the dem ands o f electrical engineers in the colleges and the industry, such cooperation became the society's m ajor mission. The growing im portance o f the electrical industry signaled a corre­ sponding increase in the influence o f electrical engineers in the engi­ neering profession and among engineering educators. The emergence o f an electrical-engineering curriculum distinct from th at of mechanical engineering was of m ajor concern to engineering educators at the tu rn o f the century, and representatives from the industry were the m ost active participants in the discussions. Between 1900 and 1904 over twenty im portant articles appeared in technical journals on the proper m ethod of training electrical engineers, many of them w ritten by people •F or further discussion of the blurring of the distinction between the public and private spheres, and the politicization of corporate capitalism in general, see Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph o f Conservatism (New York: Free Press, 1963); James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968); Ronald Radosh and M urray Rothbaid, eds., A New H istory o f Leviathan (New York: E. P. Dutton f t Co., 1972); and Jerry Israel, ed., Building the Organizational Society (New York: Free Press, 1972).

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in the industry.* The them e was always the same: how to correlate the education o f engineers with the industrial specifications for technical w orkers and effective managers.73 Efforts along these lines w ithin the SPEE came to a focus in 1906, when Dugald Jackson became president. In July of the following year, a t the fifteenth annual meeting in Cleveland, Jackson introduced a resolution calling for the creation o f a Joint Committee on Engineering Education.* The committee, Jackson argued, would facilitate cooper­ ation between educators and “practicing engineers'* and, through them, w ith the industries as well. D uring the next four years the comm ittee gathered m aterial for a comprehensive study of American engineering education. Because o f the many responsibilities of these prom inent engineers, however, meetings were infrequent and progress on the work was slow. In 1911 the SPEE and the three technical societies acknowl­ edged th at the task was too great and their resources too lim ited, so they turned to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teach­ ing—and to its director, H enry Pritchett—for assistance. Pritchett agreed to provide the necessary funds for the project and appointed a Carnegie-sponsored “im partial observer" to direct the actual work: C harles R. M ann of the University o f Chicago. Thereafter, according to one historian of the SPEE, “the joint com m ittee,. . . established by a resolution in 1 9 0 7 ,... [became] no doubt the most im portant SPEE com m ittee in term s o f achievem ent."74 P ritchett chose M ann to head this first m ajor study of engineering education not simply because M ann was a prom inent physicist. M ann, w ho had studied in Berlin, was fam iliar with the Germ an form o f technical education which Pritchett so adm ired, and he was already involved in the prom otion o f “education for life" in the U nited States. Besides being president o f the prestigious Am erican Physical Society, M ann was chairm an o f the Central Association o f Science and M athe­ *A t the suggestion of the president of the AIEE, Charles F. Scott of Westinghouse, a joint meeting of the SPEE and the AIEE was held in 1903. The major address was delivered by Loyall Osborne, chief engineer of Westinghouse, and was entitled “The Proper Qualifications of Electrical Engineering School Graduates from the M anufactur­ ers’ Standpoint.” During the next few years similar papers were presented by Scott himself, Dooley (his associate at Pittsburgh), the young A. A. Potter, and Magnus Alexander of GE. ♦As originally established, the Joint Committee was composed of four men: Frederick W. Taylor, the father of scientific management, representing the ASME; John Hays Ham­ mond, general manager of the Guggenheim mining interests, representing the AIME; Charles F. Scott, representing the AIEE; and Dugald Jackson, representing the SPEE.

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m atics Teachers, and of the N orth Central Association o f Colleges and Secondary Schools, and was the leader o f a national movement am ong physics teachers to correlate the teaching o f science with the realities o f industry. “There is nothing inherently incom patible between indus­ trial education and the discipline o f pure science,“ M ann wrote. “In fa c t. . . they are identical.“ M ann was enthusiastic about the influential Douglass Commission Report on Industrial Education and the various cooperative experiments undertaken in the high schools o f Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Fitchburg, M assachusetts; in his own w ork he prom oted educational m ethods which were “significant both to the pupils and to the communities th at support the school, m ethods render­ ing the industrial study o f science, or the scientific study o f industry. . . an effective weapon of genuine educational discipline.“ M ann practiced w hat he preached: he began his study o f engineering education with a study of the needs of corporate industry.7* “A few m onths ago I knew nothing about engineers or their educa­ tion,” M ann confessed to the members o f the NACS, “so I tried first to find out what it was that the professional engineers wanted o f the engineering schools.” M ann found, however, th at he “succeeded in getting more specific inform ation from the records th at are kept at the General Electric Company, and W estinghouse” than he could obtain from “interviews and talks with engineers.” Thus, during his visits to Pittsburgh, Schenectady, Lynn, and the New York offices of AT&T he readily adopted the industrial approach to the problems of engineering education and form ulated the means for solving them. The principal point derived from these records—a point that was quite a shock to me as a schoolman—was that the efficiency o f the students who went to those firms from the engineering schools was measured and estimated in term s of initiative, tact, honesty, accuracy, industry, personality, and other qualities of this kind. No schoolman ever thought of rating the students in this way. The question was raised how you are going to make the professional, industrial point of view clear to the schoolman. And, there is only one way to do it, and that is for the industrial professional class to define clearly what it means. This can best be done by means of tests which must be successfully passed by applicants for positions. The answer to your question . . . “How are the industrial men going to help the schools to understand what industry wants and needs?” is the same as the answer to your question “W hat sort of tests are we going to use for vocational guidance?” If you will devise and put into practice as a condition of admission to each occupation tests which really test the ability of the applicant for that occupation, the school will rapidly

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modify its instruction so that the pupils will be able to meet those tests, and you will make progress in vocational guidance. The one point that I want to bring out clearly to you is that definite objective tests which define the type of ability which you wish to have developed are most valuable, not only to yourselves as employers in selecting your help, but also as your most powerful means of control­ ling what is done in the school.™

As head o f the SPEE Joint Com m ittee investigation, M ann outlined its purpose in sim ilar term s: “To give the schools a m ore definite conception of their purposes and ideals, and an increased appreciation o f the im portance o f a continuous scientific study of their own educa­ tional methods, and a m ore positive and objective m ethod for m easur­ ing their own results.“ Here, m ore comprehensively and deliberately than ever before, the ideals o f the corporation schools became those o f the colleges. In his Study o f Engineering Education, the report of the investigation, M ann traced the history o f technical education, stated the demands o f industry, outlined the existing m ethods o f educating engineers, and proposed the means by which they m ight be “im­ proved.” He recommended psychological testing, admission testing, rigorous standards o f student evaluation, business and adm inistrative instruction for management responsibility, job classifications, person­ nel systems, cooperative education program s, and a centralized agency for college accreditation. A lthough the im pact of the report was some­ w hat overshadowed by the war, the response to it was favorable. ‘T h e R eport represents to a considerable extent a composite idea o f the present standing o f engineering education together with an outline o f the probable future development,” SPEE secretary Frederick Bishop observed. It indicated “the m ost probable form of development which engineering schools would have to pursue to meet the requirem ents o f the industries,” and this, in Bishop’s estim ate, was the “fundam ental conclusion” o f the report.77 Im mediately after the w ar the SPEE set up a committee to evaluate M ann's report. This comm ittee recommended th at the schools, above all, should adopt “objective tests” to “m easure their results.” They prom oted “the establishm ent and adoption o f standards o r tests to determ ine the m ental growth o f the students and to evaluate these in term s recognizable both by educators and employers” and further urged the adoption o f management training in the schools. In addition, they strongly proposed th at “the Society should cooperate with the engineering societies to establish job classifications so th at engineering students would have a clear understanding of the work for which they

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were preparing and the instructors would have before them a constant rem inder of the main purpose o f their teaching work.** In short, the fundam ental recommendations o f M ann’s report, which constituted nothing less than the program o f educational reform o f the electrical industry, were fully and enthusiastically adopted by the engineering educators. ’’Beginning with the M ann Investigation and Report,*’ H arry P. Hammond, assistant director o f the W ickenden study, later observed, “the engineering schools o f the country have been engaged actively in a continual process o f self-scrutiny and study under the leadership o f this Society----- In no other division of higher education has m ore effort been expended to bring scholastic work into line w ith the changing needs o f . . . industry.** The M ann report, published in 1918, appeared at the close o f the society’s greatest period of member­ ship growth. W hereas in 1907 there were 375 members, by 1917 there were nearly 1500. An editorial in the SPEE B ulletin for 1912 explained the reason for the m arked jum p after 1907, the year of Dugald Jack­ son’s presidency. “Although the num ber o f teachers in SPEE member­ ship is not increasing greatly . . . there is a great increase o f non-teaching engineers and businessmen.”7* As it did in the other spheres of industrial consolidation—standardi­ zation, patent reform, the organization o f research—the war provided the corporate educational reform ers in the industries and the colleges with what Frederick Bishop called a “unique opportunity,”79 the chance to extend rapidly the range o f their activities. In the m onths o f 1917 and 1918 the men who dom inated the NACS and the SPEE were able to secure control over the entire higher-education structure o f the country, to coordinate it as never before, and to infuse it with the imperatives of corporate industry. In a recent assessment o f Am erican higher education, historian W illiam Appleman W illiams has suggested th at the “corporate elite” have seen to it that experts are a glut on the market. Their strategy has been awesome: they have created, in the disguise of what most citizens consider a college education, a vast system of unimaginative vocational training paid for by the very parents who consider it an escalator to power for their children and the key to the general welfare. It has been a covert coup d’état of almost classic proportions.90

The wartime activities of the corporate engineers possibly contributed m ore to this “coup” than anything done before or since. It is a period th at m erits close attention.

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Perhaps no one better expressed the perception o f the w ar as a “unique opportunity” than Charles M ann. W riting about the probable effects o f the war on engineering education, he observed that Progress has always been hampered by the vested rights of individuals and of corporations so that none has yet dared to envision an entire community as a single working plant for the purpose of organizing it for the most intelligent production o f human wealth. This can now be done. The war is opening many hitherto blind eyes to see that each gains more than he loses when he merges his strength with the m ight of all in an organization that is constructed for the purpose of releasing creative energy by giving each the work he is best qualified to do. The time has come for such an organization in every community and every state, because the Federal Government is struggling to shape the nation into an organization of this type. The responsibility for this work must finally be shouldered by engineers who are both masters of the mechanic arts and moulders of m en .'1

T he engineers were among the first to recognize their responsibility. T he earliest attem pts to bring the colleges into this “single working plant” were made by the corporate engineers on the Naval Consulting Board, the Council of N ational Defense, and the N ational Research Council. By late 1916 they had begun to establish the means for locat­ ing and coordinating the scientific resources o f the country, and had devised a personnel index o f available scientific manpower. In February o f 1917 a further step in the same direction was taken by Dean W illiam M cClellan o f the W harton School o f the University of Pennsylvania; in cooperation with CN D D irector W alter S. Gifford (later AT&T president), Surgeon General W illiam Gorgas, and the Secretaries o f W ar and Navy, McClellan organized the Intercollegiate Intelligence Bureau “to facilitate the ready placem ent of college men (particularly graduates) in the government service.” Two m onths later, in A pril 1917, the N RC responded to m ilitary requests by setting up a Psy­ chology Committee under Robert M. Yerkes. Composed of men such as Lewis Term an, E. L. Thorndike, D. E. Seashore, L. L. Thurstone, G . Stanley Hall, John B. W atson, and W alter Dill Scott, the N RC com m ittee represented the vanguard in the fields o f behavioral and applied psychology and was charged with the development of psycho­ logical tests for the selection and placem ent of recruits.*3 A nother development along sim ilar lines was the creation of the Com m ittee on the Classification o f Personnel in the Arm y (CCP). D uring the summer o f 1917 W alter D ill Scott and his associates from

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the Carnegie Institute o f Technology's Bureau o f Salesmanship Re* search had joined M ajor Grenville Clark o f the A djutant G eneral’s staff at the Army training camps at F ort M yer and Plattsburgh to try to adapt their personnel “rating systems” for use by the Army. These systems, developed by Scott and Thorndike, had been used with some success to classify personnel in such corporations as the U nited States Rubber Company, the W inchester Repeating Arm s Company, the Met* ropolitan Life Insurance Company, and Cheney Brothers Silk Mills; these experiments had been supervised by the Bureau o f Salesmanship Research, in cooperation w ith the NACS.88 On the basis of the Plattsburgh and F o rt M yer experience, Scott was able to convince Secretary o f W ar Newton D. Baker that his system could be used to rate men “according to their industrial abilities” and identify those with officer potential; thus, at the end o f the sum m er Baker created the CCP to carry on the work. Composed prim arily o f businessmen, psychologists, industrial employment managers, and “others who had specialized on the subject o f personnel in industry,” the CCP well represented the NACS in the Army. Nominally divided into two groups—the CCP proper, under the A djutant G eneral’s staff, and the Psychology Division of the M edical D epartm ent, under the Surgeon General—the CCP membership included, in addition to psy­ chologists Scott, Term an, W atson, Yerkes, and W alter Bingham, “ci­ vilian supervisors” of the personnel work in the various Arm y camps. Among these were the educational and personnel directors o f W estern Electric, W estinghouse, G E, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., Southern Bell, Pennsylvania Railroad, International Harvester, W inchester Repeating Arm s Company, and Dennison M anufacturing Company—in short, the leaders of the NACS. The CCP developed a comprehensive and detailed description o f the training needs o f the m ilitary, specifications for eighty-four trades (a new art at this tim e), the means for rating personnel qualifications based upon testing (in cooperation with the N RC Psychology Committee), and the apparatus for m atching the right man with a given position. “U nder w ar conditions,” the historian of the CCP wrote in 1919, “men were received by the hundred thou­ sand . . . ; the new system had to be like a great factory where each process is separated and volume production is assured through rigid functionalization and organization. Men had to be sorted, recorded, and assigned as goods in some great warehouse and received, checked, sorted, and shipped on order.” A fter the w ar the CCP was entrusted with a large share o f responsibility in demobilization and devised th e plans “for the reinfiltration o f the soldiers into industry.”84

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A lthough the Psychology Com mittee and the CCP constructed the testing procedures and personnel systems which formed the heart o f the educational work of the war, the m ajor center of educational activity was the Council o f N ational Defense, and particularly Hollis G odfrey's Advisory Committee on Engineering and Education. Godfrey, it will be recalled, was an electrical engineer, trained at Tufts and M IT, a disciple and associate o f Frederick W. Taylor, and president of Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. His concerns included the enhancem ent o f the prestige and role of engineers, the extension o f management into educa­ tion, and the development o f Drexel Institute into a "dem onstration plant" for educational reform (analogous to the "dem onstration plants" used by the Taylorites to display the achievements o f scientific m anagem ent). In addition, as a somewhat erratic egomaniac, Godfrey was preoccupied with the furtherance o f his own career as a distin­ guished "m an o f affairs."* A s president of Drexel and chairm an o f the SPEE comm ittee on institutional membership, Godfrey was in intim ate contact with the engineering educators o f the country and understood the problem s they faced because o f the war. Above all, Godfrey wanted to prevent a recurrence o f the British and Canadian disaster o f having the pool o f highly skilled technical m anpower seriously depleted through the draft and enlistm ent. He lobbied to keep all technical students in school where they could continue their training and thus enhance their ulti­ m ate usefulness for the w ar effort; to provide m ilitary instruction for students in the colleges; and to coordinate the activities o f the colleges w ith those of the m ilitary and industry to "reach the point o f highest efficiency" in guaranteeing a steady supply o f trained men. Early in M ay 1917, therefore, Godfrey called together leading educators "to form ulate a comprehensive policy for cooperation between the higher institutions and the governm ent which will m ake the m ost effective use o f these institutions.” In taking this step, Godfrey started what Parke K olbe o f the University o f A kron called "a movement which has been o f inestimable value to higher education." Seen in a different light, it constituted the first stage o f the wartim e coup d ’état in Am erican education.8* •Capen, Mann, and Bishop were not alone in considering Godfrey a bit “queer” and “superficial”; they admired him, however, for his ability to manipulate men. Capen wrote that “the man who accomplishes good is the man who starts something, no m atter what his motive and no m atter how crude his methods. That’s why the Billy’s [Godfrey] get on in this world.” See Capen’s letters to Mrs. Capen, September 2,1917, and September 11,1917; and to John A. Cousens (president of Tufts), July 23,1920, in the Capen Papers in the Archives of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

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The gathering in Continental H all in W ashington, D .C., included representatives of 187 educational institutions. Secretary of W ar Baker and United States Commissioner of Education P. P. Claxton both emphasized the im portant role that the educational institutions had to play during the war, particularly as the source o f technically trained men. In response, the assembled educators resolved that they should modify their curricula to fulfill the need for technical and vocational training, coordinate their efforts so as to provide the “efficient use o f institutional plant, force, and equipm ent,” urge students below draft age—especially those in engineering and other technical fields—to stay in school to complete their training, and provide m ilitary training for all able-bodied college men. In addition, they proposed th at an agency be established to serve as a link between the U nited States Bureau o f Education, the CND , and the States Relations Service o f the D epart­ ment of A griculture, and that it alone should serve as “the medium o f comm unication between the Federal Governm ent and higher educa­ tion.” The Education Section of Godfrey’s CN D Advisory Committee was thus established “to advise all colleges and universities” and receive “all comm unications upon all questions relating to the present war emer­ gency.” The committee was headed by Godfrey and Henry Cram pton of the CN D and composed o f educators such as Henry Suzzalo of the University o f W ashington, C. S. Howe o f Case Institute, Frank McVey of the University o f Kentucky, W inthrop Stone o f Purdue, Frederick Ferry of W illiams College, and A. Lawrence Lowell of H arvard. To direct the activity of the committee, Godfrey called upon his good friend and form er Tufts classmate Samuel P. Capen. In this new capac­ ity Capen became a key figure in the transform ation o f higher education in America.®6 The first specialist in Higher Education o f the U nited States Bureau of Education, Capen was already a knowledgeable spokesman in the field. His views, moreover, did not differ substantially from those o f the engineers, and for good reason: he was—in the eyes o f the engineers, at least—one of them.® The son o f the president o f Tufts, Capen had followed in his father’s footsteps, preparing at Tufts, H arvard, Leipzig, •This is as good a place as any to point out the class prejudices of men like Capen. They clearly viewed themselves as members of a superior breed and held their “lessers” in contempt, an important point to keep in mind when assessing the significance of their educational-reform efforts. Capen’s class-consciousness is well illustrated by an anecdote he related to his wife in the summer of 1907. Standing on the upper deck of an ocean liner, Capen had knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the railing, only to have them land

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and the University o f Pennsylvania for a career as professor of modem languages. His experience in his first teaching job, however—at Clark University in W orcester—gave his career a new direction. Clark had been created as a graduate school, but in 1902 financial problems had prom pted the establishm ent o f an undergraduate college as well. Capen arrived at the start of this undertaking, accompanied by a new president o f C lark, C arroll D. W right, and was thus able to play a m ajor adm inis­ trative role in the development of the new college. Capen was strongly influenced in his view of education by President W right, the first U.S. Commissioner of Labor and a leading advocate o f industrial education. In 1908 the young professor m arried the president’s daughter. A fter taking courses in education at the graduate school of Clark, Capen taught courses in educational adm inistration and became a leader o f educational reform in W orcester. As president of W orcester’s Public Education Association, he prom oted efficient public-school ad­ m inistration and the destruction of the “political” ward system, and in this capacity made contact with the chairm an of the M assachusetts Commission on Education, Frederick P. Fish, form er president o f AT&T. One of Capen’s m ajor projects was the development of methods for supervising college teaching, which, up to that tim e had been either nonexistent or, in his words, “of an irregular and desultory nature.”88 In this work he cooperated with two other educational reformers, Samuel Earle of the Tufts Engineering D epartm ent and H. H. N orris, head of electrical engineering at Cornell’s Sibley College (and Bishop's predecessor as national secretary of the SPEE). In 1912, at the invita­ tion o f N orris and another form er Tufts classmate, G. C. Anthony (then vice-president of the SPEE), Capen attended his first SPEE m eet­ ing in Boston. It was a joint conference with the A IE E and, in addition to addresses by leading electrical-industry spokesmen such as Stein­ m etz, included visits to the Edison Electric Illum inating Company, the Boston Elevated Railway Company, G E at Lynn, and the electrical­ engineering departm ent o f M IT.89 In 1914, as a result of his educational work in W orcester and Clark —and the contacts he had made through his father-in-law—Capen was appointed Specialist in Higher Education by Bureau o f Education Commissioner Claxton. In this capacity he was responsible for producon the head of a man in steerage. Enraged, the latter responded with a few well-chosen words in his “foreign tongue.” “I can’t reproduce the tone of his voice or the indignation o f his gesture,” Capen wrote his wife, “but I got considerable amusement out of the thought of having figured for a moment in a little symbolical picture of class distinction." See Capen to Mrs. Capen, June 1, 1907, Capen Papers.

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ing reports on all movements and conditions in Am erican college edu­ cation, preparing university and college statistics, and making special investigations of particular higher-education problems. Between 1915 and 1919 he personally conducted extensive surveys of the educational facilities o f a dozen states and in the process came into contact with the country’s leading educators. Among those whom he m ost adm ired were Henry Suzzalo, Parke Kolbe, and Herm an Schneider, all of whom became his close friends; in this capacity also he learned o f the person­ nel work o f A. A. Potter, “a man out in Kansas.” A nother o f the country’s top educators with whom Capen worked, on problems o f admissions standards and the classification o f colleges and universities, was Henry Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation. Such working rela­ tions with Pritchett were no doubt at least in part the reality behind the charge of one critic, a college educator in N orth D akota, that the “Bureau of Education is working in cahoots with the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations in a deliberate attem pt to control state universi­ ties and dictate their policies.”90 The college surveys which Capen conducted required the develop­ m ent of techniques o f inquiry which would reveal the “vital facts concerning the policies, adm inistration, finances, and educational effec­ tiveness o f the colleges.” Com plaining to his wife th at Commissioner Claxton was not interested “in the adm inistrative side o f educational work, the things th at can be weighed and m easured,” Capen resolved to correct this situation; “I am anxious,” he told her, “th at whatever is done directly by my division shall be as coldly scientific as I can m ake it.” Capen secured the assistance o f his friend Godfrey for this survey work (Godfrey as a management expert had done sim ilar surveys for the city of Philadelphia) and, because what he was doing “seemed to represent a kind of efficiency engineering,” was invited to become a member of the SPEE and was listed in W ho's Who in Engineering. In 1914, as a new member representing the Bureau o f Education, Capen addressed the council of the SPEE and m et Bishop and M ann. This was a turning point in Capen’s life. M ann in particular overwhelmed him; to Capen, M ann’s study o f engineering education was a “revolutionary report,” and he wrote to his wife of M ann th at “his is a m aster m ind . . . ; I’ve never seen so fine a m ind as his, and he has learned the a rt o f persuasive presentation as few men have.” Capen was thoroughly awed, even intim idated, by the engineers. He described the conference as “brilliant, the best educational meetings I have ever attended,” and confessed that “I don’t grade up to them . I know it and I fear they do.”

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H e excitedly confided to his wife, however, th at he was “proud to be their hum ble associate.“*1 In late May 1917 Capen became the executive secretary o f G odfrey's Educational Section and its link w ith the U nited States Bureau o f Education. The “humble associate“ o f M ann, Bishop, and their col­ leagues joined enthusiastically in their collective efforts “to handle the educational situation in the U nited States.“ “I am getting to know a lot o f engineers as well as educators,“** Capen wrote home. The Educa­ tional Section had the responsibility o f m onitoring the developments in the governm ent and the colleges and keeping each posted on the work o f the other. Its m ost immediate problem , however—as Godfrey and the engineers saw it—was to coordinate the technical schools with the governm ent and to protect them from serious depletion o f personnel through the draft and enlistm ent. To handle these m atters the section created a Committee on H igher Education, headed by Capen, and a subcom mittee On the Relation of the Engineering Schools to the Gov­ ernm ent. The latter was composed o f Capen, M ann, C. S. Howe o f Case Institute, and M ilo Ketchum , president o f the SPEE, and was chaired by F. L. Bishop. The engineering-education subcom mittee was the m ost active o f the agencies under G odfrey's control. W ithin weeks, after meetings with representatives o f the NACS and NRC, the com m ittee succeeded in securing statem ents from P. P. Claxton, Newton Baker, and President W ilson urging students to stay in school, especially those in engineering and other technical fields. Through the m ediation of Dean Frederick Keppel o f Columbia (secretary to Newton Baker and later T hird Assis­ tan t Secretary o f W ar) they were able to have established the Student Officers Reserve Corps, which allowed students in engineering, medi­ cine, and agriculture to continue their studies as officer training. In addition, they proposed to Secretary Baker th at engineering educators be commissioned in the Arm y and “assigned the task o f coordinating the needs o f the Arm y for technically trained men with existing educa­ tional facilities.“*9 The W ar D epartm ent was not prepared to take such a step, however. A s Baker saw it, the m ost pressing m atter facing the Arm y was the dem and for lower grades o f technical skill—electricians, carpenters, mechanics, radio technicians—rather than engineers. Already men were being trained for the Signal Reserve Corps under the direction o f the CN D Committee on Telegraphs and Telephones (representatives o f AT&T, W estern Union, and the Postal Telegraph Cable Company),

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and "plans were being worked out to utilize various educational institu­ tions for this work.”*94 Bishop’s committee on engineering education saw in the m ilitary need for vocational training a "unique opportunity" to coordinate and utilize the colleges. It prom ptly charged th at the Federal Board for Vocational Education, set up to adm inister the new Smith-Hughes A ct,1, was inadequate to the task, and strongly lobbied for the creation o f a special W ar Departm ent committee. Largely through the lobbying efforts of M ann and Keppel, the com m ittee succeeded in creating the W ar D epartm ent Committee on Education and Special Training (CEST) in February 1918; the CEST form ally took charge o f Am erican vocational and higher education during the w ar and essentially ren­ dered the Education Section o f Godfrey’s committee obsolete.** The actual CEST was composed o f three Arm y officers: G renville Clark, Robert I. Rees, and Hugh Johnson. Clark, later a distinguished lawyer, had been the officer in charge o f the personnel-rating work o f Scott and his associates at F ort M yer and Plattsburgh; Rees, an elec­ trical engineer, joined AT&T after the w ar and eventually succeeded W ickenden as vice-president in charge o f personnel; Johnson became head o f the NRA during the New Deal. The active part o f the CEST, however, was the Advisory Committee, composed o f M ann, Capen, Herm an Schneider, Raymond Pearson, president of the Iowa State College o f A griculture and M echanic A rts, and J. W. Dietz, educa­ tional director o f W estern Electric and president o f the NACS. The CEST was divided into four general divisions. The Vocational Division, in charge of all lower-grade trade and technical training, was headed by Channing R. Dooley, educational director of W estinghouse; the W ar Issues Division, responsible for “correctly interpreting the *In October 1917, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Drexel Institute, Godfrey demonstrated how this might be done. Using Drexel as his “demonstration plant,” Godfrey addressed the celebrants on the theme “The Service of the College to the State’*: “We have heard so much concerning the mobilization of industry. This I have translated to mean the mobilization of civil powers in which education will be the great p a r t . . . Education and industry will finally come together. We now are of one idea and purpose, and that is to serve.” Ignoring for the moment the opposition of what Capen called “an organized faculty cabal," Godfrey pointed out admiringly how the curriculum had been expanded along vocational and military lines. Other speakers for the occasion —Capen, Bishop, Suzzalo, and Vanderlip—agreed that the new feature was an im portant step in educational reform, that it would serve to meet not only the needs of war but those of industry after the war as well. Edward D. MacDonald and Edward M. Hinton, D rexel Institute o f Technology, 1891-1941 (Philadelphia: Drexel Institute, 1942), pp. 59-65. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July IS, 1918, Capen Papers. tSee page 310 below.

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issues o f the war,” was conceived and directed by Frank Aydelotte o f M IT.* The Division of Educational Standards and Tests was divided into two committees, both o f which cooperated extensively with the CCP and the Psychology Division o f the M edical D epartm ent and the N RC; the comm ittee on classification o f personnel was headed by A. C. Vinal o f AT&T, and the com m ittee on coordination and needs was chaired by Dietz, Schneider, and Rees. Finally, the Division of College Training was led by Richard M aclaurin, president of M IT. In addition, there was a publications section, headed by W. H. Timbie, director o f the Cooperative Course in Electrical Engineering at M IT, and districtlevel organizations around the country. A. A. Potter, was district direc­ to r o f the educational institutions in fifteen states o f the Midwest; other district directors included H enry Suzzalo and W illiam W ickenden." In his announcement o f the creation o f the CEST, Secretary Baker explained th at it was established “for the purpose of organizing and coordinating all of the educational resources o f the country with rela­ tion to the needs of the A r m y ,. . . to represent the W ar D epartm ent in its relations with the educational institutions of the country and to develop and standardize policies as between the schools and colleges and the W ar D epartm ent.”97 In reality, the educational work of the m ilitary during the war was placed in the hands of the educational directors of AT&T, W estern Electric, and W estinghouse and the lead­ ing advocates of the corporate reform of engineering education. The early work o f the CEST included prom otion o f the war-issues course in the colleges and the sponsorship, by Aydelotte, Capen, and R alph Barton Perry, of national war-issues educational rallies to arouse support for the war effort. The first m ajor project was the vocationaltraining program under the direction of Dooley's division and the Division of Educational Standards and Tests. D uring the sum m er o f 1918 the Vocational Division trained 38,000 draftees in twenty basic trades. The work was based upon the comprehensive job specifications prepared by the CCP and was carried out at 140 N ational Arm y Training Detachm ents, educational institutions selected on the basis o f Capen’s surveys o f educational facilities. The division worked closely with the CCP and the Psychology Divisions o f the M edical D epartm ent and the N RC (in particular with W alter D ill Scott, L. L. Thurstone, and Lewis Term an) in the use o f intelligence and aptitude tests and • “Professor Aydelotte of M IT is the father and director of the war aims course.” Samuel P. Capen, letter to George Zook, M arch 16, 1920, American Council on Education Archives.

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Scott's rating system. U nder Vinal’s direction, they developed the m ost refined system yet available "for the distribution of trained m aterial [men] according to qualifications so as to meet the requirem ents o f different branches o f service" and introduced psychological testing procedures and personnel-classification techniques into the colleges. In addition they devised and published, under Timbie’s supervision, un­ precedented short courses for intensive training in technical, voca­ tional, and m ilitary subjects.98 The Committee on Coordination and Needs served as a clearing­ house in all o f this work, obtaining and furnishing inform ation on "arm y needs in term s o f jobs, num ber and tim e," "the supply available in the educational institutions in term s of colleges, courses, ages, and classes," and "the success or failure of men supplied." Besides perform ­ ing a great industrial service by introducing the m ost advanced person­ nel m ethods into the colleges, the CEST thus also provided the industries with a valuable pool of inform ation from which to draw a t the war’s end. In January 1919, for example, Dooley furnished th e N ational Radio Institute with CEST data on the men who had taken training courses as radio operators or radio electricians. The m ost im portant contribution o f the Vocational Division of the CEST to the industries, however, was the large-scale experim entation which it pro­ vided for the development o f new and better m ethods o f personnel management. Indeed, the bugles had hardly ceased to sound when Dooley, acting under the auspices of the U nited States Bureau of Edu­ cation, called a conference "to consider the perm anent effect on indus­ trial education of the plans and m ethods which were developed under the stress of the war em ergency,. . . to form ulate plans for utilizing the best of the experience thus gained."*88 Despite the impressive accomplishments of the other divisions o f the CEST, none was m ore significant for the future of Am erican higher •In 1940 Dietz and Dooley again put their experience to use for the military. Together with Michael Kane of GE and William Conover of United States Steel they set up and ran the emergency training program during W orld W ar II. They trained some two million supervisory personnel in job instruction methods and developed the formalized scheme known as Training W ithin Industry (TW I). After the war they created the TW I Foundation, headed by Dooley, which was responsible for the widespread adoption o f TW I techniques, as a means of increasing productivity, throughout industry in the U.S. and western Europe. Einar Wilhelm Sissener, “The Training W ithin Industry Movement and its Spread to Western European Countries,” MS thesis, 1954, School of Industrial Management, M IT, M IT Archives. See also Fred Ticlcner, Training in M odem Society (Albany: Public Affairs Monograph Series, State University of New York at Albany, 1966), p. 112.

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education than the work o f the College Division. Essentially, the work focused upon the problem o f supplying officers for the w ar effort through the training and recruitm ent o f college students. In the summ o 1o f 1918 Dooley devised a plan which became known as the Student Arm y Training Corps (SATC).* Designed to prevent an unnecessary depletion o f the colleges, through either indiscrim inate volunteering o r the draft, it offered students a “definite and immediate m ilitary status“ while still in school, and otherwise aimed at developing into a “great m ilitary asset the large body o f men in the colleges.“ Since the draft age was twenty-one, students between eighteen and twenty-one would be “encouraged to enlist“ in the SATC program in their school; they would thus gain m ilitary status and, at the same tim e, come under m ilitary authority—the authority o f the CEST. Throughout the summer o f 1918 M ann lobbied for the plan, talking repeatedly with Baker and m ore than once with President W ilson. W hen M aclaurin was appointed head o f the College Section after some delay, Capen wrote to his wife th at “the die is cast.“ He reported that M aclaurin, upon hearing o f the SATC plan, exclaimed, “W hy, this is a D epartm ent o f Education you are building and m ore . . . ; it leads anywhere. It has the biggest kind o f significance.“ Capen agreed. He and M ann went to the Navy “to try to get it to play with us too,“ and secured the support o f the N RC as well. “T he scientists see w hat we are up to in the W ar D epartm ent CEST w ithout diagram s,“ Capen wrote. “Their enthusiastic approval and desire to play our game are doubly consoling.” John M erriam o f the N RC confided to Capen th at “this is the most portentous thing for universities that has ever hap­ pened.“ W hile M ann, M aclaurin, and Godfrey—who, according to Capen, stood “ace-high with W oodrow”—lobbied for the SATC plan, Capen set about “to devise and launch a campaign to push our plan with the country.” To do this he had to convince the college educators them selves.101 On their own, the educators were already organizing for the war, prom pted largely by the May conferences held by Godfrey in W ashing­ ton. In January 1918 Henry P ratt Judson, president o f the University o f Chicago and the person who originally pushed M ann into the phy­ sics-teachers movement, called a meeting o f the executive committee o f the nation’s principal college associations. The assembled educators • “Mr. C. R. Dooley, educational director of the Standard Oil Company of New York, was really the father and director of the educational work of the SATC.” Capen, letter to George Zook, March 16, 1920, American Council on Education Archives.

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asked W oodrow W ilson “to take steps looking tow ard the immediate comprehensive mobilization o f the educational forces o f the nation for w ar purposes under centralized adm inistration, which would coordi­ nate effort and stim ulate defensive activities,“ and later th at m onth m et in W ashington with Capen, Claxton, and Godfrey to coordinate their efforts with the CND , the U nited States Bureau of Education, and the W ar Departm ent. Capen took the lead quickly, as chairm an o f an organizing committee which also included Bishop, M ann, and Rees, and recommended the creation o f an Emergency Council on Education to centralize college activities. “The object o f the Council,“ Capen's comm ittee proposed, would be “to place the resources o f the educational institutions o f our country more completely at the disposal of the national government and its departm ents to the end that through an understanding cooperation: The patriotic services o f the public schools, professional schools, the colleges and universities may be augmented; a continuous supply o f educated men may be maintained; and greater effectiveness in meeting the educational problems arising during and following the war may be secured.“

In Capen's view, the ECE would provide the means through which he and the CEST could “push our plan [the SATC] with the country.“ 101 A recent history of the role o f the colleges in W orld W ar I suggests th at the country's educators readily allowed and even prom oted the m ilitarization of the campus. Carol G ruber has w ritten th at the absence of a principled objection to the m ilitarization o f the cam­ pus, particularly on the part of the professors, is startling. One looks in vain for organized appraisals by American academics of the implica­ tions of turning the colleges and universities into m ilitary training camps; one is struck instead by the alacrity with which they embraced the concept of an “essential industry" to describe the role of the univer­ sity in war time. It is true that academics typically denounced the SATC as a failure; b u t . . . they complained about the malfunctioning of the program and not about its purpose.103

Capen's experience with the ECE, as reflected in his letters to his wife, bears out this evaluation, and adds another dimension: the educators were clearly awed and intim idated by the engineers who conceived the SATC, much as Capen had initially been awed and intim idated by M ann. If they had “principled objections," they kept them to them ­ selves for fear of appearing unpatriotic or out o f the suspicion th at they

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did not “grade up" to the forceful engineers in either m ental or practi­ cal ability. W ith the authority o f the Arm y behind them , the CEST leaders certainly displayed impressive power, much more than the academics could counter. Capen thus described the ECE as “the most docile organization we have yet encountered. It does ju st as it is told, no m atter how disappointed it may be,” and a short time later he boasted th at “M ann and I succeeded in convincing the Council bunch to play our game, to campaign for college students not for the sake o f the colleges but as a m ilitary measure initiated by the Arm y-----They saw the point and agreed to eat out o f our hand again.” 104 One would never guess th at Capen was referring to the representatives of the twelve largest educational organizations in the country.* The last stumbling block to the creation o f the SATC was the United States Bureau of Education, and in particular its director. Commis­ sioner Claxton, wrote Capen, “could not perceive its [the SATC's] significance.. . . He’s still living in 1917—m uch water has passed under the bridge.” Capen plainly'saw him self in the m idst of an educational revolution and in his trem endous excitement, his criticism of his slowmoving superior at the Bureau turned to outrage. “He’s an irresponsi­ ble freak,” Capen exclaimed; “he makes things unbearable; he’s still about a year behind the rest o f us. He is still talking in term s o f surveys and keeping the schools going on exactly the old basis. He still thinks th at Congress may provide specialists, and m ore specialists, to study interesting phases o f American education—when Am erican education is changing daily under his feet.” Unable to educate Claxton as to the significance of the SATC, Capen decided to ju st leave him out o f it entirely. “The chief consolation,” he wrote his wife, “is that he can do no harm and the machine goes forward in spite of him .” 104 Once the SATC had been approved, Capen reported happily th at “the Institutions are all falling in line and the m ajority of them are hailing us as the saviours both o f education and o f the trained personnel o f the country.” “W ith all due modesty,” he confided to his wife, “I think their hail is correct.” 106 W ith the creation o f the SATC in the •American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of Uni* versity Professors, Association of American Colleges, Association of American Universi­ ties, Association of Urban Universities, Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, American Association of Land-Grant Colleges and State Uni­ versities, Association of American Medical Colleges, Catholic Educational Association, National Association of State Universities, National Council of Normal School Presi­ dents and Principals, and National Education Association.

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sum m er o f 1918, the Surgeon G eneral, the C hief o f Engineers, the C hief Ordnance Officer, the Chief Signal Officer, and the Q uarterm aster Gen­ eral all turned over to the CEST, in Capen’s words, the destinies of all men o f draft age connected with schools or colleges as students or teachers who are or who might be candidates for the Enlisted Reserve Corps in any of these five departments. In other words we now have full control of the college situation in its relation to the draft. We can say which teachers and which students shall stay and which shall g o . . through the SATC and the Enlisted Reserve Corps we can keep the men in college that ought to stay.107

The SATC was certainly an impressive achievement. By becoming in fact the m ilitary staff charged with overseeing the college situation, the engineering educators and corporate personnel officers had dram ati­ cally realized the original aims o f G odfrey's first committee. W ith their voluntary SATC system in full operation, the members o f the CEST watched with pride and excitem ent as the colleges became m ilitary cantonm ents and the students became soldiers. Capen’s letters to his wife during this period reflect the unreality o f the war which these men fought and the strange lighthearted spirit in which they perceived its horrors. "Bishop took me in hand at once on my arrival in P itts­ burgh," Capen wrote cheerfully, "and showed me the soldier boys and their quarters" at the University of Pittsburgh. "H e is a wonder at a thing of this kind, and still he dream s it bigger and bigger." A m onth later Capen attended a regional SATC conference in San Francisco. "The last two days I've been living at the Presidio in the officers* quarters—great fun," he wrote his wife. They staged a drill, field manoevers [sic], and a review of the Officers Training Corps for us. They were bully, especially the field manoev­ ers-----They had bayonet practice, which I hadn’t seen before—right gruesome—and entrenching and going over the top and all the rest. It is a beautiful place, right on the Golden G ate.10*

In August 1918 the CEST w arriors were shaken out o f their reverie; due to unexpected losses overseas, the draft age was lowered to eigh­ teen. The new situation posed a serious threat to the voluntary SATC. Somehow the CEST had to figure out a way o f saving and training officer m aterial in the colleges w ithout appearing to favor the college student over the noncollege m an of the same age, both of whom were now liable to the draft. The CEST innovators solved their problem w ith a new plan, their boldest yet and one which was designed to place the

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colleges literally in their hands: a compulsory SATC. U nder the origi­ nal SATC then in effect, the colleges rem ained independent o f the W ar D epartm ent; only the actual SATC program , which was voluntary— although students were “strongly encouraged” to join—was under mili­ tary authority. Again through the lobbying efforts of M ann, M aclaurin, and Keppel, the compulsory plan was pushed through to meet the new war emergency. Its stated object was “to utilize effectively the plant, equipm ent, and organization o f the colleges for selecting and training officer-candidates [as] technical experts for service in the existing emer­ gency.” As Kolbe later described it, the new plan “am ounted to the Governm ent taking over the plants as officer training schools, to be carried on by the W ar D epartm ent.” Since the CEST was the W ar D epartm ent agency for educational m atters, it now actually took charge o f all colleges o f liberal arts, technology, business, agriculture, medicine, law, pharm acy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, all graduate schools, and all technical institutes in the United States. Am erican education was placed under the m ilitary authority of the educational and personnel directors of corporate industry and the leaders of the new corporate brand o f engineering education.109 The opportunity thus provided exceeded even the wildest fantasies o f the educational reformers. Kolbe exclaimed delightedly th at the SATC would allow them to break down “in a stroke” the academic barriers th at had retarded their efforts for years, to “discard outworn o r outgrown practices,” reform curricula, and introduce “m odem ” personnel m ethods and testing procedures. W alter D ill Scott, who was charged with the “proper placem ent of the SATC product,” called it the “m ost gigantic thing th at has been imagined in the course of war operations.” Perhaps no one was m ore enthused by the new prospects for reform than Frederick Bishop, the would-be “general” of the Uni­ versity o f Pittsburgh and the national secretary of the SPEE. In the September SPEE B ulletin he proclaim ed the new plan in capital letters:

“ a unique opportunity.” 110 To all intents and purposes the W ar Departm ent through [CEST] takes charge of colleges on October 1, when all physically-fit male students eighteen years of age or over will be members of the [SATC]. This means that the old courses of study are practically abolished and there are substituted short intensive courses which will fit men for specific duties with the Army. The change which this involves provides the engineering teacher with the greatest opportunity ever presented to teachers. Modifications in the curriculum , changes in methods of teaching, introduction of new

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m aterial can now be made at once while in times o f peace it would require years of agitation to accomplish even a small fraction of these changes. The teachers of engineering who have been in contact with the [CEST Vocational Division training centers] . . . have learned many things of value in training men for specific industries. The new course now being established by the W ar Departm ent should be used by the teachers of engineering as a laboratory in which ideas can be worked out [along lines suggested by the M ann Report]. . . to meet the needs of industry for thoroughly trained men in normal times. The [SPEE] is an organization with a unique opportunity to coordi­ nate the best which can be developed and prepare the way for the adoption of these in the great reconstruction period which is to follow the w ar.111

On October 1,1918, the new SATC was form ally inaugurated at five hundred colleges throughout the country, and American higher educa­ tion came officially under m ilitary command. As a display o f the coor­ dination they had thereby achieved, the CEST ordered th at the ceremonies on all campuses be identical and take place sim ultaneously. “It is most fitting,** R. I. Rees directed, “th at this day, which will be remembered in American history, should be observed in a m anner appropriate to its significance.** Thus, at precisely noon Eastern Stan­ dard Time, on every cam pus in the land the national anthem was played, the pledge to the flag was made, a telegram from President W ilson was read, and the General O rders for the Day were issued. “A t this moment,’’ the telegram read, “over 150,000 of your com rades throughout the nation are standing at attention in recognition o f their new duties as soldiers in the U nited States Army.** President Kolbe o f the University of Akron later recalled th at “it was an impressive occa­ sion, and one of deep moment for the higher educational system o f the U nited States.’’11* U nder the new plan the entire operations o f the CEST were reorga­ nized into two sections: Section A absorbed all work pertaining to the colleges and Section B absorbed all o f th at pertaining to vocational training, including the national training centers. W ithin five weeks under the SATC program , 527 colleges were “organized,” 158,000 new “soldiers” were “processed,” and over 15,000 new recruits were se­ lected for officer training. Through the new compulsory program , the CEST was able to extend the use o f psychological tests (notably the famous alpha and beta intelligence tests) and personnel systems in the colleges, and to break down existing barriers to the creation o f the “efficient educational processing mechanism” required by corporate industry.118

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The compulsory SATC provided the corporate reform ers with an unprecedented chance to realize the objectives of their coup. T hat chance, however, was short-lived; the Arm istice of November 11 caught the members of the CEST, like everyone else, by surprise. M ost Am ericans, however, did not share their disappointm ent. The CEST final report expressed “regret th at there was not more tim e to perfect the organization of the Corps and to overcome the obstacles that re­ mained. This, it is believed, could have been entirely accomplished w ithin another sixty days----- It is not felt th at a final and conclusive experim ent in the combination o f m ilitary and academic training in the colleges has been made.“ 114 The w ar had allowed the corporate educa­ tional reform ers to prom ote their own industrial objectives in the guise o f m ilitary expediency; with the w ar over, and their m ilitary authority and “cover“ gone, they were forced to carry on their “experiment“ under different auspices. However, since they had been consciously preparing for it ever since the first days o f the preparedness campaign, they wasted little tim e in making the shift.

Technology as People The Industrial Process of Higher Education—II

The American system o f schools has a sanction in public efficiency as well as in equality of personal opportunity. It is a special system o f getting brains for the public purpose. [University educators] have an immediate responsibility to make the prospect more effective-----Soon we must become as wise in pedagogical method as we have long been in scientific method. The processing of human beings through intellec­ tual experiences is far more im portant socially than the processing o f m aterial things. Yet physical technology holds a place of respectability among us which human technology has not yet won.1 —Henry Suzzalo

The shift from w ar to peace no m ore disrupted the continuity o f corpo­ rate educational-reform activities than had the shift from peace to w ar in 1916-17. If anything, the w ar had simply provided new vehicles for such continuity. Although, as Charles M ann reported, “the results achieved exceeded the fondest hopes o f the comm ittee [CEST],” its members realized that, in effect, their work had ju st begun. In carrying forth the activities begun in the corporation schools and the engineering colleges, the NACS, the SPEE, and, m ost recently, the CEST, the CCP in the Arm y, and the various psychology committees, the reform ers proceeded under the auspices o f four m ajor national agencies: the U nited States Arm y, the perm anent N ational Research Council, the perm anent Emergency Council on Education—renam ed the Am erican Council on Education (ACE)—and the SPEE. The w ar had shown them the great potential for educational-reform work under “the influ­ ence o f m ilitary training and discipline.“ Capen was not alone in notic­ ing the “greater efficiency of a student body subject to a m ilitary 224

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regime*' in term s o f "physical fitness,*' the "developm ent o f courtesy,** and the "spirit o f service and self-sacrifice.** W orking in the postwar period through these new agencies, the reform ers looked for ways "to retain these tangible advantages o f the period o f w ar training . . . the best fruits of the war.’*2 The Defense A ct o f 1916, which had allowed for the creation o f the CEST, also enabled its members to retain their m ilitary status and authority in peacetime. In effect, it authorized the creation of an Arm y educational establishm ent along the lines draw n by the M orrill A ct o f 1861. One o f the first effects o f the act was the creation "in civil educational institutions’’ o f a Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).* D uring the w ar the ROTC units were merged with the Officers Reserve Corps, which had been established at the insistence of Bishop's subcommittee on engineering education to save engineering students under twenty-one from the draft and enlistm ent. Im m ediately after the Arm istice, however, with the demobilization of the SATC the CEST adopted as its main function the revitalization o f the ROTC. Early in December an ROTC Branch was created under the W ar Plans Division o f the Arm y G eneral Staff and placed under the direction o f the CEST. "The adm inistration o f the ROTC has been com m itted to the CEST,” the final report o f the com m ittee reads, "which thus contin­ ues as a living force in our national educational organization.” In A ugust and September 1919 the names changed, but the faces rem ained the same. The CEST was officially dissolved, but a new Education and Recreation Branch of the W ar Plans Division was created. The head o f the branch, which would oversee all educational work of the Arm y, including ROTC, was Colonel R. I. Rees; the Civilian Advisory Board o f the branch was chaired by M ann and included Samuel Capen, now head of the ACE, James Angell of Yale and the NRC, and Frederick P. Keppel, now D irector o f Foreign Relations o f the Am erican Red Cross and soon to become the new president of the Carnegie Corpora­ tion. The new EAR Branch would direct the m ilitary’s educational activities throughout the 1920’s.® The enrollm ent in ROTC grew from 35,000 in 1916 to 120,000 in 1925, despite cutbacks in appropriations, and the program served to •It is interesting to note that ROTC actually got its start at M IT. It was there that a professor of military science, M ajor Edwin T. Cole, initiated the plan in 1911. He thereafter urged President M aclaurin to bring it to the attention of the W ar Departm ent and, after several discussions with the General Staff, saw his innovation adopted on a nationwide scale. See Samuel C. Prescott, When M IT Was “Boston Tech” (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1954), p. 295.

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m aintain a m ilitary presence on college campuses and thereby extend the benefits o f “m ilitary discipline** beyond the active Army. Equally im portant from an industrial standpoint, the ROTC units on the cam ­ puses provided technical education for potential officers at governm ent expense, in addition to purely m ilitary instruction. But the ROTC itself actually played a relatively m inor role in the activities of the corporate educational reformers within the m ilitary. The EAR Branch was in effect the vanguard of the new “citizen army** called for in the am ended Defense A ct o f 1920 and through its educational activities and indus­ trial associations, as well as its ROTC program , it pushed for the extension o f m ilitary discipline, and the “m oral vigor*’ it generated, into all areas of national life. The notion o f a “citizen army** greatly ex­ panded the scope of m ilitary activities which were now aimed at the preparation o f the entire citizenry for possible m ilitary service: the new m ilitary creed, which identified training for industry with m ilitary training, coincided nicely with the corporate need for an “industrial army** of properly adjusted and assembled “economic units.** The end o f the war did not signal the end o f “universal m ilitary training**; it m eant only th at such training would now be carried on outside o f the m ilitary proper—out o f uniform , as it were—in the country’s various educational institutions. The EAR Branch was di­ vided along the lines o f its predecessor, the CEST, with units for vocational and technical training, general education, and testing. U n­ der the heading o f general education, the branch sought to prom ote physical fitness as well as “attitudes and dispositions tow ard loyalty and comprehension of Am erican customs and ideals.** Branch directors asked organizations like the N ational A m ateur A thletic Federation, Boy Scouts, YMCA, and Camp Fire G irls to “undertake the job o f defining the physical standards th at young people should be able to measure up to at various stages,** and worked with the Federal Council o f Citizenship Training* to prom ote the proper “education for citizen­ ship.’’4 The prim ary activity o f the E&R Branch, however, centered on the comm ittee on vocational and technical training; headed by Charles R . M ann, this unit had been set up expressly to carry on the personnel work begun by the CCP, the CEST, and the various psychology depart•Composed of the U.S. Bureau of Education, Federal Board for Vocational Education, Veterans’ Bureau, Naturalization Bureau of the Departm ent of Labor, and various agencies dealing with the problem of “Americanization.”

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m ents during the war. “How to select, how to train, and how to assign men to the right jobs—these,” wrote M ann, “are the basic problems of effective use o f manpower, both in the m ilitary establishm ents and in civil life.” The m ost pressing task of the E&R Branch was “to adapt practices th at had proved effective for m ilitary mobilization to better organization of manpower for creative work,” to consolidate “the gains made during the w ar by developing unified, reliable, and speedy m eth­ ods of selection, assignment and training.” A t public expense, there­ fore, the E&R Branch sponsored research on the various aspects o f the industrial personnel problem: job descriptions and specifications; tech­ niques for the evaluation of hum an capabilities; and systems for rating, sorting, and classifying hum an m aterial according to the occupational specifications. By the early 1920s, the branch had drawn up detailed specifications—so-called “job sheets” based upon analysis of “unit op­ erations”—for 117 skilled occupations, thereby extending the “occupa­ tional index” prepared by the CCP during the war. It published twenty-three vocational m anuals for short-course instruction patterned after the work of William Timbie during the war; it conducted, during the sum m er of 1920, intensive training in vocational guidance for offi­ cers and civilians in industry and education, in cooperation with the NACT, NRC, and ACE; and it tried “experiments” in testing “to perfect the m ethods used during the w ar and to coordinate progress in this field within and w ithout the Arm y.” 6 The “experimental center” in which the E&R Branch carried on its early testing work was Camp G rant in Illinois, the so-called E&R Special School. W ith the passage of the amendment to the Defense A ct, in June 1920, this one school was replaced by four perm anent Special Service Schools (at Forts H unt, Hum phries, Holabird, and Vail) and the W ar Plans Division became G-3, O perations and Training; the Advisory Board, however, rem ained intact. The activities in the special schools, aside from recreation, included the experimental application— under the controlled conditions of m ilitary discipline—of the Arm y alpha and beta tests developed by Robert M. Yerkes* N RC com m ittee during the war; this testing served as the basis for determ ining job specifications and complementary personnel training and classification. In June 1922, after further cutbacks in m ilitary appropriations, this experim ental work was restricted to Camp Vail, the Signal School named after the President o f AT&T. This school was selected because o f its proximity to New Y ork “and the headquarters of the great telegraph, telephone, and radio com panies,. . . making possible close

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cooperation between the Arm y and civilian industry” in personnelresearch matters.* In addition to joint research projects, the E&R Branch cooperated with AT&T in the actual industrial application o f the experimental personnel procedures developed at Camp Vail. The results of the first o f these projects, at the Chesapeake and Potom ac Company in W ash­ ington, prom pted M ann to predict th at “it will be possible. . . in two or three years . . . to establish in this field a standard terminology and training methods” which would both prepare men in industry for po­ tential m ilitary service and train men in the m ilitary for industrial employment.6 The E&R Branch o f the Army thus played an im portant role in the development of personnel and training techniques for indus­ try; in cooperation with the NRC, ACE, Engineering Foundation, and American M anagement Association (formerly the NACS), it later helped to establish the National Board of Personnel Classification and the Personnel Research Foundation, which became clearinghouses for such work. The Army was only one agency which kept CEST activities alive in peacetime. The executive order authorizing the establishm ent of a per­ m anent NRC provided another vehicle for their continuation. W ithin the council, the Psychology Committee under Yerkes served as the link with the Army. In his final report of the Psychology Committee at the close of the war Yerkes outlined the wartim e achievements in testing and personnel classification which already had profoundly advanced “the status o f the relations o f psychology as a science and as a technol­ ogy,” and indicated that the results of this work would soon be pub­ lished “in the interest of the Army and of other government agencies, as well as of education and industry.”* It is already evident that contributions to methods of practical mental measurement made by this committee of the NRC, and by the psycho­ logical personnel of the Army, are profoundly influencing not only psychologists, but educators, masters of industry and experts in diverse professions. The service o f psychological examining in the Army has conspicuously advanced mental engineering, and has assured the im­ *It is hardly surprising, therefore, that experimental results coincided nicely with the requirements of the electrical and telephone industries; among the alpha-score/occupa* tion correlations determined by the E&R Branch were: 103-120, electrical operating engineer; 87-102, power electrician, chief radio operator; 72-86, instrument repairman; S7-71, telephone installer; 46-56, telegraph lineman. tFor discussion of the impact of the war experience upon industrial personnel procedures, see Loren Baritz, The Servants o f Pow er A H istory o f the Use o f Social Science in American Industry (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1960).

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mediate application of methods o f m ental rating to the problems o f classification and assignment in our educational institutions and our industries.7

A s early as June 1919 the peacetime N RC began the task o f coordi­ nating the various industrial and educational applications o f “fruits o f th e w ar.” The Engineering Foundation, which was supporting the council financially, proposed th at the N RC meet the need “for concur­ rent, coordinated research in industrial medicine, in psychology, in m anagem ent, and in engineering . . . a broad plan o f investigation covering the whole question o f personnel in industry—intellectual, m oral, physical, psychological.” A fter prelim inary discussion among the various divisions of the NRC, a Com m ittee on Industrial Personnel Research was created to develop the proposal; the committee, which was directed by Yerkes (now chairm an o f the N RC Anthropology and Psychology Division) and Capen (now head of the NRC Educational Relations Division), posed w hat it saw to be the critical areas for study and experim entation.8 Among the form er were listed the “causes o f labor unrest and resultant excessive high turnover, low production, and high costs”; the “physiological and pathological aspects of labor prob­ lems relative to health, efficiency, and productiveness in industry” ; and the ongoing “analysis, classification, and specification of industrial em­ ploym ents.” It proposed experim entation with work-incentives schemes and the shortened work week, and sought ways to enlighten “the directive element in industry . . . as to the results o f scientific selection, assignment, and prom otion o f employees.” M ost im por­ tantly, it hoped to develop “m ethods for overcoming [worker] misap­ prehensions and prejudices” and “countering in the school sinister industrial tendencies and fallacies” while at the same tim e coming to grips with “the psychology and psychiatry o f trouble-m akers.” Thus, a t the outset, the NRC com m ittee com prehended the whole range o f capitalist social production in the new era, the exigencies o f the postw ar corporate order. They also began to ask the question which challenged m any of management’s prew ar assum ptions and opened the way for a consum ption-based economy: “Is the only possible way of continued industrial prosperity and progress to be found in increased produc­ tion?”9 In a series o f conferences sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund between August and December 1919, the N RC comm ittee discussed these problem s with representatives from various organizations: the N ational Association of Employm ent M anagers, which had been set up

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in Rochester, New York, during the w ar (represented by J. C. Bower o f W estinghouse and M ark Jones o f Thom as A. Edison, Inc.); the N ational Industrial Conference Board (represented by its director, M agnus W. Alexander); the NACS (represented by F. C. Henderschott, o f New York Edison, and J. W. Dietz, now with Standard O il o f New York); and the United States Cham ber o f Commerce. W hile all present agreed th at the Am erican Federation o f Labor should be repre­ sented in any central personnel agency, they decided th at it would be “wiser** to defer their invitation to Samuel Gom pers until they had “given their program prelim inary formulation.*** Taking advantage o f the absence of a labor representative, M ark Jones suggested th at th e new organization should consider the question o f “conversational hy­ giene.’’ “Conversation among the rank and file o f workers,’’ Jones complained, “is too often of a filthy and vulgar nature, and the state o f mind which it encourages is th at which ultim ately becomes a m ost fertile field for all m orale-destroying influence.*’10 The outcome of this series of NRC-sponsored conferences was th e establishm ent of the perm anent Personnel Research Federation (P R F ),t which became the country’s central agency for personnel research. Among its various functions, the PR F was responsible for the “collec­ tion and dissemination o f inform ation,’' the “stim ulation o f research,’’ the “coordination of research agencies,*' the “form ulation of problem s and allocation o f study,’’ and the “encouragem ent of training in person­ nel problems.’’ Most im portant, it brought together in one agency the personnel activities of the A FL, Bureau o f Industrial Research, Indus­ trial Relations Association of Am erica (form erly the N ational Associa­ tion o f Employment M anagers), Taylor Society, N ational Bureau o f •By November 1920 Gompers had been invited to join in the project, but only after being assured that nothing had yet been done, that he was getting in at the start. The care with which the NRC committee approached Gompers—assuring him that the Engineering Foundation “could not by any possibility be considered as the representative of capital” and submitting nothing to him in writing—ignored the fact that Gompers was more than willing to share in the enterprise; he readily identified the progress of labor with industrial progress and even suggested that representatives from the National Civic Federation, an organization of the nation’s most progressive corporate leaders, and the Taylor Society, the forum for scientific management, be invited to join the new enterprise. See Alfred Flinn, memo on Conference with Samuel Gompers, December 9,1919; and Gompers to Flinn, July 14, 1920, NRC Executive Committee, NRC Archives. T h e leading advocates of the PRF, and the men who officially launched its operations, included Capen, from the NRC Educational Division and the ACE; Yerkes, Comfort Adams, and James Angell, from the NRC; Frank Jewett and Alfred Flinn, from the Engineering Foundation; W alter Dill Scott, W alter Bingham, and Beardsley Ruml, from the Scott Company and the Carnegie Institute Bureau of Personnel Research; and Robert I. Rees, from the W ar Department and AT&T. Rees became secretary of the PR F.

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Econom ie Research, Carnegie Tech Bureau o f Personnel Research, N ational Industrial Conference Board, U.S. Bureau o f Labor Statistics, and other agencies o f the federal government. Here, as never before, were concentrated the corporate efforts to standardize the “hum an m aterial“ th at comprised Am erican society for efficient, profit-making enterprise.11 In addition to coordinating personnel research for industry, the N R C contributed to the standardization o f vocational terminology and the preparation of job specifications. W hereas personnel research fo­ cused upon the measurement o f hum an usefulness, these efforts concen­ trated upon analysis of the slots into which the hum an pegs were to be fitted. The prime mover in this area was Charles M ann of the Arm y’s E& R Branch. In November 1922, after two years o f experim entation under the joint auspices o f the W ar D epartm ent and AT&T, M ann urged the NRC to help create a central agency “for the purpose o f coordinating all the activities in the country engaged in w riting occupa­ tional specifications and defining term inology.“ M ann argued th at since “die national defense is based upon the citizen arm y,“ the needs o f industry and the Arm y coincided, and that “the handling o f occupationally skilled workers“ was one of the m ost im portant o f them . W hat can we do to get all the activ ity . . . on this subject flowing in the same channel, directed tow ard the same common goal, so as to get us somewhere in regard to standard terminology of nation-wide origin? W hat can be done to stim ulate technical training schools and industries to produce more accurate occupational specifications? W hat can be done to coordinate the terminology and specifications for occupations as drawn by governmental agencies and industrial organizations? W hat sort of a central coordinating agency can be created to standardize terminology and coordinate specifications?1*

W ith the help o f the new Secretary o f W ar, John W. Weeks, M ann secured the cooperation o f the N RC in sponsoring a conference on Standardization o f Vocational Terminology, in January 1923. O ut o f th is conference emerged the new N ational Board o f Personnel Classifi­ cation, representing all governm ental, industrial, educational, and engineering agencies concerned with the standardization o f job specifi­ cations and vocational term inology, the complement o f standardized personnel measurement and classification. The movement to standard­ ize measure and m aterials for industry was now coupled with the movement sim ilarly to standardize hum an beings.18

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In the discussions during the January conference the question was raised, “W ho is going to take responsibility for achieving” the stan­ dardization of terminology and specifications? M ann pointed out th a t “if the work is undertaken by the m ilitary establishm ent, it is at once doomed to failure, for the reason that people do not care to be classified for m ilitary purposes”; while if, “on the other hand, it is undertaken in cham bers o f commerce and by employers only, then the work is m uch handicapped by the idea th at this is a new dodge to put labor in its place and reduce wages. The converse is true if it is undertaken by labor organizations.” The only viable solution to the question “of where to centralize or locate responsibility for the work,” M ann argued, is “th at the educational institutions should be in official charge o f this operation.” These specifications not only have an enormous value for industries and for employees, but they have a very fundamental significance in educa­ tion, because it is well recognized that our training systems of the country do not turn out a product which is available for use in the industries of the country. One of the fundamental difficulties is lack o f specifications of what the institutions are trying to do. Therefore, it has a very basic educational significance and all hands are willing to give the problem over to educational institutions. They get the specifica­ tions, cooperate with the industries in setting them, and take them back to the school and use them as definitions of objectives for training. The educational authorities decide how educational courses can be orga­ nized to train men so that they will be able to achieve the objective defined in the specifications.14

M ann's view th at the educational institutions should bear the respon­ sibility for national standardization of job specifications and vocational terminology—since after all, it was they who had actually to produce people according to them—was generally shared by the governm ental, educational, and industrial representatives o f the new board. W hile the board would serve as a clearinghouse for such activity, the educational institutions o f the country would actually do most o f it. To aid the educational institutions in this work, the NRC sponsored studies and conferences throughout the 1920's. In 1923 L. L. Thurstone, who was already conducting extensive experiments in vocational guidance in engineering colleges under SPEE auspices, became head of the A n­ thropology and Psychology Division o f the NRC, which from then on became a “clearinghouse and service agency for the colleges” and sponsored such activities as the study o f intelligence tests, admission

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tests, examinations, classification o f students, personality traits, and vocational guidance. From 1923 to 1925, the division set up a series o f conferences on the problems o f “career counseling,” focusing upon such problems as the “analysis o f m ental and physical traits required in each occupation”; the “evaluation or m easurem ent o f the m ental and physical traits o f individual students with regard to their occupational objectives” ; and the “adm inistration o f vocational guidance service in colleges and high schools.” In 1925 the division cooperated with the ACE (of which M ann was now director), the Am erican Association o f College Registrars, the Personnel Research Federation, and the Educational Relations Divi­ sion of the N RC to take “steps tow ard united and system atic study o f college student personnel problem s,” a project begun by A. A. Potter a t K ansas State two decades earlier. Am ong the most active conferees were leading educational reform ers in the engineering colleges, men whose first experience w ith such work had been in the corporation schools of the science-based industries.18 The NRC’s Educational Relations Division was funded by the Gen­ eral Education Board o f the Rockefeller Foundation. D irecting the w ork o f this division were Capen, Rees, Yerkes, M ann, H arry Tyler, Angell, Frank Aydelotte, Dean Seashore, and Henry Pritchett. In addi­ tion to making surveys of A m erican educational facilities with regard to research work and the production o f research workers, its prim ary function, the Educational Relations Division undertook studies o f “gifted students” which were supervised by A ydelotte and led to the introduction of “honors program s” in colleges throughout the country; “sectioning on the basis o f ability”; “sifting out the university student”; entrance exams; and the development o f “university services for occu­ pational placem ent and vocational guidance.” Capen, chairm an of the A C E and now chancellor o f the University of Buffalo, chaired the com m ittee which dealt with the “possible reorganization o f adm inistra­ tive units to save tim e and to increase efficiency in the whole educa­ tional process,” thus prom oting further the “coldly scientific” educational work which he had begun a decade before as Specialist in H igher Education for the U nited States Bureau o f Education. The Division o f Educational Relations o f the NRC, however, never became a m ajor center of reform activity. It suffered from lack o f funds throughout the 1920’s; m ore im portant, the m ajor reform activities in w hich it participated were carried on by its own members elsewhere, in the SPEE and the new Am erican Council on Education.19

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As before the war, the dom inant them es in postwar engineering* education reform were industry- education cooperation and education for management. The events o f the w ar had overshadowed the publica­ tion of the seminal M ann R eport, which had proclaimed these educa­ tional goals as never before, but the experiences o f the war dram atized and drove home the message. In the fall o f 1919, for example, D ean W alker of the University of Kansas observed th at “in general, it seems as though there has never been a tim e when school men were m ore ready to respond to new ideas___ It is being realized th at technical schools are a real part of the industrial system, and the more vividly th at idea stands forth the m ore the industrial atm osphere will prevail.“ Officer training during the w ar had given W alker and his colleagues in the Engineer Reserve Corps a profound lesson in the need for manage­ m ent training, for educating men broadly for positions o f responsibility in w ar and industry. In addition, as W alker noted, The war gave a great impetus to the idea of testing and grading men as a means for estimating their capabilities. The intelligence (or psycho­ logical) tests and the trade test were most in evidence, along with the system of grading on personality characteristics-----There is a strong tendency in the schools to take up the m atter. From the beginning the weeding out of the unfit and the adjusting of the pegs . . . to fit the industrial openings, have been among the difficult problems. Educators are disposed to welcome any system which promises assistance.17

M ann himself, evaluating “the effect o f the w ar on engineering educa­ tion“ for the SPEE B ulletin, reaffirmed his prew ar conclusions. “There m ust be closer cooperation between school and industry,“ he urged, “and there m ust be more attention to the assessment o f values and costs.“ Reasserting the m ajor themes o f his study, M ann observed th at, whereas under the M orrill A ct of 1862 “many new colleges had called themselves ‘industrial universities,’ they soon dropped the 'industrial' from their titles, fearing lest they lose caste in academic councils.” But now, after the war, “if they grasp the opportunity opening before them , [they] will claim with pride their abandoned surnam e” and create a “true university, with its feet firmly planted in industry.“ 1* In effect, the war experience had raised the prew ar experiments in cooperation to a higher, and national, level. Fresh from their A rm y experience in personnel classification and officer training, the educa­ tional reformers in the engineering schools had begun to envision coop­ eration on a grand scale: industry as a whole would furnish the jo b

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specifications and employment requirem ents the schools demanded, and the schools would provide the com plem entary testing, training, selection, and distribution o f m anpower for industry. This mass-pro­ duction approach to education was perhaps nowhere better articulated than in an article w ritten by the treasurer o f the W inchester Repeating A rm s Company, in 1921: The employer o f engineering graduates is probably better qualified to determine what the product of the engineering schools should be than is the teacher of engineering students. On the other hand, if the specifi­ cations for the product of the engineering schools are determined, the pedagogical expert is far better qualified to determine the educational processes which will produce the required result, than is the employer of engineering graduates.19

In the spring o f 1920 the first postw ar attem pt to set up the national m achinery for such cooperation was undertaken by Hollis Godfrey, now president o f Drexel Institute. As a disciple o f Frederick Taylor, G odfrey quite early had called for the teaching of scientific manage­ m ent in the engineering schools and ju st the previous year had formally introduced the cooperative plan of engineering education at Drexel. G odfrey's new enterprise, however, was m uch larger in scope than these. He was preoccupied—as were m any leaders in industry—with th e shortage of highly trained personnel available to industry, a short­ age which had come about through w ar casualties, the draining of the colleges, and the decline in im m igration. To correct this situation, he envisioned a grand scheme o f education-industry cooperation which would involve the preparation o f "joint specifications" for both techni­ cal and m anagerial manpower. Accordingly he called a conference at Drexel, attended by representatives from a large num ber o f eastern colleges and some seventy-five corporate executives, “to work out a definite course o f technical training for colleges to meet the specific needs o f Am erican industry." The plan Godfrey unveiled involved the creation of a joint comm ittee representing education and industry which would “define the kinds o f specifications of product th at are useable and intelligible to educational in stitu tio n s,. . . review the speci­ fications subm itted by industry and criticize them , . . . and circulate them with comm ent among the different types o f educational institu­ tions." To represent the industry side o f this am bitious joint venture, Godfrey launched the new Council for M anagement Education. On the education side, Godfrey prevailed upon his friend Capen, now director o f the ACE, to set up a special ACE com m ittee on cooperation with the industries (composed o f Capen, Bishop, and M ann).80

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For a year after the Drexel conference Godfrey forcefully prom oted the new CME, calling it “the only organization which has carried wartim e operations into a tim e o f peace.” He wrote articles for trad e journals, issued press releases, and used his wartim e prestige to secure the support of many industrialists, among them Sam Lewisohn o f th e Miami Copper Company, the first president o f the Am erican M anage­ m ent Association. The project collapsed by the end o f 1921, however, having succeeded merely in drawing up a sample set o f joint educa­ tional specifications covering a single industry, prepared prim arily by M ann. There were a num ber o f reasons for the failure. First, the project was unwieldy, requiring a kind of patient, long-run investigation which G odfrey's prom otional gimmickry defied. Second, there existed a gen­ eral wariness, among industrialists and educators alike, o f G odfrey's superficial, erratic, and egotistical behavior. In addition, the ACE was never enthusiastic about the project, and was drawn into it m ore by Capen's friendship with Godfrey than by anything else.* Finally, and m ost im portant, the industrial and educational leaders who would have been most likely to support G odfrey's program were already beginning to form ulate a sim ilar plan under the auspices of two established agen­ cies, the SPEE and the N ational Industrial Conference Board.*1 The National Industrial Conference Board was the brainchild o f M agnus Alexander. As early as 1914, while director o f personnel a t G E, he had proposed the creation of an industrial research agency; his own research into the complicated problem o f labor turnover had convinced him that there was a need for some machinery through which the industrial comm unity could study pressing social and eco­ nomic problems, devise and prom ote their own solutions, and thereby coopt potentially disruptive political reform . Such a board, A lexander argued, “would have realized,” for example, the inevitability of workmen’s compensation legislation in response to the economic belief of our people, and would therefore have carefully studied the su b ject. . . and prepared its case for presentation in the various legislatures. A t the same time it would have educated the employers themselves to a proper understanding of the issue and would have worked out a practical, fair, and yet conservative proposal for introduction in any state in which public opinion demanded a work♦From the beginning, Capen preferred that the educational side of the project be handled by the SPEE so that he could devote his time to building a broad and solid base of support for the ACE. Godfrey, on the other hand, wanted little to do with the SPEE—he had lost the election for its presidency in 1918 after a bitter contest—and demanded the support of the ACE because it represented liberal-arts as well as technical colleges.

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men’s compensation law. The result would have been greater uniform* ity of enactments and greater sanity and practicability o f their provisions. W hile this particular opportunity has passed, sim ilar oppor­ tunities for effective cooperative work are right now before us and we should not let these opportunities go by unheeded.**

To prom ote his scheme for a “research arm of industry,’’ Alexander called a series of Yama Conferences on Industrial Efficiency at the Yam a Farm s Inn, a resort in the Catskill M ountains catering to the elite o f U nited States business. Joining him in this venture were his friends Loyall Osborne, vice-president o f W estinghouse, E. W. Rice, president o f G E, Frederick P. Fish, fom er president o f AT&T, and Frank Van* derlip, president o f the N ational City Bank of New York. A t the second o f these conferences, in September 1915, they proposed th at a N ational Industrial Conference Board be created to serve the needs outlined in A lexander’s original proposal, and it was form ally founded in May 1916.23 F o r the first four years o f its existence the NICB was dom inated by W illiam B arr of the N ational Founders Association and leaders o f the N ational Association of M anufacturers, men who did not share the corporate liberal approach to social problems. As a result, the board functioned as an open-shop propaganda platform , a focus for anti­ union forces in the country. Representing twelve im portant em ployers' associations which in turn represented 15,000 employers (employing seventy-five percent o f the nation’s workforce), the NICB understand­ ably was perceived by labor as a m ajor management counteroffensive against unionism (in response to the form ation o f the board and the inflamm atory antilabor pronouncem ents o f Barr, the railroad brother­ hoods were forced into a defensive alliance with the Am erican Federa­ tion o f Labor). By 1920, however, A lexander and the other corporate liberals who had originally conceived the board had regained control over it and begun to steer it in the directions for which it had been designed. To signal their benign intentions, they issued a public state­ m ent indicating th at henceforth “the Board will refrain from all politi­ cal activity.” *24 One of the pressing problem s facing the board, and industry, in the early 1920’s was the shortage o f technically trained m anpower and especially the lean supply o f men educated for business leadership. These, o f course, were problem s to which the leaders o f the science*The NICB has continued to serve as the "research arm ” of corporate industry, and is now called simply the Conference Board.

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based industries (Alexander, Rice, Osborne) were particularly attuned. In the summer o f 1921, therefore, Alexander initiated a cooperative venture with the SPEE to try to meet the problem on a nationw ide scale.** On the education side, meanwhile, the SPEE itself had begun to implement the “fruits o f the war,** to place the engineering schools in a better position to serve the industries. In 1919 the society significantly extended the heretofore lim ited psychological testing o f engineering students, begun by L. L. Thurstone at Carnegie Tech in 1915.* D raw ­ ing upon his war experience with Yerkes’ N RC committee and the C C P in the Army, Thurstone, who was now at the University o f Chicago, directed extensive experiments with vocational-guidance tests in twenty-nine engineering colleges under SPEE auspices. By 1927 he had developed procedures for evaluating “the different m ental traits th a t are basic for the engineering course,** and had set up the Vocational Guidance Service to “guide” able high-school students into engineering careers. In addition to testing and other personnel procedures, th e SPEE began by 1920 to focus upon national industry-education cooper­ ation as never before. In his presidential address for 1920, A rthur M . G reene chose the theme “Requirements: Cooperation Between th e Preparatory School Colleges and the Industries as Viewed from th e Standpoint of the Educator.** This address was followed by others conveying the same message: Roy D. Chapin, president o f H udson M otor C ar Company, discussed the complem entary “Cooperation Be­ tween Education and Industry from the Viewpoint o f the M anufac­ turer” ; Samuel P. Capen outlined the aims o f the Council for M anagement Education; and W illiam W ickenden, personnel director for AT&T, presented the results o f an AT&T national survey o f techni­ cal and m anagerial manpower in “The Engineer as a Leader in Busi­ ness.” Each speaker emphasized the same points: the pressing dem and for nationwide industry-education cooperation and the need for broad­ ening the engineering curriculum to prepare men to handle, as leaders in business, the complexities of industrial life highlighted by the w ar.26 A t the next annual convention the SPEE executive council, under th e direction o f its new president, Charles F. Scott, took steps to m ove •Along similar lines. Professor E. L. Thorndike of Columbia University before the w ar had devised tests for seniors in electrical engineering and first-year graduates working a t Westinghouse. This work was done in cooperation with, among others, Charles M ann, Dean Keppel of Columbia, and Dooley of Westinghouse, all of whom later played m ajor roles in the wartime CEST. See Mann’s Study o f Engineering Education (Boston: M errymount Press, 1918), pp. 70-1.

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engineering education along these lines. It established a committee to im plement the M ann Report proposals, the m ost active members o f which were W alter D ill Scott, Dugald Jackson, and Frederick Bishop. N ot long after the comm ittee was set up, M agnus Alexander contacted Scott and Jackson about the creation o f a jo in t body which could coordinate the complementary activities o f the two organizations, with the NICB approaching the problems o f engineering education “from the standpoint of the man in industry who employs engineers and from the standpoint of the practicing engineer,** and the SPEE approaching them “from an educational point of view.** The upshot was the Advi­ sory Joint Committee on Engineering Education. Among those repre­ senting the NICB besides Alexander were Howard Coffin of the H udson M otor C ar Company and E. M. H err, president o f W estinghouse. Representing the SPEE were some o f the vanguard o f the coop­ erative movement: Herm an Schneider o f the University o f Cincinnati, D ugald Jackson o f M IT, H. J. Hughes o f the H arvard Engineering School, and J. W. Roe o f NYU. The chairm an of the joint com m ittee was Frederick P. Fish. The comm ittee thus, in effect, constituted the M IT-G E cooperative plan raised to a national plane since the same men were responsible for both.81 As its first project, the joint comm ittee sponsored prelim inary sur­ veys o f the technical and m anagerial m anpower problem, which were published by the NICB. (The m ost comprehensive study was entitled Engineering Education and Am erican Industry;* separate shorter stud­ ies were prepared for the electrical, chemical, and m etal-trades indus­ tries.) Essentially, these reports presented variations on Alexander’s them e th at education was “one o f the im portant arteries in the indus­ trial system** responsible prim arily for developing young men for “effective service in industry.** In 1922 Alexander sent a telegram to the U rbana SPEE Convention, form ally calling for a m ajor cooperative study o f Am erican technical education. “We are keenly interested in engineering education as an essential p art o f the industrial system,** A lexander wired. “We welcome heartily cooperation of engineering professors in working out fundam entals on which relationship o f engi­ neering education and industry m ust rest so th at engineers may be trained efficiently to render effective constructive service to industry.**28 N ot surprisingly, SPEE President Scott strongly endorsed the proposed •O liver S. Lyford, Engineering Education and American Industry, Special Report Num­ ber 25 (New York: NICB, 1923), published also as "The Engineer as a Leader in Industry,” SPEE Proceedings. XXXI (1923), 135-265.

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study. A t a joint conference o f the SPEE and the Am erican Association for the Advancement o f Science, he expressed his own view o f educa­ tion, one which did not depart significantly from th at of Alexander. The industries constitute the organization through which engineering utilizes the forces and m aterials o f nature and organizes and directs human activities for the benefit of man. Today the practicing engineers and representatives of industry meet with the association of engineering educators; this is a conference between users and producers of hum an m aterial for leadership in industry. If producers and users of steel rails were in conference they would discuss the uses which rails are to serve, classifying the kinds of service, considering wherein past products had failed, inquiring as to chemical analysis and metallurgical treatm ent. They would see improvement in production and discrimination in use. But the more difficult problem o f the human material for technical and adm inistrative leadership has received less atten tio n . . . ; how seldom do representatives of engineer­ ing industry and of engineering education meet together for conference! Yet they are users and producers of a vital product. Let us try to agree on what we want and then determine how to get it and how to use it. How many boys of differing kinds can be individually developed and fitted to varying needs.**

W hile the NICB continued to survey the needs of industry for techni­ cal and managerial manpower, the SPEE proceeded to establish th e apparatus for conducting a m ajor study o f engineering education, to survey the existing and potential means for meeting those needs. In th e sum m er of 1922 the Developmental Com mittee officially became th e Board o f Investigation and Coordination, the SPEE agency charged with directing the study.* D uring the following year the board form u­ lated an outline for the proposed study; it was aided in this task by Henry Pritchett, then tem porary president o f the Carnegie C orporation —and the man who had been president o f M IT when the cooperative plan was hatched there. In 1923 the new perm anent president o f th e Carnegie Corporation, Frederick P. Keppel, was elected. Keppel, it will be remembered, was the form er T hird A ssistant Secretary of W ar who had been instrum ental in the creation o f the CEST and the SATC; soon after his appointm ent he notified the new SPEE president, A. A. P otter, that the Carnegie Corporation would gladly support the project. T o direct the investigation,, the SPEE Board o f Investigation and Coordi­ nation selected the man who had already conducted an impressive •Composed of men such as Scott, Jackson, Bishop, Potter, Rees, Kimball, Aydelotte, and Seashore—all leaders in cooperative education.

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survey of technical education for AT&T, W illiam W ickenden. W ickenden, o f course, was no stranger to the members o f the board; he had supervised the school side o f the G E Cooperative Course back at Thus the famous SPEE W ickenden investigation was bom , in coop­ eration w ith the NICB, the U nited States Bureau o f Education, the national engineering societies, and E ta K appa N u, the electrical-engi­ neering honor society.* The W ickenden study o f engineering education was the m ost com­ prehensive investigation o f the technical-m anpower needs o f Am erican industry, and the educational means o f m eeting them , ever undertaken. It involved the close cooperation o f some ISO different schools over a six-year period, and .included studies o f such problem s as the structure o f undergraduate curricula, the social and economic content o f curricula, the function and scope o f the engineering college, the his­ to ry o f technical education in the U nited States, com parative develop­ m ent o f technical education in the U nited States and Europe, the value o f the cooperative m ethod o f engineering education, engineering degrees, graduateeducation, teaching personnel, quality o f teaching, com­ parative success and economic status o f graduates and nongraduates, ad­ mission requirem ents, testing, and the reasons for failure. The W icken­ den staff conducted surveys o f the opinions o f graduates, nongraduates, teachers, industrial employers, and practicing engineers in an attem pt to form ulate scientifically the shortcom ings o f existing educational m ethods and the means o f overcoming them . It sponsored sum m er courses for teachers as well as industrial employment for students and teachers, and produced the first m ajor study o f technical institutes, proposing th at the two-year technical institute be geared to m eet the industrial demands for technical m anpower now th at colleges were being geared to produce m anagers and executives. N ot surprisingly, the m ajor recom mendations which emerged from the six-year study called •In addition to the initial Carnegie Corporation grant, funds for the massive study were secured from Pritchett’s Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Engineering Foundation, GE, Westinghouse, AT&T, Western Electric, Detroit Edison, W estern Union Telegraph, and Stone and Webster. Individual contributors included Samuel Insull, czar of Commonwealth Edison; Frederick Pratt, son of John D. Rockefel­ ler’s Standard Oil partner and head of Pratt Institute; and James H. McGraw, founder o f the McGraw-Hill publishing empire, who began his career with the ownership of the m ajor electrical-industry journals—Electric Railway Journal, Electric World, etc.—and was a lifelong member of the AIEE and NELA, and an intimate of the elite of the industry. See Report o f the Investigation o f Engineering Education (Pittsburgh: Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, 1930), I, 15, 16.

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for closer cooperation between industry and education and for a broad­ ened curriculum to provide both scientific training “in the fundam en­ tals” and social-science training for future management respon­ sibility.*1 In addition to the W ickenden investigation, which was the focus of engineering-education attention throughout the 1920’s, the NICB con­ tinued its inquiries and produced m ore reports on industrial require­ m ents, under the auspices o f the joint SPEE-NICB committee.** The them es o f industry-education cooperation and management training for engineers were also prom oted through the efforts of the educational comm ittees of the NELA, and through a series of m ajor Bell System Educational Conferences for educators from both engineering and lib­ eral-arts colleges, supervised by Rees in 1924, 1926, and 1928. Sam Lewisohn, president of the Am erican M anagement Association, also held a series of informal conferences of engineering educators a t his New York City home between 1926 and 1930, aimed at prom oting the teaching of “industrial relations” in the schools.** The m ost lasting result o f all this effort, and particularly o f the W ickenden investigation, was the establishm ent, in 1932, o f the Engineers Council for Profes­ sional Development (ECPD). U nder the um brella o f the SPEE Board o f Investigation and Coordi­ nation, a comm ittee had been established to cooperate with the various engineering societies. This com m ittee coordinated its efforts with a com m ittee o f the ASME which was conducting a study of the “eco­ nom ic status o f the engineer.” * In 1932 the ASM E comm ittee proposed the form ation o f a perm anent agency to direct all activities relating to the education and professional practice of engineering; m ajor propo­ nents o f the move included W ickenden, Bishop, Jackson, Calvin Rice, secretary o f the ASME, Scott, C. F. Hirschfeld, Rees, and Potter. As originally constituted, the new ECPD represented the four founder societies (the ASME, A IEE, ASCE, and A IM E), the SPEE, the Am eri­ can Institute o f Chemical Engineers, and the N ational Council o f State Boards o f Engineering Examiners. Its imm ediate objective was the form ulation and enforcement o f “minimum professional standards,” guidelines for professional self-regulation which would serve as a defen­ sive bulwark against com pulsory state licensing o f engineers; ulti•The ASME committee was composed of C. F. Hirschfeld, an electrical engineer and director of research at Detroit Edison; C. N. Lauer, president of the Philadelphia Gas Works and a noted proponent of scientific management; Dexter Kimball; and Wickenden himself.

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m ately, however, it was aimed at control o f every aspect o f professional engineering, from the cradle to the grave. The ECPD focused upon the engineering student, the engineering college, and the professional practicing engineer, in its comprehensive, long-range program for “implementing” the W ickenden report; and it soon became the recognized central agency for all m atters relating to the engineering profession, including college accreditation, professional standards of ethics, determ ination o f competence for practice, profes­ sional recruitm ent from high schools, and the general definition of w hat it means to be a professional engineer in America. A t the same time, it signaled the complete trium ph of the corporate engineers and their particular brand of professionalism. Success in the profession now officially m eant prom otion up the corporate ladder, and education for the profession now officially m eant education for both subordinate technical employment in and responsible management of corporate industry. The first chairm an o f the council was C. F. Hirschfeld, direc­ to r o f research at D etroit Edison; o f the twenty-one men who sat on the first council, twelve were actively engaged in corporate industry, three were either acting or form er vice-presidents of AT&T, one was a form er educational director o f W estinghouse, and another had done early educational service for GE.* As never before, technical education in the U nited States, training for the engineering profession, had become an integral part o f the corporate industrial system.34

A lthough it began w ithin the engineering schools and the sciencebased industrial corporations, the corporate reform movement in Am erican education had, by the end o f the war, moved far beyond both. A survey conducted by the NA CT in 1921 revealed th at within the industrial community there was now a “progressive dependence upon higher educational institutions as sources o f employee supply,” and th at “the prejudice o f many businessmen to higher education as a factor in employment is being rapidly overcome.” The survey indicated also th at there was a m arked “readiness on the p art of industry to receive •T he chairman of the ECPD Committee on Engineering Schools was President K arl Compton of MIT; the chairman of the ECPD Committee on Professional Recognition was C. N. Lauer, president of the Philadelphia Gas Works; and the chairman of the ECPD Committee on Professional Training was R. I. Rees, vice-president for personnel a t AT&T. Directing the early educational activities of the ECPD were William Wicken­ den, now president of Case Institute, R. I. Rees, Charles F. Scott, Dugald C. Jackson, A. A. Potter, and Frederick Bishop.

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into its ranks untried, inexperienced hum an m aterial which m ust be moulded by training and discipline into the various forms required.** Increasingly, companies were taking on students part-tim e and during the summers so as to “test o u t . . . prospective employees** and “enable the employment m anager to keep a waiting list o f promising appli­ cants.’* M ore and more concerns, the survey also found, were carrying on “negotiations** with school placem ent bureaus and school officers for specified training and needed personnel. The barrier between the schools and the industries was fading away, Charles R. M ann noted approvingly, as “industries are beginning to see th at they are funda­ m entally educational institutions.*’3* The progressive convergence o f the industries and the schools was reflected m ost dram atically in the schools, especially in the colleges. Already the application o f management principles to educational insti­ tutions had begun to transform the shape o f higher education. T horstein Veblen subtitled his H igher Learning in America, which was w ritten in 1908 and published a decade later, “A M emorandum on th e Conduct o f Universities by Business Men,** observing that: Business principles take effect in academic affairs most simply, obvi­ ously and avowably in the way of a businesslike adm inistration o f the scholastic routine, where they lead immediately to a bureaucratic orga­ nization and a system o f scholastic accountancy-----The underlying businesslike presumption accordingly appears to be that learning is a merchantable commodity, to be produced on a piece-rate plan, rated, bought, and sold by standard units, measured, counted and reduced to staple equivalence by impersonal, mechanical tests-----It appears, then, that the intrusion of business principles in the universities goes to weaken and retard the pursuit of learning, and therefore to defeat the ends for which a university is maintained.36

Veblen understood th at the “free pursuit o f knowledge,** which he considered the “end for which a university is m aintained,” was being thw arted, and its radical potential checked, because it was being incor­ porated within the larger closed framework o f big-business enterprise. The “pursuit of knowledge” would gain considerable social stature and financial support as a result o f the new industry-education cooperation, but it would no longer be really “free.” W hile freedom of inquiry would be m aintained and guarded, it would now become, as M ann phrased it, a “controlled freedom,” a “disciplined initiative,” an energy directed into, rather than against, the capitalist industrial system which sus­ tained it.37 N ot many o f Veblen’s contem poraries in academia shared

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his insight, and no wonder. A ll th at was asked o f the immediate benefi­ ciaries o f the new support was th at their efforts be on the whole and ultim ately useful and consonant with the dem ands o f the corporate system. The corporate reform ers never required th at all who pursued higher learning in Am erica be conscious o f the utility o f their work, nor even th at all such work be o f ultim ate utility. R ather, they created an institutional apparatus which would correlate the activities o f academ­ ics “behind their backs," thereby rendering such consciousness o f pur­ pose unnecessary. M ann was another “schoolm an" who evaluated higher education as the w ar drew to a close. F or him, the changes engendered by the wartim e emergency m eant the dawning o f a new day for the collages and a golden age for corporate industry. “There were embodied in the organization of the Student Arm y Training C orps," M ann proclaim ed, “several large conceptions o f fundam ental im portance in the develop­ m ent o f a national system o f education; [the SATC] united all the institutions o f higher education in a single enterprise for training for national service,. . . into a single university o f Uncle Sam." This experi­ ence in educational coordination constituted, in M ann’s view, “a model th at may safely serve as a guide for the future." Beyond this, the w ar experience provided a new sense o f purpose for Am erican higher educa­ tion, the spirit o f service. W ith the war over, and the emergency which fostered th at spirit gone, new means had to be established to perpetuate this creed of the new corporate order. The schools must recognize, as the Army has, that every citizen has abilities that render him capable of some useful service. It is one of the functions of the educational system to discover each individual’s ability and develop it for useful service. The methods o f rating, sorting, classi­ fying, and placing men as developed by the Army are available for school u se.. . . Hopefully, the schools will adopt a plan of training that promises to deliver goods on a sim ilar scale.38

T o guide them in their new mission, the universities and colleges re­ quired some “centralized organization” which could “perpetuate the system established under m ilitary control." W hat is needed, M ann observed, “is a Federal education council o r departm ent o f education or national university th at would define the national problem o f educa­ tion----- ”*• The Am erican Council on Education emerged from the w ar to meet this need. From the outset the organization established to coordinate the war­ tim e activities o f the colleges was under the control o f M ann and his

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CEST colleagues. The first meetings o f the Emergency Council on Education were held in Capen’s office o r at the Cosmos Club, an elite W ashington social club. These meetings were chaired by Capen, in his capacity as Specialist in H igher Education for the Bureau o f Education, and were dom inated by the forceful spokesmen for the Army: Rees, M ann, and Bishop. “The Emergency Council needs some steering,“ Capen wrote his wife after the first m eeting.40 The focus of ECE activities was not the w ar itself but rather the peacetim e “reconstruction“ to follow the war. According to the initial announcem ent, the ECE had been created so th at “a continuous supply o f educated men may be m aintained; and preparation for the great responsibilities of the reconstruction period after the w ar may be antici­ pated.“ Indeed, barely two m onths had passed before the ECE was made a perm anent organization, renam ed the Am erican Council on Education. Significantly, the meeting which became the founding con­ vention o f the ACE was held at M IT; H. W. Tyler o f M IT’s departm ent o f m athem atics—a close associate o f D ugald Jackson and head o f the new Am erican Association o f University Professors (AA UP)—w rote the ACE constitution. The industrial orientation which would m ark the postw ar activities o f the ACE was fully apparent at this first meeting: M ann moved to invite the U nited States Cham ber of Commerce to join the council; Bishop moved to invite the NACS; and Tyler moved to invite the N ational Society for the Prom otion o f Industrial Education —a reform organization directed by H enry P ritchett and M agnus Alex­ ander.41 The ACE emerged from the w ar as the central agency representing higher education in the U nited States, having brought together for the first tim e the nation's largest educational associations. “The m ost influ­ ential men in higher education believed in the Council and wanted to see it start," Capen wrote his wife; w hat is m ore, he added proudly, they are all “quite willing to follow my lead.“42 Thus Capen became a t w ar's end the chief executive officer o f the m ost im portant educational orga­ nization in America. He was hardly unaware o f the possibilities. The development o f the American educational scheme has been plan­ less, haphazard. We have always suffered because o f this planlessness. The price that we are called upon to pay for our lack of forethought and the consequent lack of system becomes heavier year by year. Uni­ fied action has always been impossible because there was no unifying agency-----A unifying agency has now at last been established to stim ulate discussion, to focus opinion, and in the end to bring about joint action on m ajor m atters of educational policy.42

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From his experience with the Bureau of Education and, m ore im por­ tantly, his experience with the SPEE and the W ar D epartm ent, Capen could well predict what such “m ajor m atters o f educational policy“ m ight be. He wrote Bureau Commissioner Claxton—th at “irresponsi­ ble freak“—about a pressing need for m ore technical training and discipline in the colleges of arts and sciences, and preached “the new gospel of technical education“ to a friend a t Tufts, calling for “close cooperation with commercial enterprises.“ “I believe th at one o f the m ost im portant problem s before education in this country,“ he as­ sured his form er CEST colleague J. W. D ietz, “is the relation between educational institutions and the problem s of industry and com­ m erce.”44 One o f the earliest and m ost visible m anifestations o f the ACE’s intim acy with industry was its com m ittee for cooperation with the industries, which had been set up to coordinate the educational side o f Hollis G odfrey's cooperative plan. The efforts by the council to solidify industry-education cooperation, however, extended far beyond God­ frey's modest scheme. The m ajor goal of the council was the gradual reshaping of American higher education as a whole into an efficient mechanism, one which would make truly effective industrial cooper­ ation possible. This grandiose undertaking was largely the work of two educators: Capen, who rem ained director until 1922 and a m ost active member o f the executive com m ittee for twenty years thereafter, and M ann, who served as director from 1923 until 1934. Both men shared a profound identification with the corporate reform movement within technical education, and heartily endorsed the “educational results o f m ilitary training" developed during the war. (Thus, they continued to serve on the Civilian Advisory Board o f the U nited States Arm y while “steering" the ship o f Am erican education, viewing the two roles as but different means to the same end: the creation o f an industrially respon­ sive educational system.) In 1934 M ann passed the gavel to George Zook, who, as successor to Kolbe as president of the University of A kron, had carried on the tradition of industrial cooperation early kindled in the municipal universities. By th at tim e the ACE was com­ posed o f seventy-nine national and regional educational associations, sixty-four national organizations in fields related to education, and 954 institutional members—universities, colleges, secondary schools, pub­ lic- and private-school systems, and educational departm ents o f indus­ trial concerns.48 The work o f the ACE proceeded along three interwoven lines o f activity. The first of these was directed tow ard a perpetuation of the

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centralized authority achieved during the war, and entailed the exten­ sion o f both governmental and corporate industrial authority over education; the second involved the standardization o f American educa­ tional procedures and institutional classification, and constituted a con­ tinuation o f the prew ar survey activities undertaken by Capen a t th e Bureau o f Education; the third aimed tow ard the extension, within th e educational institutions, o f the testing, rating, and guidance procedures developed by the science-based industries before the war. Brought up to an unprecedented level o f sophistication by the CEST, the CCP in the Arm y, and the various psychology comm ittees during the war, this work on the “personnel problem“ became the basis o f a new “science o f education,“ the hallm ark o f the ACE.46 Centralization of educational authority was a top priority for th e leaders o f the ACE. A lthough the ACE represented all of the m ajor educational associations in the U nited States, it did not enjoy nearly th e authority over educational m atters th at these form er CEST directors had become accustomed to. From the start, therefore, they sought to gain some legitimate—th at is, governmental—power over Am erican education as a whole. “I was convinced before the Council was estab­ lished,“ Capen later wrote, “o f the need o f a representative organ which should view the national enterprise in higher education cosmically.” Coupled with this need for broad representation and a “cosmic“ per­ spective was the need for a centralized and powerful agency for educa­ tional action. “The thing America needs as a central organization for education,“ M ann observed, “is an organization for research, for set­ ting standards by defining objectives-----This type o f organization m ay be called the General Staff organization o f education.“ It would operate according to “the plan on which the General Staff o f the Arm y oper­ ated,” involving the allocation o f decentralized responsibility after ob­ jectives are defined by centralized command. “The same principle,“ M ann noted, “is recognized as sound in business organization.“47 One o f the A C E's first form al acts along these lines was the establish­ m ent of a special commission to survey the public resources available for its corporate work. The commission was charged “to study and discover the extent to which the free educational system of the country can be m aintained and developed by the m ore complete economic utilization of both present and future sources o f public revenue." A t the same time, the ACE began to push for national legislation which m ight provide it with leverage. “The interpretation o f Federal legislation," Capen wrote in the first director's report, “is a continuing project o f the first im portance.” In 1920 and 1921 Capen worked feverishly to drum

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up support for the creation o f a D epartm ent o f Education, with a Secretary in the President’s Cabinet. In cooperation with business lead­ ers like Edward A. Filene, he was able to m arshal the support o f the leadership o f thirteen national organizations behind the pending SmithTow ner Bill, which was designed to create a D epartm ent o f Education and to provide considerable governm ental appropriations for “educa­ tional investigations.” In 1921 Capen and his associates subm itted a petition to the President urging him “to create a D epartm ent o f Educa­ tion with a Secretary in the Cabinet.”4* Although the Smith-Towner Bill failed to pass, M ann reported op­ tim istically to Henry Suzzalo in 1927 th at “a national organization o f education is developing. The next session o f Congress will, I believe, do som ething about enlarging the scope o f the Federal education office. Suitable cooperative relations between th at office and the privately organized associations, like the ACE, m ust be evolved.” O f course no men feared government control o f education m ore than the leaders o f the ACE and their fellow corporate reform ers. W hat they wanted, rather, was corporate control o f education through governm ental means.* In his announcement of the ACE annual convention for 1929 M ann articulated the “significant industrial tendencies th at offer practical approaches for cooperation by education.” These were to be the guide­ lines for American educational progress: “to create practical m ethods by which each individual may find work he can do best; to find by experim ent the critical tests th at control individual conduct and to use these to secure voluntary cooperation and stim ulate individual respon­ sibility; [and] to stress excellence o f service as a determ ining force in profitable business.” 50 Through the medium o f the ACE, the corporate •T he merely apparent contradiction between fear o f government control of education and the use of government for control of education was perhaps best reflected in the activities o f Ray Lyman W ilbur, Secretary of Interior under President Hoover. W ilbur, once president of Stanford, was also, like Suzzalo of the University of Washington, a former regional director of the SATC and a close associate of SATC directors Capen and Mann. As nominal supervisor of the Bureau of Education, however, W ilbur declared that “it seems to me that there is a distinct menace in the centralization in the national govern­ m ent of any large educational scheme with extensive financial resources available.” But, within months of this pronouncement W ilbur set up an unprecedented National Advi­ sory Committee on Education “to make recommendations concerning Federal organiza­ tion for education.” The chairman of this new presidential advisory board was Charles R. Mann of the ACE; Henry Suzzalo, who had by this time succeeded Henry Pritchett as head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, became advisory committee director. Wilbur, quoted in Charles G. Dobbins, American Council on Educa­ tion, Leadership and Chronology, 1918-1968 (W ashington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1968), pp. 7, 9.

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creed o f service, bolstered by the growing array o f personnel-manage­ m ent techniques, had entered the soul and body o f Am erican higher education. In addition to governmental coordination, the ACE worked hard to coordinate education with industry. From the outset the council was com m itted to industrial service; form er CEST directors D ietz and Rees, now personnel directors o f W estern Electric and AT&T, respec­ tively, regularly attended ACE Executive Council meetings, and the first special committee to be appointed by the ACE was headed by Bishop to cooperate with Hollis Godfrey’s Council for M anagement Education. By the mid-1920s the ACE had gone far beyond this. It participated extensively—through Capen and M ann—in the vocation­ al-guidance work of the N RC and the Arm y and cooperated with the personnel managers of AT&T, K odak, and Bausch and Lomb.*1 In 1926 the ACE amended its constitution to adm it industrial corpo­ rations into its membership. “It is for the purpose of discovering how industries and education may profitably cooperate in solving the per­ sonnel problem ,” M ann reported, “th at this Council is inviting indus­ trial firms to become institutional members o f the Council on the same footing with universities and colleges.” * The ACE did not lim it itself to cooperation with the giant corpora­ tions. In 1927, at Capen’s request, the A m erican M anagement Associa­ tion (formerly the NACS) appointed a com m ittee to work w ith the ACE on educational cooperation. In addition, at M ann’s request, the U nited States Cham ber o f Commerce established a comm ittee on edu­ cation for sim ilar purposes; this com m ittee facilitated cooperation be­ tween the ACE and the Cham ber o f Commerce at the national level and thereby avoided the duplication o f effort which had previously resulted from ACE work with local cham bers and, through them , with local industries. (This cooperative undertaking was generously funded by the Twentieth Century Fund, a foundation set up in 1919 by Edw ard A. Filene and Henry S. Dennison.) “The U nited States Cham ber o f Com­ merce is now cooperating with us on a project o f working out suitable cooperative relations between education and business,” M ann reported enthusiastically to Suzzalo; “this is a very live and far-reaching under­ taking.” ** •W ith the passage of the amendment Mann invited fifteen new organizations to join the ACE; among these were the leaders of the corporation-school movement: AT&T, West­ ern Electric, Westinghouse, GE, International Harvester, Standard Oil of New York, Goodyear, Dennison M anufacturing Company, Cheney Brothers Silk M anufacturers, and the four Rochester companies. To encourage industrial corporations to join, the Executive Council reduced the required dues from $500 to $200 per year.

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As a catalyst and a focal point for governm ental and industrial coordination o f educational relations, the A CE readily became the spokesman of Am erican education in international affairs as well. In 1924 the Am erican University Union in Europe turned over its respon­ sibility for international cooperation in higher education to a new ACE standing comm ittee established for th at purpose. “I think there is much good in Am erican education, m uch th at m ight profitably be im itated in foreign system s," the ACE chairm an, D ean Virginia Gildersleeve o f Barnard, observed; her choice o f words was particularly suited to an "age o f isolationism " in which the plans for the reconstruction o f Europe were form ulated by the chairm an o f the board o f the General Electric Company.* Along sim ilar lines, M ann and Capen cooperated with T. Coleman D u Pont, Senator from Delaware, in developing the Junior Year Abroad program ; this program was created and intro­ duced into the schools to ensure th at there would be "a body o f young Am ericans trained to meet the expanding international responsibilities o f the U nited States.”53 The leaders o f the ACE did not w ant merely to centralize Am erican higher education; they wanted to centralize it for a purpose. The na­ tion’s colleges could provide maximum service to corporate industry only if they were geared for integration into the system; the processes o f education had to mesh with the processes of industry. Already a m ost valuable service was provided to industry by the A CE's Division o f College and University Personnel; the brainchild of Parke Kolbe, the division was patterned after the wartim e Intercollegiate Intelligence Bureau to provide access to the talents of college faculties. By 1924 some ten thousand teachers from two hundred institutions were regis­ tered with the division, which compiled a detailed registry "for use o f presidents and executives o f institutions who want to find suitable m en." "T he Council is carrying on a substantial and im portant business activity in the line of higher education," C. J. Tilden of the ACE explained to members of the SPEE. The Division of College and Uni­ versity Personnel operated "in the nature o f an engineering specifica­ tion o f w hat an institution o f higher education should be."54 ACE efforts to standardize educational processes were prom oted m ost forcefully by Capen. "T he Council proposes to bring about a greater uniform ity o f procedure among the principal agencies now engaged in defining standards,” he announced in the first E ducational Record, and two years later he deplored “the chaotic state o f collegiate •Owen D. Young: the "Young Plan.”

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standardization** in which **a dozen o r m ore influential agencies are measuring and m arking colleges,** arguing th at the ACE was in “a better position. . . to coordinate efforts. . . [and] to secure the necessary unification of procedures.** Acting as the newly elected chairm an of the N ational Conference Com mittee on Standards o f Colleges and Second­ ary Schools, Capen called a conference to coordinate standardizing activities. “The tim e appears to be ripe for a review o f the whole standardizing procedure o f the country, as it applies to higher educa­ tion,** he announced. “By jo in t agreem ent it may be possible to secure the adoption of a m ore nearly uniform series o f requirem ents for ac­ crediting and classifying colleges.** As a result o f this conference, and Capen’s other prom otional activities, the N ational Conference Com­ m ittee on Standards formally dissolved itself and transferred its respon­ sibilities to the new Committee o f Standards of the ACE; the ACE thus became the central accrediting agency for Am erican higher-educa­ tional institutions. As one o f its first activities, the Com mittee on Standards conducted a survey o f the entrance certificates used by 143 colleges and universi­ ties which revealed that “the institutions a r e . . . making increasing use o f questionnaires and [are] asking for personal data th at were alm ost ignored a dozen years ago.** The com m ittee prom ptly set up a special subcommittee “to study the present and possible use o f such personal data,’’ data first used by Potter at K ansas State and Dooley at W estinghouse. Throughout the 1920s the com m ittee prom oted the use o f stan­ dard terminology in the schools, as well as standard degree and testing procedures, and facilitated the establishm ent o f m odern personnel offices in the colleges. In 1927 the ACE published its first H andbook o f Am erican Universities and Colleges, “an accurate and impressive picture o f present conditions in Am erican higher education,** and three years later funds were provided by the Julius Rosenwald Fund to set up a Committee on Problems and Plans, charged with “the form ulation o f a comprehensive program o f educational investigations.’*The chair­ m an of the new committee was Samuel P. Capen, now chancellor o f the University of Buffalo.*6 Interwoven with its centralizing and standardizing activities was the ACE’s pioneering work in extending the new “science o f education** to the nation’s colleges. The w ar had happily dissolved “ancient preju­ dices, traditions and habits,** Charles M um observed, “thereby liberat­ ing us for a new orientation and a recrystallization of thinking in a new and different pattern.*’ The new “science o f education’*which emerged after the war was the product o f both personnel management and the

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m ost advanced teachings o f applied behaviorist psychology. Bom in the personnel departm ents o f large corporations and the education and psychology departm ents o f universities, it had been put to its first successful test by the W ar D epartm ent during the war. In practice, the “new science o f education’*was an outgrow th of the industrial “person­ nel problem,** which M ann considered “one of the most significant and characteristic features o f the present.*’ The leaders of the ACE were in the vanguard of the new movement—the very men who had conducted the w artim e adventure in personnel management, they were m ost eager to carry it on. “The educational results o f m ilitary training is a m atter o f intense interest at present,** w rote Capen in a classic understatem ent. The work of CEST, the CCP in the Arm y, and Yerkes* Psychology Committee thus provided the foundation for the postwar investigations by the ACE. “There are two ways to effect educational reform,** Capen later wrote. “One is by decree. The other is by investigation and experi­ m ent. One is the authoritarian way. The other is the way of science.*’87 The disciples o f the new “science o f education*’ viewed it as an extension of natural science, and approached it with the rapture o f the physicist and the practicality o f the engineer. Just as Faraday had established the correlation between invisible electricity and visible cop­ per, the physicist M ann explained, “the same procedure is now begin­ ning to be used in liberating and guiding the energies o f m an.” 58 Henry Suzzalo, new head o f the Carnegie Foundation and one o f the foremost “scientists o f education” in the country, waxed eloquent about the scientific means of creating “the effective Am erican University sys­ tem ” : The American system of schools has a sanction in public efficiency as well as in equality of personal opportunity. It is a special system o f getting brains for the public purpose. [Educators] have an immediate responsibility to make the prospect more effective.. . . Soon we m ust become as wise in pedagogical method as we have long been in scientific method. The processing of human beings through intellectual experi­ ences is far more im portant socially than the processing of m aterial things. Yet physical technology holds a place of respectability among us which human technology has not yet won.5*

The conceptual lens through which this proud new breed o f “scien­ tific” educators viewed the “process o f education” was identical to the one through which the personnel directors o f the science-based indus­ trial corporations viewed it earlier in the century: education was one side of tiie corporate “personnel problem ”; it was the means through

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which industrial employment specifications were to be m et “Job speci­ fications establish m utually intelligible comm unication between indus­ trialists and schoolmen," ACE director M ann asserted. “Job specifications . . . yield the inform ation schools need to build better citizens." For the ACE educators, the program for reform was rela­ tively straightforw ard: they had to “decide how education can be orga­ nized to meet industrial specifications." In M ann's view, “this is one o f the m ost im portant movements in the whole country in industry and in education.”60 Thus, under M ann's leadership, the ACE cooperated extensively w ith the Arm y, NRC, the Personnel Research Federation, the N ational Board for Personnel Classification, and various industrial corporations to develop effective personnel procedures. Such work was not restricted to the traditional “vocational" fields o f education, moreover; profes­ sional education was viewed as but another form o f vocational training. There has been “a sudden reversal o f the balance between professional and higher education of the non-vocational type," Capen reported in 1924; professional education has now become “the principal business o f Am erican universities," and vocational-guidance program s, testing and rating systems, “job analysis," curriculum reform, and the other trappings o f “scientific" education were as applicable in this “business" as in any other.61 W hile the establishm ent o f effective personnel-management proce­ dures in educational institutions was a prim ary interest of the council, work in this area was ham pered by lack o f funds. In 1926 M ann complained that appalling wastes are now occurring on every hand for lack o f adequate national machinery of cooperation in this new science of education. The validity of control by facts is now fully recognized. Competent research educators are available. Teachers are eager to be led by facts. But fact-finding and fact-disseminating machinery has not been con­ structed. We are trying to drive a 1926 Lincoln with a “one-lunger” of the first vintage.61

The ACE was bailed out o f its dilemma by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. In 1926 he contributed a total o f $20,000 for “study of personnel m eth­ ods" and “study to define the specific occupational objectives of educa­ tion." To direct the research funded by the Rockefeller grant, the A CE established a Committee on Personnel M ethods and appointed W alter D ill Scott, president of N orthw estern University, to head it; soon to become chairm an o f the A CE himself, Scott was the m an who had set

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up both the CCP in the Arm y and the Bureau o f Personnel Research a t Carnegie Tech. Perhaps one o f the most im portant contributions o f the ACE to the educational solution of the corporate personnel problem was the exten­ sion of psychological testing within the educational institutions. In 1924 L. L. Thurstone, the engineer-psychologist who directed the test­ ing program o f the SPEE, developed his first ACE Psychological Ex­ am ination for high-school students and college freshmen. The T hurstone tests were used extensively throughout the 1920s and became a staple o f Am erican college education; by 1930, 347 colleges and universities were using them as a regular and vital part of their educational “processing.** The testing work o f the ACE received a trem endous boost in 1930 when the G eneral Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation contributed $500,000 for ten years o f research “in the field o f objective testing.*’ The council immediately established the Cooperative Testing Service to adm inister the research under this grant and in 1939 extended its testing program to teachers as well as students by developing the N ational Teacher Exam inations—a nation­ wide program for testing teachers. These testing program s of the ACE were carried on separately until 1948, at which tim e they were merged to form the Educational Testing Service, the central agency for all educational testing in the country.69 In 1926 the Executive Council o f the ACE received a request from the M anufacturers and M erchants Federal Tax League to investigate the activities of the Ely Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public U tilities of N orthw estern University. The letter charged th at the institute, while ostensibly conducting disinterested inquiries into the problem o f public utilities, was in fact being funded by NELA, the trade association o f the country’s privately owned utilities companies. A CE director M ann replied th at “though the Council is deeply interested in freedom for research, the proposed investigation does not lie in its province.'* The investigation did lie, however, within the province o f the U nited States Congress.64 In 1928, pursuant to a resolution o f the U nited States Senate, the Federal Trade Commission undertook an investigation o f the utilities industry, one which was to last until 1933. One o f the focuses o f this investigation, and of the hearings which were held during the course o f it, was the close relationship between the utilities companies and educational institutions; the hearings revealed th at the power compa­ nies, particularly through the N ELA 's Com m ittee on Cooperation with

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Educational Institutions, wielded a strong influence over the colleges. The FTC discovered th at the utilities were hiring college professors; subsidizing utilities courses in colleges; subsidizing research work, in­ cluding that of the im portant Ely Institute; reviewing and editing text­ books; seconding company personnel to college faculties; controlling university extension work; saturating schools with utilities-com pany propaganda against public ownership; and even conducting sum m er schools for faculty members. One participant in the hearings concluded th at “the utility corporations, through their various committees, bu­ reaus, individuals and organizations have carried on a far-reaching cam paign to influence and control the educational institutions o f the country.”*8 The FTC investigation sent a m inor shock wave through the educa­ tional institutions and the personnel-m anagem ent agencies o f industry. It did little more, however, than slow down m om entarily the corporate reform o f Am erican education th at had already been thirty years in the making. Some firms were for a tim e reluctant to cooperate w ith the schools at all, despite persistent encouragem ent from the ACE to do so. O thers—including the utilities companies—went right ahead w ith the m ore subtle aspects o f their educational program s. M ost under­ stood th at while they m ight arouse the indignation o f some educators and lend credence to the paranoia of others, government investigations alone could in no way undo the corporate knot of the tw entieth century: too m uch had happened, and the investigators had barely scratched the surface.

A Technology of Social Production Modern Management and the Expansion of Engineering Problems in human engineering will receive during the coming years the same genius and attention which the nineteenth century gave to the more m aterial forms of engineering. We have laid good foundations for industrial prosperity. Now we want to assure the happiness and growth of the workers through vocational education and guidance and wisely managed employment departments. A great field for industrial experi­ mentation and statesmanship is opening.1 —Thomas A. Edison We have all become somewhat accustomed to seeing the engineers called upon to perform new and strange duties-----Every day sees the duties and responsibilities of the engineer widened and it is difficult to ... see where the end will be. Engineering is an integral part of everyday life and necessarily assumes fresh aspects as the complexity o f modern life increases. It will be increasingly difficult to set its limits and bound­ aries. No one can doubt that the scientist and the engineer are to be the most im portant industrial figures of the near future___ To accomplish this we must broaden our vision and get about our business, which is the industrial organization of our country.* —Dexter S. Kimball

M odern technology m eant different things to different people, for it contained a range of possibilities as well as necessities. To the engineers of corporate industry, certain of these possibilities became necessities. W hether because o f educated habit, ideological blindness to alterna­ tives, social constraints, or conscious choice, they tended to seize upon only those technological potentials which prom ised to further corpo­ rate objectives, deemed them necessary (and, thus, historically inevita257

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ble), and denied all others. In all o f their work they strove at once to stim ulate and to tam e modern technology, to fashion the means for unlim ited technical progress while at the same tim e working to ensure th at such progress would itself be a means to corporate ends.* Actually, these corporate engineers played a double role. As engi­ neers in a capitalist system, they were professionally charged with the profit-maximizing advance o f scientific technology. And as corporate functionaries, they assumed the responsibility for coordinating the hu­ man elements o f the technological enterprise. It was because o f this dual role, and w ithout any great imaginative leap on their part, th at they began to view the second o f their tasks in the same way they viewed the first, as essentially an engineering project. In their m inds, the recognition th at modern technology was a process of social produc­ tion compelled them to try to form ulate a scientific way o f m anaging th at process, a technology of social production. Reinforced by (and reinforcing) a growing tendency within positivist social science tow ard engineering-like application, this new form o f engineering gave rise to a dom inant, two-sided strain in tw entiethcentury American social thought. On the one hand, social organization and hum an behavior became new foci o f engineering theory and prac­ tice; on the other hand, and less obviously, engineering itself began to expand as, for the first time, stubborn and imprecise social and psycho•Just as social development is not simply technologically determined, so technological development itself is not automatic, a succession of givens. A t every stage, it involves human choice, choice which reflects requirements which are social and historical. If certain aspects of technical work are defined by what we know about the relations and properties of m atter and energy, these are nevertheless bound up tightly with social factors, making it extremely difficult to distinguish the one from the other. Where do "technical” imperatives end and “social” imperatives begin? The distinction is all the more difficult to draw because of the tendency by technicians routinely to extend the technical (or scientific) justifications for their work far beyond the realm to which they actually apply. Most historical accounts of technical development, moreover, simply second this tendency, readily granting to the engineers the sanction of destiny which they claim for themselves. But in all technical work there is always a tension between technical and social determinants. In actuality, technical imperatives define only what is possible, not what is necessary; what can be done, not what m ust be done. The latter decisions are social in nature. Unfortunately, this distinction between possibility and necessity is lost on most contemporary observers, and with it a large measure of imagination and social vision. A notable exception is the work of Lewis Mumford, which focuses upon this tension throughout. Recent studies by Stephen Marglin and Katherine Stone, in the Review o f R adical Political Economy, Vol. VI (Summer, 1974) do likewise. Stone’s work, which correlates technological changes in the U.S. steel industry with felt corporate needs to discipline, fragment, and motivate the labor force, is especially valuable. See also a useful conceptualization of the problem of technological development in David M. Gordon, “Capitalist Efficiency and Socialist Efficiency,” M onthly Review, XXVIII (JulyAugust, 1976), pp. 19-34.

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logical variables were deliberately introduced within engineering analy­ sis and design. One name is given to this two-sided development, this new technology: modern management. A pivotal development in the history of industrial America in gen­ eral, the emergence of modem management was thus also an im portant chapter in the history of engineering. Four historical currents con­ verged by the turn o f the century to give rise to this new social force. The first was the development of the capitalist mode o f production, with its inherent demand for capital accum ulation and competitive efficiency. The second was the creation of the far-flung, integrated industrial corporations and the subsequent necessity o f realizing poten­ tial economies o f scale to offset heavy investm ent in fixed capital. The third, which emerged as an aspect o f and in resistance to the first two, was the intensifying “man problem“—the need to discipline and moti­ vate labor, and neutralize opposition which thw arted efficient produc­ tion, challenged the inevitability of capitalist industrial development, and threatened corporate stability. The fourth was the steady flow of scientifically trained engineers into management, particularly within the machine- and science-based industries. ^ Men, not machines, produce profits. The fundam ental innovation o f capitalism was not the introduction of machinery into the production process but, rather, the transform ation of hum an labor into an ab­ stracted means of commodity production and capital accum ulation. K arl M arx was not alone in recognizing this fact. Charles Babbage, an inventive British engineer, m athem atician, and early capitalist theoreti­ cian, drove home the point when he urged that “in order to succeed in a m anufacture, it is necessary not merely to possess good ma­ chinery-----The domestic economy o f the factory should be carefully regulated.“3 Babbage understood th at profitable enterprise presup­ posed that the capitalist would dissociate labor from the productive process and reintegrate the two on his own term s, in such a way as to maximize the surplus value produced by the labor force in the produc­ tive process. The key complementary factors in this transform ation were the increasing capitalist monopolization o f the intelligence of, and control over, production, and the diminishing autonom y and cost of labor. These in turn made possible the m ost efficient reorganization o f the production process by the capitalist, and thus the maximiza­ tion o f profitable output. Babbage realized, however, th at while the actual design of machinery contributed to this transform ation indirect­ ly, the capitalist had also to undertake to bring it about directly,

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through the deliberate engineering o f the workplace and the w ork activity o f labor. Babbage, it seems, was ahead of his time. Throughout the nineteenth century, capitalists and engineers alike devoted their attention prim ar­ ily to the introduction of profit-making, labor-saving m achinery rather than to the organization of the workplace. A t the end of the century, however, under the pressure of intensifying com petition and the height­ ened corporate demand to cut costs and increase production, they were compelled to recognize that “the dom estic economy of the factory^ h a d replace! the machinery M the lim iting factor_of production. Existing machinery could be used at peak capacity only if the hum an activity of production was organized in a correspondingly efficient manner.* They thereupon deliberately-expanded their engineering focus to in­ clude the workers. As managers in industry, engineers now undertook to expropriate and systematize the intelligence of production, to place it in the hands and handbooks o f m anagement, and to use it to reorga­ nize the production process for maximum output and profit. In the science-based industries, where the intelligence of production was al­ ready the monopoly of the engineer-managers, this task was more readily accomplished. Coupled with the requirem ents o f the capitalist mode o f production, and intensifying them , were demands generated by the large, m ultifunc­ tional, integrated industrial corporation. The im petus behind the cor­ porate consolidations at the end o f the nineteenth century was the attem pt by industrialists and financiers to check the ravages o f unre­ stricted com petition, to control production, stabilize prices, and secure m arkets. Once formed, the corporations concentrated their newly ac­ quired resources into giant plants in order to exercise some centralized control over m anufacturing operations. Such giantism , however, in­ volved a heavy capital investment in plant and equipm ent which could be profitable only if the facilities were utilized at full capacity. A nd such maximum use o f resources demanded, on the one hand, vastly ex•It has often been said that modern management was a necessary product of technologi­ cal development, that it was called into existence by the demands of large-scale produc­ tion. This is true, but only if it is understood that such technological development was itself an aspect of the development of the capitalist mode of production. Technical and capitalist imperatives were blended in the person of the engineer and converged in his work, engineering. The engineer designed his machines with profit and reduced labor cost as well as the quality and quantity of product in mind, and with the aim of transm itting management authority into the work process (usually described as merely the “transfer of skill** from craftsman to machine). As the father of modem management, the engineer simply extended his efforts beyond the machinery for the same purposes.

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panded and guaranteed m arkets to absorb the high volume o f goods produced, and, on the other, efficient control over the entire process o f production. Thus, the corporate empires, once they existed, required for their continued existence the rationalization o f total operations, from the extraction and supply of raw m aterials to the m arketing o f finished products. Only through such efficient management and adm in­ istration could they achieve the m uch-heralded “economies o f scale** which subsequently became the rationale for their existence. Business historian Alfred D. Chandler, who has studied these corpo­ rate imperatives and the efforts of corporate leaders to meet them , has found that The initial motives for expansion o r combination and vertical integra­ tion had not been specifically to lower unit costs or to assure a larger output per worker by efficient adm inistration of the enlarged resources of the enterprise. The strategy of expansion had come . . . from the desire to assure more satisfactory marketing facilities or to have a more certain supply of stocks, raw materials, and other supplies in order to more fully employ the existing manufacturing plant and personnel. Even after a combination had consolidated, its managers continued to think of control of competition as its prim ary purpose. Finally, many of the later mergers were inspired and carried out by Wall Street financiers and speculators, anxious to profit from promoters* fees, stock watering, and other financial m anipulations.4

Thus, it was only after the corporations had been established that the m odem management techniques which made them economically viable were adopted. “From the 1890*s on,** Chandler writes, “one of the basic challenges facing the industrialists was how to fashion the structures essential for the efficient adm inistration o f newly won business em­ pires.”* The men who were most prepared to meet this challenge were the analytically oriented engineer-managers in the large science-based cor­ porations. They pioneered in form ulating rationalized procedures in engineering, m anufacturing, finance, and m arketing; they quantified and systematized corporate operations, developing m ethods o f cost r accounting, statistical controls, forecasting techniques, and the proce­ dures for gathering and processing huge am ounts o f detailed, accurate I data to be used in appraising, planning, and coordinating the operations! of extended plant and personnel. Equally im portant, they created the form al adm inistrative structures for the giant corporations, with care­ fully defined lines o f authority and channels of comm unication through which to control the process of production.

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The efforts to organize and manage the capitalist labor process under corporate command, to increase productivity, cheapen labor, and se­ cure complete management control over production, led inevitably to what management called the “man problem .“ This was nothing m ore nor less than the resistance of the worker to m anagement’s expropria­ tion of his skill and the fruits of his labor, and to the gradual usurpation of his traditional authority over the work process. It took many form s —stubbornness, “soldiering,“ sabotage, physical violence, trade-union struggles, and radical politics—and was intensified by the sustained efforts of managers to stream line production and by the constant flow of “pre-industrial“ rural Americans and Europeans into the factory workforce. In all o f their work, m odem managers were ultim ately forced to focus upon this “man problem,“ to overcome w orker resistance to th eir designs. M oreover, after systematically stripping away all the im por­ tant incentives for diligent and creative work—the rew ards of crafts­ m anship, collective control over the production process, direct economic return for services rendered—these managers had somehow to m otivate workers, to get them to “put their hearts into their jobs,“ as W ickenden phrased it. This concern with w orker m otivation was central to management’s quest for increased productivity, since the degree o f worker commitment to a task was perhaps the most signifi­ cant factor in determining output. A nd the concern was made all the more urgent by a chronic labor shortage, most severe during the years before W orld W ar I, and a very high, costly rate o f labor turnover and absenteeism. “Employers were being forced,“ Reinhard Bendix has observed, “to concern themselves with labor as a problem rather than solve it by simply dismissing the worker who would not do.“6 M odem managers thus sought ways to elicit the cooperation o f the worker as they fitted him into the capitalist production process. They appealed to what they perceived to be his interests and, if th at failed, used force to achieve the discipline required. A t the same tim e, they stretched their analytical techniques to try to comprehend the workings o f this “hu­ man element of production” and to develop engineering techniques for controlling “its“ behavior. A w riter in the Review o f 1910 best ex­ pressed the spirit th at underlay this bold new engineering enterprise. When we engage the services of the human machine, we always have certain duties laid out which the newcomer is expected to undertake, and we try to get the best man for the place___ Now when we purchase a machine tool and find it slightly unfitted for requirements, we can

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usually make a change in construction which will correct the difficulty in it___ If the human machine could be controlled by the set rules that govern machine tool operation, the world would be a much different place.7

The last and least-recognized factor in the emergence o f modern management, the one which dram atically defined the nature of the first three, was the steady influx of engineers into executive positions in industry. Already by 1900 there existed a strata o f seasoned engineerentrepreneurs, men who, in transform ing their shops into th e engineer­ ing and m achine industry o f the tw entieth century, had become attuned to the exigencies o f management. In addition, the younger graduates o f the engineering schools were working their way up the new corporate ladders into im portant managerial and executive positions, particularly within the science-based electrical and chemical industries. M odern management was thus not simply the creation o f engineers; it was the product o f engineers functioning as managers. As the director of the Taylor Society later recalled, the first coherent public expression of concern with management prob­ lems came from the engineers. They were the initiators of the “manage­ ment movement” and it was they who continued to give it vigor. The first highly trained minds to go into industry were products of the engineering schools. They were trained as technicians and went into industry as technicians, but many of them speedily became operating executives and focused their trained minds on managerial problem s.. . ; the management movement arose out of the impact o f a group of highly trained engineering minds on an industrial situation of engineering complexity.*

The engineers were the first people in industry to attem pt to apply system atically the intellectual m ethods o f science to questions of busi­ ness management. It is for this reason th at the literature of the manage­ m ent movement between 1880 and 1910 is found exclusively in engineering journals, and that the same journals rem ained the prim ary forum for management m atters well into the 1920s (at which tim e management became an independent discipline with separate publica­ tions). In short, it ought not be surprising that as scientifically trained people became managers, management became m ore scientific. M odem management issued from the requirem ents o f m achine pro­ duction in a capitalist mode and provided the social basis for technical developments designed to reinforce th at mode. In essence, it reflected a shift o f focus on the part of engineers from the engineering of things

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to the engineering o f people. Although engineers had long influenced indirectly the way people worked, through their design o f the m eans of production, they now undertook to do so directly, through the design of social activity and, ultim ately, o f people themselves. This shift involved two overlapping, complem entary phases. The first, social engineering, was the conscious attem pt to exercise manage­ rial prerogatives through the medium of the workplace, through orga­ nization of the work activity of labor. The second, hum an engineering, was the movement to control the hum an element o f production at the individual and group level through the study and m anipulation o f human behavior. These two phases were but different approaches to the same end and were inextricably linked; advances in one required ad­ vances in the other. The social-engineering phase began in the m achine shops in the last years o f the nineteenth century in the form of “scientific management“ or ‘T aylorism .“ The most significant contribution o f the scientificmanagement movement, the one which had the m ost pervasive and lasting im pact, was to secure m anagerial control over the production process and lay the foundation for the system atic reorganization o f work. From the machine shops the principles of scientific management were carried over into electrical m anufacture (by men such as Dexter Kimball and Hugo Diemer) and chemical m anufacture (by A rthur Little) and ultim ately became the basis of works management in all industries. In addition, scientific management m ethods were extended into such areas as cost accounting, office work, and marketing; as the detailed, system atic approach to work design and efficient adm inistra­ tion, scientific management became and rem ained the foundation of modem capitalist enterprise. The original scientific-management approach to hum an engineering, however, was less than adequate. Taylor and his associates essentially viewed the worker as a simple, and simple-minded, “economic m an.“ Although they paid close attention to the details o f his work, the Taylorites relied upon elaborate, though psychologically crude incen­ tive-pay schemes to motivate him, or upon the pressures o f the labor m arket and the “shop disciplinarian” to coerce him into “voluntary“ cooperation. Moreover, the Taylorites steadfastly refused to deal with workers in association, as in the unions, preferring instead to concen­ trate on the worker as an individual. Eventually, however, in the wake of a trail of failures which pointed up these shortcom ings, the scientificmanagement movement spawned a revisionism which surfaced after Taylor’s death. The revisionists paid much closer attention to the psy­

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chological and social dimensions o f the w orker's being, and began to recognize the im portant role trade unions could play in achieving in­ dustrial stability. The emergence of scientific-management revisionism complemented the growth o f "welfare w ork" activities within industry. Concerned prim arily with easing the plight o f the worker in industry, the so-called welfare secretaries strove to "hum anize" industry, emphasizing the word "hum an" in their new phrase "hum an engineering." It was not very long, however, before such hum anitarian efforts were coopted by what was perhaps the most potent force in the higher management circles: corporate liberal management reform. The corporate reformers, with engineers prom inent among them , combined the ideals of the welfare secretaries with the more "realistic" contributions of scientific management and the nascent social sciences to forge a comprehensive, sophisticated approach to the problems confronting corporate capital­ ism. They determ ined to comprehend and meet the exigencies of corpo­ rate growth and stability through sophisticated elaborations o f the principles of scientific management, using them to control and antici­ pate complex affairs on a corporate, national, and international scale. They rem ade the innovations of welfare workers into elaborate indus­ trial-relations program s, to try to foster a spirit o f voluntary cooper­ ation among workers, to transform the energy o f potential conflict into a constructive, profitable force within a larger corporate framework. Finally, they shifted the emphasis in hum an engineering to the word "engineering," integrating the m ethods of the physical and social sciences to create the new science of "personnel m anagem ent." Starting within the plant, they eventually extended their activities into the homes and schools of workers, all the while refining their techniques to create a disciplined, loyal workforce for the corporate order. By W orld W ar I the revisionist current within the scientific-manage­ m ent movement had become dom inant and had converged with the m ore sophisticated mainstream of corporate liberal management re­ form. The convergence signaled the demise o f welfare work as an end in itself and the recognition by managers that social engineering and hum an engineering were but reverse sides o f the same process. A t the same tim e, it reflected an extension o f the engineer's province and an expanded perception of engineers; as engineers increasingly entered the ranks of management, engineering education was broadened to include m ore social-science and management training. For engineers in the tw entieth century, the machinery o f production had become a society o f people.

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Engineers, o f course, had always been professionally concerned w ith the social and economic problems relating to their technical work; they were regularly called upon to determ ine the viability o f a proposed project with regard to its estim ated cost and social consequences, in addition to the purely technical questions of whether, and how, it could be done. A t the same tim e, as project, shop, and production engineers, they were occupied with the day-to-day supervision o f “men” and sought effective means o f prom oting the discipline, m orale, and maxi­ mum output o f their workforce. Such considerations of the engineer, however, had always been external to the actual technical task and, as either means to or consequences o f th at task, were treated in a rather “unscientific,“ intuitive way. W hat was new with the emergence o f scientific management was that these considerations would now become, in the m ind of the engineer, integral parts of the engineering task, and subject to the same technical attention given the more m ate­ rial aspects. The proper use of m achinists and laborers, for example, had always been a problem for the engineer who supervised the shop, but his prim ary professional concern was the improvement o f the ma­ chines. Now the activity of the m achinists and the laborers would receive the same kind of attention form erly reserved for the machine. This new development meant two things: the hum an activity o f the shop would now be “engineered,” and the technical province o f the provisional engineer would expand to include the hum an along with the m aterial world. The expansion of the engineer’s province began in the late 1880s when a few prom inent engineers—Fred Halsey, Henry Towne, and others—delivered papers before the ASME on the technical problem o f wage incentives; interested prim arily in increasing the output per worker, these men developed elaborate pay schemes to m otivate the worker toward greater efficiency. W hile they m aintained that manage­ ment m ight be able to stim ulate the productivity o f workers in such ways, however, they nevertheless continued to place ultim ate responsi­ bility for any increase in efficiency with the w orker himself. O ther papers by Oberlin Smith, Henry M etcalfe, and Towne, presented around the same time, departed from this tradition: focusing upon the deliberate expropriation of the skills o f workmen by management, they shifted the ultim ate responsibility for efficiency, and the means of secur­ ing it, to management—as H. S. Person m aintained, “where it be­ longs.” W riting about such things as inventory evaluation o f m achinery and shop-order system of accounts, these men presaged a significant

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progression in the history of capitalism . Capitalism had already di­ vorced workers from ownership o f the means o f productive work and then reunited them through the profit-rendering m ediation of the capi­ talist; now it would sim ilarly divorce the workers from their own skill, their own traditional store o f knowledge, and likewise reunite them “m ore efficiently“ through the m ediation o f management.* The article presented by Henry Towne in 1886, entitled “The Engineer as an Econom ist,“ is generally considered to have been the first significant articulation of the scientific-management movement. In his paper, Towne, president o f Yale and Towne M anufacturing Company and a prom inent leader within the ASME, argued that “the management o f works is unorganized, is alm ost w ithout literature, has no organization or medium for the interchange of experience, and is w ithout associa­ tions or organizations of any kind----- The rem edy. . . should originate from engineers.” * The “rem edy,“ as it subsequently emerged, involved five successive and overlapping phases: (1) the accum ulation by management of all inform ation pertaining to both the machines and the hum an activity o f production, through the use of records and research; (2) the system ati­ zation o f this inform ation into comprehensible and applicable laws and formulae; (3) the “scientific“ determ ination o f optim um standards of perform ance for both machines and workers; (4) the “transference“ of this optim um “skill“ through the reorganization of the hum an and mechanical processes of production; and (3) eliciting the cooperation o f the workforce through the “development of contented workers.“ 10 All contributions to the development of scientific management have pertained to one or more o f these phases. Between 1890 and 1913 the *The rationalization of industry involved centralized planning, the basis of which was “the deliberate gathering in on the part of those on management’s side of all the great mass of traditional knowledge, which in the past has been in the heads of the workmen, and in the physical skill and knack of the workman, which he has acquired through years of experience.” Frederick W. Taylor, Scientific M anagement (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), p. 49. In the light of clearly stated objectives like these, it is not difficult to comprehend why the craft unions, which were grounded upon the monopolization of traditional skills, initially opposed Taylorism. Scientific management, however, was never completely successful in this regard, nor could it have been. Indeed, in encouraging later managers to rely exclusively upon management’s own resources, it prevented them from taking advantage of the full poten­ tial of the “human element" of production. For workers in all industries have retained a considerable store of skills and experience which they now keep to themselves or use to counter management directives. In forthcoming work, as yet unpublished, Katherine Stone argues that the introduction of “suggestion boxes” in plants constituted a tacit acknowledgment by management of this fact, a means of tapping this potent resource without at the same time forfeiting control over production.

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development o f the movement consisted prim arily in the elaboration o f the first four phases; after 1915 and the death o f Frederick T aylor, emphasis shifted to the fifth and, once again, to the worker himself. This tim e, however, the perspective had changed: the w orker was n o t to be rewarded for plying his own trade m ore efficiently; rather he w as to be encouraged, on the basis of “the most thorough comprehension of the hum an being,” to play the game as management called it, to become a member of the team. Frederick W. Taylor, a mechanical engineer from a well-to-do Phila­ delphia family, came to the fore of the management movement in 1895 with his paper describing his “differential piece-rate” wage system, and most forcefully in 1903 with his comprehensive system o f “shop m an­ agement.” Educated abroad and at Exeter Academy, Taylor had es­ chewed the study o f law at H arvard to become a laborer at M idvale Steel; within six years he had become chief engineer at Midvale, a m iraculous accomplishment were it not for the fact th at one of the company’s owners was a close friend of the Taylor family. As a gang foreman at Midvale, Taylor embarked upon his management career, seeking ways of eliminating “soldiering”—the restriction o f output by the workers. He began to gather inform ation about the most efficient way of doing certain jobs, and to compare this with the m anner in which it was actually done by the workmen in the plant; using his supervisory authority, he then tried to reconcile the latter with the former. The task o f the manager, Taylor found, was to gather into his possession all available knowledge about the work which he oversaw, to organize it, and to use it as the “scientific” basis for prescribing work activity; the task o f the workers, on the other hand, was “to do w hat they are told to do prom ptly and w ithout asking questions or making suggestions.” 11 Leaving M idvale in 1889, Taylor began his career as a “management consultant”; his most im portant work involved the reorganization of the m achine shops of the Bethlehem Iron (later Steel) Company. It was at Bethlehem that Taylor made his m ost significant advances in “scien­ tific” shop management; he gathered extensive inform ation about the optimum speeds, feeds, depths of cut, and cutting angles o f m achines such as lathes, planers, and millers; conducted the first studies o f proper belting and belt maintenance, and the optim um use and kind o f tools for certain tasks; and, with m etallurgist Maunsel W hite, developed the alloy “high speed” steel which “revolutionized m achine production” 18 by facilitating the use of higher m achine speeds and, thus, higher rates

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o f production. In addition to his study o f m achine processes, Taylor analyzed the actual work activity of the workmen in the shop, the necessary “m otions” and “tim e” involved in specific tasks, and the fatigue o f the workmen who did them . Beyond merely recording all this inform ation, Taylor sought to system atize it into a useful form for practical management. In this he was helped by his first associates in the scientific-management movement: Henry G antt drew up charts and tables o f inform ation, and the m athem atical wizard Carl Barth devised the famous “B arth slide-rule ” which allowed for the ready determ ina­ tion of m achine settings as a function of the quality of m etal used. T aylor's work at Bethlehem provided him with the groundwork for an entire system of management, one which involved all five phases o f the management problem. Through his study o f m etals and machine processes, he was able to determ ine the optim um use o f the machines in the shop; through his analysis o f the work activity and fatigue o f workmen he could determ ine the standards for their m ost efficient labor; and by the system atic form ulation of all this inform ation, he could allow for its ready application in any shop. Taylor then devised the means of, and medium for, the efficient reorganization of the shop: “instruction cards,” narrow division of labor, the system atic routing and scheduling o f work, and “functional forem anship” would be the mechanisms for the “transfer” of the “skill” collected and coordinated by the central “planning departm ent.” To ensure the cooperation o f the workmen—including the foremen, who had been stripped of much o f their authority—and to m otivate them to achieve the standards set by the planning departm ent, Taylor relied upon his improved incentivepay system; if this failed, he depended upon his new “shop disciplinar­ ian.” This system of “shop management,” presented to the world by Taylor in two papers delivered before the ASM E in 1903 and 1905, constituted the core of the scientific-management movement. Nearly all work by the Taylorites between 1900 and 1915 consisted in elaborations o f one o r m ore o f these phases. Among the best known were Sanford E. Thom pson’s tim e study and “decimal dial” stopwatch; Frank G ilbreth's m otion and “micromotion” studies and fatigue studies; G antt’s routing “charts,” and his “task and bonus” system o f incentive pay; Leon P. A lford's “management handbooks” ; and A lexander Ham ilton Church’s contributions to system atic cost accounting. Taylor claimed th at his system elim inated the arbitrary use o f authority and constituted the basis for a true “harm ony of interest” between the warring classes of capital and labor: the scientific means tow ard greater production and, thus, both higher wages and higher profits. The Taylor system, he

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m aintained, resting as it did on modern science, was beyond question. All men could do, workers and managers alike, was to accomm odate themselves to its scientific imperatives. Although he was not altogether original in his ideas, Taylor m ade a lasting im pact upon the industrial community simply because of who he was. As Lyndall Urwick has suggested, His prime importance lies in the fact that, for the first time, a “practi­ cal” man, an engineer of great technical distinction, was applying consciously to the whole process o f industrial organization the intellec­ tual methods responsible for the advances in the physical sciences which had made modern machine industry possible. Here was no outsider, no professor, but a man whom—ultimately—neither employ­ ers nor statesmen could ignore.19

A fter his departure from Bethlehem Steel in 1901, Taylor devoted all of his energies to spreading the gospel and relied upon his associates —Horace Hathaway, Hollis Godfrey, Dwight M errick, G ilbreth, and, most im portantly, Barth and G antt—to introduce the ‘T ay lo r system” to m anufacturers. Among the earliest im portant industrial concerns to adopt the system, in part or whole, were the Am erican Locomotive Company, Union Typewriter Company, Brighton M ills, Yale and Towne Lock Company, Cheney Brothers Silk Company, Plim pton Press, and the m ajor Philadelphia “dem onstration plants” o f the T abor M anufacturing Company and Link-Belt Company. Tabor was owned by a boyhood friend of Taylor’s, W ilfred Lewis, and by Taylor himself; Taylor had helped his friend out financially in return for the guarantee that his system would be adopted entirely. The Link-Belt Company was headed by the prom inent mechanical engineer Jam es Mapes Dodge, who had been one of the first m anufacturers to introduce “high speed” steel into his shops and was able thereby to double the rate o f his machines in one weekend. He discovered very shortly thereafter, how­ ever, th at the higher machine speeds necessitated the complete reorga­ nization o f the production process, that the work activity and organization of the plant had become the lim iting factors o f his opera­ tions, and he thus called upon Taylor and his associates to introduce their system o f management as well. Taylor’s success in convincing these leading industrial figures of the significance o f his system lifted him out o f obscurity. Through the efforts o f Towne and Dodge, both form er ASME presidents, Taylor became ASME president in 1906 and was charged with reorganizing the operations and publications of the association. By 1909 he had

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secured government contracts to introduce his system in the federal arsenals, and in 1910 the Taylor system, renam ed “scientific manage­ ment,** burst into national headlines as a result of the testim ony o f Louis Brandeis and leading management experts before the Interstate Commerce Commission’s hearings on the Eastern R ate Case. In glow­ ing term s, scientific management was offered to the world as the key to prosperity and the solution to industrial strife. As a scientific system, however, it had already begun to fall apart behind the scenes. Opposition to Taylor and his brand o f management formed along three fronts: among owners and m anagers, among both organized and unorganized labor, and, most im portantly for the present story, among engineers. Taylor had conceived his system in the machine shops o f large corporations—M idvale and Bethlehem—and saw it as a means o f extending the “shop culture’*authority o f the engineer to the corporate operations as a whole; the “planning department,** staffed by profes­ sional engineers, was at once the medium o f efficient corporate m an­ agement and the bulwark against com plete corporate-m anagerial usur­ pation of the engineer’s fading supremacy in the shop. Adoption of the entire system by a company m eant th at corporate management and labor alike would have to adhere to the dictates o f the engineers in the planning departm ent.14 It is significant, then, th at only two companies —Tabor and Link-Belt—allowed for the introduction of the whole system; Taylor’s attem pt to put it into practice at Bethlehem led to his dismissal by the management, and the attem pt to bring it to W atertown Arsenal prom pted a labor strike. Employers did not readily accept Taylor’s approach as an effective answer to trade-unionism , much less as an “answer** to corporate authority. W hen they did introduce scièntific management, they tended to do so not as a “system” but as an arsenal o f efficiency techniques, a way of stream lining production. Before 1911 Taylor and his associates had restricted their activities to shops with a minimum o f labor organization, o r none at all. O f the early band o f Taylorites only G ilbreth, who came to Taylorism from the building-construction industry rather than the shop, had real expe­ rience with trade unions. On the whole, Taylor and his associates had nothing but disdain for trade unions and viewed them as antithetical to the essential “harm ony o f interest” between capital and labor based upon increased productivity. They focused their attention upon the w orker as an individual, seeking to improve his efficiency through scientific standardization of his activity and incentive wage schemes, thereby to effect the collective efficiency o f all workmen. The workmen responded to Taylor’s rather authoritarian m ethods in various ways:

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the unorganized depended upon insubordination and sabotage;1* the organized used the strike. Between 1905 and 1912 instances o f worker refusal to cooperate with “tim e-and-m otion” man M errick were com­ mon, and union workers regularly walked out o f shops when scientific management was introduced. The American Federation of Labor, moreover, began an intense campaign against the system, which was viewed by the trade unions as a direct threat to worker control o f their trades; in 1911 the bubble burst with the spontaneous strike of the molders at W atertown Arsenal. The strike at W atertown, a government arsenal employing civilian union labor, led immediately to a full-scale government investigation of “the Taylor and other systems o f shop management.“ A fter extensive hearings, the investigators concluded th at scientific management, while an effective means of “working out details“ o f production and adm inis­ tration, was not designed to ensure the best welfare of the worker. Even Taylor’s dubious claim that his system demanded a “m ental revolu­ tion” on the part of managers no less than workers was not convincing in the light of much evidence to the contrary.16 The evidence of abuses uncovered by the inquiry, coupled with articulate and widespread labor opposition to scientific management, led to the banning o f Taylor m eth­ ods in the arsenals, in the Navy yards—on instruction o f the new Assistant Navy Secretary, Franklin D. Roosevelt—and in all govern­ m ent-funded operations by 1916. These restrictions remained on the books until 1949, when they were finally removed through the com­ bined efforts of Senators Ralph Flanders of Vermont, a form er presi­ dent o f ASME, and Robert Taft of Ohio, co-author of the Taft-H artley Bill. The strong labor opposition to scientific management and the gov­ ernm ent investigation of Taylorism led to more than the banning o f Taylor methods from government works; it signaled a m ajor shift within the management movement itself. The government investigation and the investigation of W atertown by M iner Chipman had revealed that scientific management was not nearly so “scientific” as Taylor had claimed. It was discovered, for instance, that the “tim e and m otion” experts frequently knew very little about the proper work activities under their supervision, that often they simply guessed at the optim um rates for given operations. This practice, of course, undercut the entire rationale of scientific management, for it m eant that the arbitrary au­ thority of management had simply been reintroduced in a less apparent form. The intense opposition to scientific-management methods, among both unorganized and organized labor, moreover, indicated to

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the m ore perceptive proponents o f the system—Chipman, H arrington Emerson, G ilbreth, G antt, Alford, and others—th at it failed to elicit the willing cooperation of workers as individuals, even with the use o f upgraded incentive-wage schemes, and th at it failed to meet the chal­ lenge o f labor in groups, the unions. Taylor's fellow engineers had been skeptical about the scientific pre­ tensions o f his system from the outset. There was considerable opposi­ tion within the ASME among men who preferred to consider management an "art" rather than claim it as a "science," and few engineers outside of the ASME had ever heard o f Taylor before 1910. Although Dodge and Towne had helped to get Taylor elected president of the society in 1906, they had never really convinced its membership that his management system was a science worthy o f the professional attention o f engineers. This became apparent when Taylor tried to elicit ASME endorsem ent for the statem ents o f Brandeis and the manage­ ment experts at the ICC hearings in 1910; he failed. He did succeed in having the ASME establish a committee to evaluate his system on its scientific m erit, but this effort backfired: the com m ittee also refused to endorse his scientific pretensions. "T he term ‘scientific management* has been generally and loosely applied to the new system and m ethods,” the comm ittee wrote. "This is commonly taken to mean that there is a science rather than an art o f management. A truer interpretation is that it means management using scientific m ethods----- ” Even Taylor's friend Dodge, who chaired the committee, ultim ately rejected the scien­ tific claims o f Taylor's system, on the grounds th at Taylor had used arbitrary definitions for the "average” and "first class" worker in stan­ dardizing his results, and that the large percentages added to the calcu­ lated tim e for a job to compensate for unavoidable delays in production had been arbitrarily determined. Taylor conceded to Dodge that there were still a few inexact elements in his system, as there were in all sciences, but argued that ultim ately all elements of industrial manage­ ment could be reduced to an "exact science." Dodge and his colleagues would not yield, however, and refused to have the ASME publish Taylor's Principles o f Scientific M anagem ent; that internationally fa­ mous tract had to be issued outside o f the professional engineering com m unity.17 For the engineers in the scientific-management movement the rejec­ tion o f the scientific pretensions of T aylor's system had two im portant consequences. First, it m eant that the m ethods already developed re­ quired further refinement, to elim inate room for error and artntrary judgm ent. Second, it indicated th at the mere transfer o f traditional

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engineering techniques to the social problems o f management would not suffice; the new hum an focus o f engineering required that th e discipline of engineering itself had to expand, to include the new m eth­ ods o f the social sciences. The rejection o f the pretensions o f scientific management, like scientific management itself, had been based upon too narrow a conception of “science.” Thom pson's "decimal dial" stopwatch and G ilbreth’s "m icrom o­ tion" studies based upon moving-picture films were the most im portant attem pts to elim inate error and arbitrariness from the Taylor system; both focused upon one of its weaker points, tim e-and-m otion study. Certainly the most vulnerable point, however, was Taylor's approach to the hum an problem o f worker m otivation. Relying exclusively upon incentive-pay schemes which mechanically linked pay to productivity, Taylor had no appreciation of the subtleties o f psychology o r sociology, and their possible use as management tools. Among the earliest of the Taylorites to develop such an appreciation were G antt, G ilbreth, and Chipman. The latter, in his investigation of the W atertown strike, noted that the workers had objected less to the tim e studies and piece-rate system as such than to the "m anner" in which these devices had been introduced. Chipman thus argued th at effective scientific management had to be grounded upon the “consent" of the worker; the worker had to be made to feel that he was participating in all management decisions that affected him. G antt had quite early found Taylor’s differential piece-rate system to be too harsh on the worker, and had thus developed his "task and bonus” system as a less severe substitute; rather than punishing a workman for not meeting standard rates, G antt’s system rewarded him if he did, and rewarded him more if he exceeded the rate prescribed. M ore than most of the other management engineers, G antt focused upon the worker, the "hum an factor," from the standpoint o f the impact o f the industrial organization upon him as a hum an being. "The one common element in all enterprises is the hum an elem ent," G antt maintained, and he accordingly sought, especially in his later years, to "hum anize" management by making it more flexible and m ore respon­ sive to the hum an needs of the workforce. Toward the end o f his life G antt combined this view of management with the orthodoxy of "plan­ ning departm ent" supremacy, which gave science priority over profit, and thus inevitably he became a spokesman for a technocratic radical­ ism .18 The single most im portant proponent o f a broader view o f the "hu­ man factor" within the scientific-management movement was Frank

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G ilbreth. G ilbrcth’s interest in m otion study led him to study the internal as well as the external causes o f worker m otivation; in his search for the “one best way,” he sought to identify the causes o f worker fatigue in the worker’s m ental disposition as well as in his working conditions. The most significant contribution G ilbreth made to the revisionist movement within scientific management, however, was his m arriage to Lillian M öller—Lyndall Urwick labeled the union “providential.” A psychologist by training, M öller fully appreciated the relevance o f the industrial psychology o f Hugo M unsterberg and W al­ ter Dill Scott to the problems of scientific management. It was through her, and only indirectly through her husband, that the tools o f indus­ trial psychology became the tools o f scientific management. Together the G ilbreths attacked the “scientific pretensions” o f Taylor’s system, and its authoritarianism , and sought to remedy its shortcomings through the use of the new social sciences. W ith their emphasis upon the welfare and training of the worker, they began to bridge the gap between scientific management and w orker psychology, and to bring the Taylor movement into closer contact with corporate liberal person­ nel m anagem ent.19 As one perceptive historian o f the movement has observed, Among the leaders of scientific management, a different tone was be­ coming recognizable. For some time prior to the war, the ideology of t h e . . . movement had been undergoing some subtle, but nevertheless significant changes. The emphasis placed by Lillian G ilbreth on “the human element” and the “psychology of management” reflected the beginnings of a shift of attention from the physical aspects of the job to the worker himself.90

W hen Taylor had argued, before the House Com mittee investigating his system, th at scientific management demanded a “m ental revolu­ tion” on the part o f both workers and managers, he was merely express­ ing a faith th at both would eventually recognize their m utual interest in increased productivity. Through the introduction o f industrial psy­ chology, however, Lillian G ilbreth had begun to render the manage­ m ent movement more capable o f actually effecting this “revolution.” A fter her husband’s death in 1924, she joined A. A. Potter and the D epartm ent o f Industrial M anagement at Purdue and continued her work within the realm of corporate liberal management reform. In addition to the reorientation o f scientific management tow ard securing the “consent” and “contentm ent” of workers, a parallel drive within the movement aimed at effecting the “m ental revolution” among

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managers: formai management education. Taylor viewed management education as heresy and nonsense; for all his scientific pretensions about objectivity in management, he firmly m aintained th at managers were bom , not made. As a result of Taylor’s antipathy, management educa­ tion emerged full-blown only after his death in 1915. The actual devel­ opm ent o f management education, however—a uniquely Am erican phenomenon—had begun as early as 1904; at that tim e, G .E.’s D exter Kimball began to offer his novel course in works adm inistration at Cornell’s Sibley College of Engineering—four years before such a course was offered at the H arvard G raduate School o f Business. A nd in 1909 Hugo Diemer, former production engineer at W estinghouse, established his course in industrial management at Penn State and published the first textbook on scientific management, Factory Orga­ nization and Adm inistration. Courses in engineering adm inistration, combining instruction in engineering and management, were begun a few years later, first at Carnegie Tech and then at M IT. By 1922 ten schools in the country were offering such instruction in the science o f management, and by 1932 the num ber had jum ped to thirty.21 The revisionist movement within scientific management was re­ flected also in a new appreciation of the im portance of “industrial relations“ to effective management. Recognizing th at labor unions were here to stay, farsighted management engineers began to attem pt the “mental revolution“ through cooperation with labor in groups and programs of industrial welfare. G ilbreth, with his experience in the highly organized building trades, was among the first to make the move, joined by such non-engineers as Robert F. Hoxie, Robert G . Valentine, and Harlow S. Person. The wartim e experience of others heightened their appreciation of labor-union cooperation; G ilbreth, Thompson, G antt, and Hathaway worked with such agencies as the Ordnance D epartm ent, the Emergency Fleet Corporation, and the United States Shipping Board, and M orris Cooke directed the laborrelations activities of the Ordnance D epartm ent throughout the war. The new positive approach to labor unions became the dom inant them e of the scientific-management movement after the war and led, through the efforts of such people as Henry Dennison, Lillian G ilbreth, Sam A. Lewisohn, D exter Kimball, and the influential editor of Industrial M anagement, Leon P. Alford, to the rapprochem ent between the m an­ agement movement and the A FL during the 1920s. The postwar activities of the scientific-management movement cen­ tered in three closely related organizations, which often held jo in t meetings. The oldest, the Society for the Prom otion o f Scientific M an­

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agement, had been started by G ilbreth and Cooke m uch against the will of Taylor, who preferred to work solely within the ASME. Renamed the Taylor Society after Taylor’s death, the society became a revisionist forum under the direction o f Harlow Person, with offices in the Engi­ neering Societies Building in New York—also the headquarters of the corporate-liberal Engineering Division o f the NRC. By the early 1920s the society had opened its membership to management people outside of the Taylor movement proper, and representatives from G E, D u Pont, W estern Electric, and AT&T began to take part in its expanded activities.28 In 1917, at the prom pting o f the chairm an of the A ircraft Production Board of the CND , Howard E. Coffin, the Society of Indus­ trial Engineers was formed to prom ote efficient management. Headed by such men as H arrington Emerson, the original “efficiency engineer,*' Dexter Kim ball, and J. W. Roe, management professor at NYU, the new society cooperated very closely with the Taylor Society and even­ tually merged with it in the 1930s. The third forum for scientific management was established in 1920 within the association where the movement had first begun, the ASME. Founded and directed by Leon Alford, the new M anagement Division of ASME also strongly embraced the flexible revisionist tendencies within the scientific-management movement and focused attention upon “industrial relations*' and “hum an engineering,’*the hallm arks o f corporate liberal management. Unlike Taylor’s earlier efforts along narrow er and m ore rigid lines, the division proved popular among member engineers and within two years became, and remained, the largest within the ASME. Thus all three agencies of the scientificmanagement movement reflected the new gospel o f revisionism. W hat was new to the Taylorites, however, was not really new; the scientificmanagement movement which began in machine shops during the closing hours of the nineteenth century had merely caught up to and merged with the most dynamic current in tw entieth-century corporate industry: corporate liberal management reform. Unlike the scientific-management movement, the corporate liberal reform movement was at no tim e the exclusive work o f engineers. The corporate engineers, however, contributed significantly to its develop­ ment, joining with other farsighted business leaders, bankers, politi­ cians, trade-union leaders, and academic social-scientists to try to forge a viable corporate order. Corporate liberal management was far more sweeping and flexible than scientific management in its attitude toward the problems confronting m odem capitalism . W hile sharing scientific

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management’s systematic approach to efficient enterprise and fetish for detail and organization, it viewed th at organization on a larger scale; whereas the Taylorist management experts confined their attention to the m achine shop, the foundry, o r the total operations of a single m anufacturing plant, the corporate liberal managers embraced the sprawling empires o f the giant corporations and, ultim ately, the society as a whole. A t the core of the corporate liberal management movement at all levels, as Wesley M itchell characterized it, was the twofold effort “to understand and utilize [the] economic forces which control business activity”*3 and the “psychological forces which control human be­ havior.” A t the level o f the individual corporation, the science-based indus­ trial reform ers rarely relied upon outside management consultants to stream line their far-flung operations. This did not mean, however, th at they failed to appreciate the im portance of rational management and adm inistration. Indeed, the corporate engineers who directed GE, D u Pont, General M otors, and a host o f other m am m oth enterprises were management pioneers in their own right. A t G E, for example, systematic management techniques were devel­ oped and practiced by such men as D exter Kim ball and E. W. Rice. Kimball, a mechanical engineer, m ade im portant contributions to sci­ entific management as the works m anager o f the Stanley Electrical M anufacturing Company (which became the Pittsfield plant o f G E) and, as professor and later dean o f engineering at Cornell, offered the first courses in an American university on the principles of scientific management and wrote some of the classic texts in the new field. Rice began his career as a student of Professor Elihu Thomson at Philadel­ phia’s Central High School and became the m anager of the ThomsonHouston company, where he system atized production. W hen Thomson-Houston became part o f G E, Rice became, successively, technical director, vice-president, and president, all the while prom ot­ ing rational, stream lined m ethods o f operation. The cafeteria system at GE, developed by Rice’s staff, indicates the enthusiasm with which this was done. In 1917 the staff applied “engineering principles” to the process o f providing food for employees and came up with an auto­ m ated system in which meals could be served to hungry customers in one m inute flat. The procedure was, in effect, no different from any other in the factory; indeed, it was apparently viewed as simply another aspect of the production process: the fueling o f the hum an machinery.

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Prom ptly upon the blowing of the whistle at noon four lines of men form in front of four cash registers to purchase their luncheon tickets. Few of us have ever had the opportunity of watching a cashier make change and sell 29 tickets per minute, yet this is the rate of speed at which each of the four cashiers operates. Anyone who hears the clang of a cash register bell every half second can appreciate how rapid must be the food distribution necessary to keep pace. A fter the men file past the cash register, they approach at right angles to the end of one of the four conveyor belts. Adjacent to the nearer end of the belt conveyor the ticket is exchanged for an aluminum tray which is laid on the conveyor belt. The belts travel at the rate of 65 feet per minute and allow 15 seconds for the custom er to select his food----By this time his tray is within five feet of the end of the belt, where the checker o.k.’s the contents of his tray. A fter removing his tray from the conveyor belt the diner takes it to his seat . . . ; many men have finished their luncheon by 12:10 and the process of removing the dishes begins immediately. At 12:10 service again begins in the restaurant.24

The man who probably made the most significant contributions to modern management at G E was G erard Swope. An orthodox Jew and son of a St. Louis m anufacturer of watch cases, Swope took a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at M IT and then joined the W estern Electric Company as a design engineer and sales representative. Be­ cause of his keen commercial sense, he soon became m anager of the St. Louis branch of the company. By 1913 he had become a director o f W estern Electric and vice-president in charge o f domestic commercial activities and all m anufacturing, engineering, and commercial activities abroad. A fter wartime service on the General Staff of the Army helping to plan the Army procurem ent program , Swope joined G E as the first president o f the International G E Company (the consolidation of all o f G E’s foreign operations). Three years later he succeeded Rice as presi­ dent o f GE. As head of the G E empire, Swope developed elaborate adm inistrative controls which enabled him to centralize authority and oversee G E’s ever expanding operations. Perhaps his most im portant contribution to G E’s growth was his initiation o f product diversification. Swope adopted this new policy to make full use of existing resources, particu­ larly the heavy investment in research and development, and to create a greater demand for G E’s prim ary line of products—electrical gener­ ating, transm ission, and control equipm ent. Before 1922 the only prod­ uct the company sold directly to the public was the incandescent electric lamp. By 1930 half of G E’s business was derived from products

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unknown to the public before 1919, including a wide range o f household electric appliances. In addition to his adm inistrative and commercial contributions, Swope initiated some far-reaching labor policies in an effort to secure the cooperation o f G E employees. As a young engineer-m anager at W estern Electric's Hawthorne plant, Swope had taught technical courses at Hull House and gained first-hand experience with industrial welfare work. In addition, he had studied business law with a leading corporate liberal lawyer, Louis D. Brandeis. A t G E he translated this experience into elaborate industrial-relations program s—life insurance, unemployment benefits, workmen’s compensation, pension plans, profit-sharing, and the like—designed to elim inate the most apparent evils o f industrial labor and encourage the loyalty o f corporate em­ ployees.85 W hat G E was to the electrical m anufacturing industry, D u Pont was to the chemical. Here the key figure was H am ilton Barksdale. The son o f a physician from a distinguished Virginia family, Barksdale gradu­ ated as a civil engineer from the University o f Virginia, and spent the early part of his career on river-development and railroad projects. His work on a railroad near W ilmington, Delaware, brought him into contact with the D u Pont family, and he soon thereafter joined the Repauno Chemical Company (which had ju st been set up by Lammot Du Pont and was independent of the D u Pont Company proper) and m arried the daughter o f Victor Du Pont. Barksdale quickly became an im portant m anager in the new company and began to devise his own "system of management"; in 1893 when Repauno became part o f the Du Pont Corporation, Barksdale was made its general m anager as a result of his management innovations. W hen, in 1902, the engineers Pierre S., Alfred I., and Coleman T. D u Pont bought the Du Pont Company and began to chart its new expansionist course, Barksdale was prom oted to director, vice-president, and de fa cto general manager of the entire Du Pont operation. As the cousins Du Pont embarked upon their program of acquisition and diversification, Barksdale sim ultaneously devised the adm inistra­ tive and m anagerial procedures needed to supervise, control, and stream line the enlarged, diverse enterprise. In all o f his adm inistrative work he emphasized the im portance of a rational, system atic approach to business affairs, from production to m arketing. He form ulated a theory o f adm inistration in which he stressed the need for clearly established guidelines and criteria against which to evaluate corporate progress; for the articulation of an overall “philosophy of manage-

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ment” to give direction to short-range policy-making; for the establish­ m ent o f adm inistrative “permanence” through the ongoing training o f “understudies”; and for flexible decision-making processes through the broad delegation o f authority, the group approach to management, and the continuous development and refinement o f adm inistrative skills. On the practical level, Barksdale put his theory into operation with the establishm ent of Du Pont’s Executive Com mittee and Development D epartm ent, the agencies through which top management could super­ vise corporate affairs and devise new m ethods for dealing with immedi­ ate and long-range problems. Barksdale introduced scientific works management as well. He ap­ plied system atic m ethods to the m anufacture o f explosives, introducing the carefully regulated flow of work, the scheduling o f m aterials, inven­ tory analysis, and the standardization and simplification of processes and products, and he carried these m ethods into the sales departm ent with the introduction of m arket analyses, a separate “statistical divi­ sion,” and the integration of m arketing and technical services. Like Taylor, he focused upon the work activity o f the individual worker, setting up a “labor efficiency division” to establish standards o f perfor­ mance, set rates, and devise incentive-pay schemes to elicit worker cooperation. Unlike Taylor, he recognized the stubborn complexity o f human psychology and anticipated the need for what he called “m oti­ vational researchers.”2* U nder the innovative leadership of Barksdale and his colleagues, Du Pont became one of the first corporations to adopt a strategy of diversi­ fication, prim arily through bold research and development activities, in order to make full use of surplus resources. In addition, D u Pont was among the first giant industrial corporations to develop a decentralized, multidivision adm inistrative structure to coordinate the diversified op­ erations. Perhaps Barksdale’s most im portant contribution to the devel­ opm ent o f management, however, was his training o f a group o f “understudies,” young ambitious engineers who would become m ajor figures in corporate management. Prom inent among them were Frank M cGregor, H arry Haskell, William Spruance, John Lee P ratt, and F. Donaldson Brown. M cGregor was an M IT engineer who chaired the subcommittee o f the Development Committee that made the initial proposals for the adoption of the decentralized structure. In his work he was joined by Haskell, a mining engineer and D u Pont vice-president (whose brother was president of the Repauno Chemical Company), and Spruance, a judge’s son with an electrical-engineering degree from Princeton and

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vice-president in charge o f production. P ratt was a University o f Vir­ ginia civil engineer like Barksdale and perhaps his closest disciple. A fter a short career at Du Pont, he became assistant to G eneral M otors founder W illiam C. D urant and helped to reorganize th at autom otive empire. Brown was an electrical engineer from VPI who joined Barks­ dale’s staff (and m arried his daughter) after a stint as general m anager at the Sprague Electric Company. Brown’s m ajor innovations were in finance, devising techniques and developing form ulae for relating the return on capital invested to the turnover of capital and to the volume o f sales as well as to profit. Breaking down company operations into component parts, he provided executives with an accurate standard against which to measure the perform ance o f each unit o f operation. As treasurer of Du Pont, he introduced sophisticated statistical con­ trols and economic forecasting m ethods with which to comprehend, anticipate, and manage the m ultifarious aspects o f corporate enterprise. In 1920, when Du Pont assumed ownership and management of Gen­ eral M otors, Brown joined its new president, Pierre S. Du Pont, as vice-president and participated in the reorganization o f th at stum bling giant.27 In addition to the D u Pont personnel who came to the rescue o f General M otors—Pierre S. Du Pont, Brown, and P ratt—there were a few men already at the autom otive company who understood the prin­ ciples of m odem management. Prom inent among them were two elec­ trical engineers, Charles E. W ilson and Alfred P. Sloan. W ilson, a graduate of Carnegie Tech, started out with W estinghouse and then joined Charles K ettering at Delco, where he helped design the electric starter m otor for automobiles. W hen Delco became part of the GM organization, W ilson began his climb up the corporate ladder. In 1940 he was made president of General M otors. The key figure at General M otors, o f course, was Sloan. Bom in New Haven, the son of a prom inent coffee and tea im porter, Sloan was an early graduate of the electrical-engineering departm ent at M IT (where he was a classmate of G erard Swope). A fter graduation, he joined the H yatt R oller Bearing Company, where as a draftsm an he helped to improve the billiard ball (made of the plastic invented by John Wesley H yatt) and develop the commercial use o f ball bearings. Recognizing the great role the H yatt company could play in the emerging autom o­ tive industry, Sloan persuaded his father to buy the company, with the result th at by 1897, at the tender age o f twenty-two, he became its president and general manager. As an indefatigable prom oter o f his company’s products, he became intim ate with the giants of the new

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industry and acquired a thorough training in all phases of the business: designing, engineering, production, sales, advertising, and executive management. In 1916, when D urant organized the United M otors Company (a consolidation of various parts and accessories m anufactur­ ers, including the H yatt company), Sloan was elected president Two years later when the United M otors Company became a part of the new General M otors Corporation, Sloan was made director and vice-presi­ dent in charge of accessories and a member of the executive committee. In that capacity, he began to form ulate a plan for reorganizing the corporation to coordinate all its diverse activities. In 1920, when Pierre D u Pont took over the reins, Sloan started to put his plan into operation with the assistance of Brown and P ratt and the encouragem ent o f the new president. Three years later he succeeded Du Pont as president and carried through the adoption of a m ultidivisional, decentralized structure.28 In addition to their work within the science-based electrical and chemical industries proper, the corporate engineers thus played a key role in carrying the gospel of m odem management into other indus­ tries. Paul Litchfield, an M IT chemical engineer, introduced systematic management at the Goodyear Rubber Company; Jam es Barker, an M IT graduate and onetime professor of civil engineering, joined with Robert E. Wood, a W est Point engineer and once assistant director of Du Pont’s smokeless-powder plant, and Theodore Hauser, an Iowa State electrical engineer, to devise a decentralized adm inistrative struc­ ture at Sears Roebuck; and Frank A. Howard, a George W ashington University engineer and patent lawyer, worked with Everett J. Sadler, a Naval Academy engineer, to sim ilarly reorganize Standard Oil of New Jersey.* N ot all of the corporate engineers, however, confined their management activities to individual corporations. Some broad­ ened their range even further, to embrace the “social mechanism“ as a whole.28 *By this point the reader may well be wondering where Henry Ford fits into the picture; it is a difficult question to answer. Although he worked as an engineer for Detroit Edison before entering the automobile manufacturing business. Ford—like Taylor but unlike most of the other men discussed here—was neither a college-trained professional engineer nor one tutored in science. Unlike Taylor, Ford laid the technological foundations for mass production more in the manner of a mechanical-minded inventor than as a propo­ nent of scientific management. Moreover, although he pioneered in industrial relations with his famous “sociology department,” he never fully shared the corporate liberal vision, preferring to prevent unionism at all costs, enforcing a strict puritanical code of behavior for his workforce to enhance its productivity, and raising the wage level to ensure its cooperation, loyalty, and ability to buy his cars. Ford, much more than many of his seeming colleagues, resists categorization. Omission of him here is thus by no means simply an oversight, but deliberate.

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By the turn o f the century, as corporations expanded to encompass a wide range of productive activity, they began to set up “planning departm ents,“ special executive committees, and research staffs to grapple with problems o f labor turnover, unemployment, m arket varia­ tions, production rates, long-range budgeting, and the like, problems which defied simple analysis and at the same tim e lay at the foundation of corporate economic viability. They began to pool their resources and establish collective research agencies, through various trade associa­ tions, in search of effective ways of understanding and coming to term s with the larger factors which determ ined their success or failure. It had become clear to many that the determ inants o f corporate health ex­ tended far beyond the isolated plant, or even an entire industry; that the factors ranged as far as the corporations themselves: nationally and globally. Harlow Person, the economist who directed the Taylor Soci­ ety during the 1920s, proudly proclaim ed the expanding field o f m an­ agement; in 1931 he embraced the entire scope of corporate activity, outlining the pyramiding factors upon which its stability depended. Stabilization of material forces is not sufficient; human relations must be stabilized; stabilization of production is not sufficient; merchandis­ ing must be stabilized. Stabilization of production and merchandising is not sufficient; general adm inistration must be stabilized. Stabilization of an individual enterprise is not sufficient; all enterprises in the indus­ try must be stabilized. Stabilization of one industry is not sufficient; all industries of a nation must be stabilized___ Stabilization of national industry alone is not sufficient; international economics must be stabi­ lized. Achievement of any of these ends is a step toward a more bal­ anced and harmonious industrial and social life; each end is but a means to another greater end.’0

This ever-widening perception o f the exigencies o f capitalist growth and stability prom pted corporate leaders to band together, to pursue governmental regulation, or otherwise to counter the vagaries of the competitive m arket. It compelled them likewise to seek m ilitary protec­ tion for their investments overseas, a constant cause for concern, and forced them to create research agencies for the collection and analysis of all data upon which corporate stability depended. W hile these under­ takings involved the participation of experts of various kinds—statisti­ cians, economists, and sociologists, for example—they were also the work of engineers, men with technical training as well as considerable breadth o f vision: modern management was no simple affair. Malcolm

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Rorty, M agnus Alexander, and H erbert Hoover were representative o f this new breed o f engineer. R orty was an electrical engineer who pursued an impressive career as a production man with the J. G. W hite Company and the New York Telephone Company, and as a research executive with the Bell Labs. His interests soon extended beyond the lim ited scope o f electrical engi­ neering, however, to statistics and economics. He conducted statistical studies o f various social problems for AT&T and in 1916 joined Wesley M itchell and M agnus Alexander in a m ajor study on the distribution o f income in the United States, a study which was interrupted by war service. Shortly after the war, R orty teamed up with M itchell and John R. Commons to establish the N ational Bureau o f Economic Research, Inc., an agency charged with conducting sweeping statistical analyses of the problems confronting the corporate order.31 D uring the 1920s the staff o f the NBER contributed significantly to the seminal studies of “recent economic changes'* and “recent social trends’*commissioned by H erbert Hoover. R orty served as president o f the NBER in 1922-3, in addition to being vice-president of AT&T and later president of the Am erican M anagement Association—vanguard o f the corporate lib­ eral management movement. M agnus Alexander was another electrical engineer with broad vi­ sion. A fter working as a design engineer at W estinghouse and GE, he branched out at G E to supervise the technical courses for collegegraduate engineers, to organize and direct the apprentice school, and to found the medical departm ent and safety committee. In addition, he began extensive statistical studies o f industrial accidents and produced the first comprehensive report on the cost o f labor turnover in the United States. In 1916 he collaborated with R orty and M itchell on the distribution-of-income study and, in the same year, founded the m ost im portant social-research agency at the disposal o f industry: the N a­ tional Industrial Conference Board. From 1916 until his retirem ent, Alexander directed its activities and, in this capacity, contributed as much as any single individual could to the corporate effort to compre­ hend and meet the challenges of advanced capitalism . Joining Alexander in that regard was H erbert Hoover. Despite the Depression-bom mythology which casts Hoover as a bungling conser­ vative, the truer-to-life characterization of this form er mining engineer as a highly intelligent and sophisticated corporate reform er has begun to emerge. A fter amassing a large personal fortune as a prom oter of mining ventures throughout the world, Hoover entered public life. D uring the war, in addition to directing the famous food relief pro­

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grams in Europe, Hoover contributed to the coordination of industrial resources under the auspices of the W ar Industries Board. Im mediately after the war, as president o f the progressive Federated Am erican Engineering Societies, he headed the famous W aste in Industry survey which placed much of the blame for industrial inefficiency upon m an­ agement. As Secretary of Commerce during the 1920s, Hoover com­ pletely reorganized the departm ent to meet the growing needs o f corporate industry, tirelessly prom oting voluntary industrial cooper­ ation and efficiency and the new government creed of service to indus­ try. As President, in addition to anticipating many o f the New Deal program s for fighting the Depression, Hoover commissioned the most comprehensive studies o f broad social change ever undertaken up to that time, the famous R ecent Economic Changes and R ecent Social Trends, to assess what had happened to Am erica in the tw entieth century. Finally, Hoover was the engineer's engineer; M orris Cooke described him as "the engineering m ethod personified.” In all o f his activities he served as a model of corporate engineering; as an inspired Charles M ann observed, Hoover’s accomplishm ents suggested “how engineers do what lawyers talk about.”92 The extended activities o f engineers in the shop, the corporate board rooms, and the various private research agencies and bureaus of gov­ ernm ent, undertaken to “understand and utilize the economic forces which control business activity,” reflected the ever widening horizons of engineering itself. So too did their increasing efforts, at various levels, to understand and utilize the forces underlying those “economic for­ ces” : the “psychological forces which control hum an behavior.” In this aspect of their work, the corporate engineers strove to eclipse the industrial strife th at challenged corporate stability, to effect a working “harm ony o f interest” between labor and capital by eliciting the willing participation of workers in their own exploitation. The corporate liberal management approach to the “man problem” was twofold. “Industrial relations” aimed at improving the lot o f work­ ers in order to win their cooperation and loyalty; “personnel manage­ m ent” aimed at the processing of hum an beings and the engineering o f hum an behavior through the incorporation o f the new tools o f psy­ chology and sociology within engineering. By the 1920s the form er had more or less collapsed into the latter to become “hum an relations,” the catchw ord for transform ing the stubborn “hum an factor” of produc­ tion into an efficient, adjusted part o f the corporate mechanism. The process o f instilling in employees and potential employees a motive o f

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selfless service, and restricting aspirations and hum an potentials to fit corporate-defined dimensions, involved reform both within and with­ out the industrial plant. Ultim ately, it led the corporate reform ers into the schools and homes o f employees to habituate and train students for industrial employment and stam p out such vices as drink, disorderliness, laxity, and radical politics. Industrial-relations program s derived historically from the "indus­ trial betterm ent" or "social welfare" movement which attained its peak influence during the first decade o f the century. M otivated by religious calling and noblesse oblige, welfare workers achieved a foothold within industry as "welfare secretaries" operating out o f "welfare depart­ m ents" on the periphery o f management. The welfare workers focused upon the plight of industrial workers and strove to improve their lot and to "uplift" them , through educational, cultural, medical, and recre­ ational services within the plant. N o particular preparation was re­ quired for welfare work, and among those who practiced it were people trained in nursing, medicine, architecture, domestic science, and engi­ neering; a considerable proportion, in addition, possessed no special aptitude beyond a devout need to help the "w orking poor." As indus­ trial employees, the most im portant contribution o f the welfare workers was their intense devotion to the worker as a hum an being, the first significant expression of such interest within m odem industry. W hile they were themselves responsible for the oppressive-sounding term "hum an engineering," they placed emphasis upon the word "hum an" rather than "engineering" and strove to "hum anize" the workplace and thereby ease the suffering generated by industrial capitalist develop­ ment. As the first real link between the company and the employee, who were being drawn further apart as industrial concerns expanded, the welfare workers injected into management a spirit o f human cooper­ ation which would remain. W elfare work as an industrial institution, however, came into disrepute by the second decade o f the century, owing to its paternalistic approach to labor problems, its self-righteous­ ness, and its vaguely “hum anitarian" rather than practical, businesslike orientation to the problems of industry. One company, for example, sought to "elim inate absolutely all the hysterical elements and ’charity phases’ so often found dom inating welfare work"; an industrial physi­ cian reported hearing the term "w elfare" referred to as "hell-fare";33 and one o f the largest coal operators in the country declared: " I hate those words, ’welfare work,* I wish they could be taken from the language."34 But this rejection of welfare work did not mean that

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industrial leaders had turned their back on the “hum an factor'* o r given up the task o f “hum an engineering.” Quite the contrary. The same coal operator taught English to his miners, taught their wives to make Am erican dresses, aided them in starting home gardens, gathered their children into kindergartens, and otherwise provided for their education and encouragement. He did not engage in such activities, however, out of a spirit o f charity or guilt-prom pted philanthropy; rather, like other industrial leaders, he had realized th at “hum an engineering” and “so­ cial uplift” were im portant new m ethods o f good, profit-making busi­ ness practice. “Industrial relations,” in Leon A lford's definition, “comprises that body of principle, practice, and law growing out o f the interacting hum an rights, needs, and aspirations o f all who are engaged in or dependent upon productive industry.” From a different perspective, that o f Thorstein Veblen, it constituted “w hat business men may be expected to do for cultural growth on the motive o f profits.” * By means of industrial-relations activities, corporate liberal reform ers tried to win the friendship, or at least the loyalty, o f workers, and to effect industrial stability—the sine qua non of future profits. The Ford M otor Com­ pany, for example, found by 1916 th at “all this investm ent, profit sharing, factory environm ent, com fort, educational work, looked at from the cold blooded point o f view o f business investm ent is the very best investm ent it has ever made.” Similarly, the General Electric Company noted th at “the principles and m ethod” o f its M utual Benefit Association—a group insurance program created for employees at Lynn in 1902—“develop contentm ent among the members, and rela­ tions o f m utual loyalty between the employees and the Works* manage­ m ent.” “Industrial relations” variously involved recognition o f organized labor and collective bargaining, profit-sharing, company ♦That Veblen was closer to the mark is made clear in an early lecture by Erwin Schell, professor of engineering administration at MIT. Addressing his students on the trends in management, Schell had this to say about industrial-relations programs: “The accident prevention movement, which endeavors to maintain the employee in a safe working environment, has shown a definite return in the reduction of compensation insurance rates. The value of the company doctor, the industrial dentist, the visiting nurse, and the first aid equipment has been measured definitely in the reduction of absenteeism. The favorable results obtained from good lighting, heating and ventilation and from whole­ some foods served in company restaurants and lunch rooms have been reflected in terms of shop production. The solution of transportation and housing problems, the develop­ ment of shop publications, the introduction of group insurance and m utual benefit plans have proved their worth in many cases by the attending reduction of labor turnover." Lecture One, “The Trend in Management,” Course Record in Business M anagement (1920), p. 5, M IT Archives.

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magazines, insurance program s, pension plans, safety reform , work­ m en's compensation, "shop com m ittees" for "joint control," and, espe­ cially after the war, restricted work hours and the "living wage." It also carried over such aspects o f the industrial-betterm ent movement as gardens, restaurants, clubs, recreational facilities, bands, and medical departm ents.98 There were im portant instances o f engineer participation in a num ­ ber of these areas. Majpius Alexander, for example, chaired the Massa­ chusetts commission on old-age pensions and sat on the five-man commission on workm en's compensation—one o f the first in the coun­ try; H. F. J. Porter, a prom inent m echanical engineer, established the first "representative shop com m ittee" to allow for "w orker participa­ tion" at the N ernst Lamp W orks o f W estinghouse in 1903; and John Henning, a mining engineer in Louisiana, instituted the first voluntary workmen’s-compensation plan in 1904. Probably the most significant contribution o f engineers to industrial relations, however, came in the area o f industrial safety reform. Engineers, as line managers on the production floor and designers o f machines, were acutely attuned to the problems o f industrial safety. One fifth o f the members o f the advisory comm ittee of the New York Commission on Industrial Safety were engineers, and the ASME pioneered in the form ulation of industrial safety codes. Engineers also played an im portant part in the creation of a national agency for safety reform , the N ational Safety Council; the founding convention of the National Safety Council, held in Milwaukee in 1912, was conducted under the auspices of the Association o f Iron and Steel Electrical Engineers.96 A t the first N ational Safety Council convention, one of the speakers observed th at "the subject of accident prevention is one which has, during the past two years, become to nearly all large m anufacturers and to a great num ber o f sm aller ones, as im portant as the question o f output."97 The cause for this concern is not hard to guess; as Alford explained, "about 1910 American juries began to aw ard large sums in suits for personal damages, where the plaintiff had been injured by m achinery or otherwise in industry."99 Increasing costs to industry in the form of damage suits constituted another area of waste. No one better appreciated this than M agnus Alexander, who spoke on "T he Economic Value o f Industrial Safety" at the founding convention of the council. Drawing upon his own experience as chairm an of the safety comm ittee at G E, Alexander argued th at "the employer . . . should have economic considerations, as well as hum ane considerations as the impelling force for establishing safe and sanitary working conditions.

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To the employer, in the long run, it is far cheaper, besides being m ore hum ane . . . to prevent an accident than to pay for the consequences of such an accident.** W hile he recognized the economic implications of the safety movement, moreover, he fully appreciated that it was a “movement of education,’’ one means among many to effect harm oni­ ous industrial relations. His closing rem arks at this convention consti­ tute a classic statem ent of the corporate liberal approach to social reform: if the corporations do it voluntarily, it gets done their way and they enjoy the “applause o f the masses'* and a degree o f social harmony; if the corporations don’t do it voluntarily and there is a demand for it, it will eventually be forced upon them by a hostile society not particu­ larly concerned with corporate welfare. And one more thought; the regrettable thing to me is, and I want to throw out this thought because it has its bearing on many sim ilar things that are in the making just now, it is a regrettable fact that, barring a few notable exceptions, our employers throughout the United States did not get very busy on this im portant m atter of accident prevention and safeguarding until they were forced by legislation. W hat they might have done voluntarily, and should have done voluntarily years ago with the applause of the masses . . . would . . . have prevented a great deal of hostile legislation. Gentlemen, bear that in mind, because there is a great deal in the relation of employer and employees in improving the welfare of our employees that our employers ought to do and must do, and unless they wake up and go to work and do it soon voluntarily, with all the wonderful effect that it will have on such relationship, legislative action will force them-----*•

Industrial-relations measures constituted an indirect attack upon the “man problem*'—the root cause, in the eyes of industrial leaders, of social instability. R ather than focusing directly upon the worker as an object for study, they aimed at improving the external conditions o f his daily life, on the assum ption th at better living and working conditions would render him m ore cooperative, loyal, and content, and, thus, more efficient and “level-headed.” Industrial relations, then, was the means by which farsighted industrial leaders strove to adjust—or to give the appearance o f adjusting—industrial reality to the needs of workers, to defuse hostile criticism and isolate irreconcilable radicals by making the workers* side of capitalism m ore livable. The other corporate liberal approach to the “hum an factor,” “personnel manage­ m ent,” was considerably m ore direct in that it focused upon the worker

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himself, individually and in groups, as an object o f scientific investi­ gation and control; it was here th at the corporate engineers made their m ost im portant contribution to the solution o f the “man prob­ lem.” Personnel management involved two interdependent aspects o f “hu­ man engineering” : employment management, the increasingly scientific attem pt to m otivate and utilize efficiently the hum an m aterial of indus­ try; and industrial education, the system atic habituation and training of the working population for optim um corporate service. It emerged in response to a num ber of historical developments which came to the fore in the early part of the century. One of these, of course, was the obvious disenchantm ent of a large segment of the population with the conditions of industrial life, a growing sentim ent stemming from the loss of control over its own productive labor. Just as im portant was the expansion of the corporations. As companies grew in size, the ranks o f employees naturally swelled proportionately and became ever more removed from the immediate purview o f the central management. The application of scientific-management techniques aggravated this prob­ lem because, as M alcolm R orty noted, it rendered “practically all types of business and industry . . . open to efficiently large-scale corporate control.” The expansion of the corporations demanded m ore effective personnel procedures through which to manage the growing arm ies o f employees. (From another perspective, it m eant also, as R orty ob­ served, th at “the young man o f capacity and intelligence will have to look forward m ore than ever before to a career in which he will con­ tinue throughout to be a subordinate worker in a large corporate orga­ nization.”40) Personnel management emerged to confront head-on the task o f refashioning the living part of industry—from the laborer to the lawyer —into a coordinated industrial army. Its rapid development during the first two decades of the century prom pted Wesley M itchell to observe th at by the 1920s what characterized Am erican industry was “not only more production per man, more wages per man, and m ore horse-power per m an,” but also “m ore management per m an.”41 Personnel manage­ ment was “hum an engineering” with emphasis on the word “engineer­ ing”; the reverse of industrial relations, it aimed at the adjustm ent of the workers to meet the new industrial needs o f corporate capital­ ism. Engineers, who had had so large a hand in shaping corporate indus­ try, were, as production and corporation-school managers, among the

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earliest to undertake this new task.* The personnel-management move­ m ent evolved out of the industrial-welfare departm ent and the corpora­ tion school and thus involved both “uplifting” die workers and educating them for more useful industrial service. W hat distinguished it from its sources was the new emphasis upon, and perception of, the worker as an object of scientific study and control. The employment m anager of the N orton Company, home o f one o f the country’s first employment departm ents, explained w hat the new “hum an engineer­ ing” entailed: It seems to be very largely a question of knowing or judging what given individuals or groups of individuals will do under a given set of condi­ tions, and knowing from experience what people have done under such circumstances, provide suitable means so that the circumstances and what follows from them may go along the line which will bring the greatest profit to the company employing the men.4*

The task o f “hum an engineering,” then, appeared to differ little—in the view of early practitioners—from “the m ore m aterial forms o f engineering.” It sim ilarly consisted in the prediction of behavior based upon careful observation, and the determ ination and creation of the conditions necessary to produce a desired end. T hat end, moreover, remained essentially the same: profit—only in this case the behavior o f hum an beings rather than physical m aterials would become the object of attention, the means to that end. Underlying this new “branch o f engineering,” therefore, was the assum ption, the faith, that, as one m ore recent believer phrased it, “Deep as they are, the factors th at ’make a man tick* can be described and analyzed with much o f the precision th at would go into the making o f dies for the side o f a Sherman tank.”43 It is thus not at all surprising th at engineers, people with considerable experience in the use of scientific procedures, “the handling o f men,” and the employment o f personnel, should undertake this new challenge to their discipline. “The hum an element o f labor is a challenge to the engineer,” the managing editor of the Engineering News-Record wrote in 1918: ’ Surveying the experience of American employers in dealing with the "human factor in industry,” two executives of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company observed in 1920 that four organizations dominated the field on the national level: the NACS, the National Safety Council, the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, and the National Employment Managers’ Association. The first three were organized at the initiative of engineers, and the fourth involved a fair degree of engineering participation as well. Lee K. Frankel and Alexander Fleisher, The Human Factor in Industry (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1920), p. 14.

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He has applied the laws of physics to produce efficient machines---He must now step in—not as a welfare worker, not as a sociologist, but as an engineer—to help labor find its place in the production scheme. Cannot scientific analysis resolve the causes of maladjust­ ment which threaten the life of our institutions? Cannot the engineer­ ing mind reorganize the human elements of production as it has already done with the mechanical and material elements to secure ef­ ficiency?44 The employment-management movement, as it was called by those who participated, began late in the first decade o f the century, largely in response to newly identified causes o f industrial waste—the increas­ ing rates o f labor turnover and absenteeism. It developed rapidly during a period o f intense labor shortage before, during, and after the war, and lost momentum after 1921 in the wake o f business stagnation and a glutted labor m arket. By that time, however, it had already provided industry with a hitherto unknown arsenal o f hum an engineering tech­ niques—psychological and trade tests, job analyses, personnel records, rating scales, system atic training, etc.—and, m ore im portant, with w hat Henry Dennison term ed “a habit in the business m ind of consider­ ing personnel m anagem ent,. . . the serious project o f hum an engineer­ ing, . . . as a difficult, distinct, and m ajor function o f business m anagem ent.” By 1923, the organizers o f the new American Manage­ m ent Association had clearly adopted th at habit. In their statem ent of purpose for the new organization, they noted with some urgency th at “the day when Am erican management can afford to treat the hum an factor as ‘taken for granted’ has gone by and today emphasis m ust be laid on the hum an factor in commerce and industry and m ust apply to it the same careful study that has been given during the last few decades to m aterials and m achinery.”45 “No other line of development in industrial relations,” Leon Alford noted in 1919, “has had the rapidity of growth o f employment manage­ m ent.” The “impelling motive” behind such growth, however, he added, “has not been entirely th at of fostering good industrial rela­ tions----- The m ajor reason in the m inds o f m ost industrial executives in establishing employment departm ents has been to secure employees during the period of labor scarcity and to find out why men leave.” Such problem s were certainly real for employers; by 1917, one social historian has discovered, “workers improved their incomes as much by moving from job to job as they did by striking. It was common for workers to accept six to eight jobs in a single day o f searching, then to report to the most promising one.” A contem porary economist ob-

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served that an annual factory turnover rate “o f 1,600 to 2,000 per cent was by no means phenomenal.“46 As early as 1907 W estinghouse engineer H. F. J. Porter had pointed out to an attentive ASME audience the “evils o f labor turnover“ as a cause o f industrial inefficiency. It was not until 1913, however, th at a G E engineer, M agnus Alexander, produced the first statistical study o f the problem , documenting its im pact upon industrial efficiency. A n­ other m ajor study, which outlined the most prom ising means of han­ dling the turnover problem—“hiring and holding,“ as it was term ed— was made a few years later by Boyd Fisher. A vice-president of the D etroit Executives* Club, a group of engineer-minded leaders of the nascent autom otive and related industries, and later service m anager o f the Lockwood Greene Engineering Company, Fisher devised a cost system for recording the waste incurred by unnecessary hiring and firing, and pressed for such remedies as care in hiring, testing of appli­ cants and employees, application files, and better working conditions. “A list o f men required for the year's predicted production," he argued, “should be ju st as much a part of the engineering departm ent's specifi­ cations as the blue-prints and the routing.“ * In addition to these inplant procedures, Fisher argued for “the extension o f factory influence into the whole life of the worker"—an innovative notion which he attributed to Henry Ford. Noting th at “eighty per cent o f the causes of labor turnover lie outside the plant,” Fisher urged th at the employ­ m ent m anager m ust become a “co-partner with the teacher, the minis­ ter, the social worker in the business o f reforming m en." Pointing out that in D etroit the vice-president of Ford M otor Company had become police commissioner and an executive o f D etroit Edison was president of the school board, Fisher boasted th at “it wasn’t Billy Sunday, it was the employers of M ichigan th at put the state in the prohibition column. They wanted to remove the saloon on the route between home and factory." As early as 1916 Fisher had thus outlined the broad scope o f employment-management activities. A colleague in this effort, the em*In his lectures at M IT, Professor Schell, an engineer himself, referred to employment management as “labor maintenance” similar to other types of industrial maintenance functions. “Prior to the coming of the employment manager, the manifold tasks pertain­ ing to the maintenance of funds, of buildings and equipment, of machinery and tools, of materials and supplies, of standards, of records and statistics, and of product demand were given to trained experts for accomplishment. These duties deal with things. The function of labor maintenance deals with men and is therefore the only activity which, when improperly conducted, weakens and endangers the control structure of the produc­ tion executives who conduct the fundamental activity of the industry.” Course Record in Business Management, 1920, M IT Archives.

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ployment m anager of the General Railway Signal Company of Ro­ chester, suggested additional responsibilities. These included the prepa­ ration o f adequate job specifications; the introduction o f new em­ ployees; conducting follow-ups on employees; keeping adequate records o f all personnel procedures; rendering final decisions on all disputes, discharges, prom otions, and transfers; studying earnings of all employees and labor turnover rates; investigating the causes of absen­ teeism and term inations of employment; and supervising the instruc­ tion of all employees. Above all, he added, the employment manager m ust “aim to give the plant a good name.**47 B. F. G oodrich established the first employment departm ent in the country, at Akron in 1900, and during the next decade many o f the nation’s m ajor companies followed suit. In these cases the employment departm ent was intim ately related to the “educational departm ents’* which adm inistered the corporation-school activities o f the company. Thus, J. W. D ietz of W estern Electric, Channing R. Dooley of W estinghouse, A lbert Vinal of AT&T, M agnus A lexander of GE, and M ark M. Jones of Thomas A. Edison, Inc, were all involved in the development o f employment management in their respective companies. The corpo­ ration schools, which trained graduate engineers as well as apprentices, were am ong the earliest departm ents o f management to utilize proce­ dures such as testing, record-keeping, job specifications, etc., which ultim ately came to be used for all employees. In addition to the large corporations, many sm aller concerns, particularly those most in­ fluenced by scientific management—Yale and Towne, Dennison M anu­ facturing, N orton Company, Cheney Brothers, Plim pton Press, and C urtis Publishing Company, for example—were among the earliest to set up employment departm ents.48 A round 1910 the first two local employment-managers’ associations were established, independently of each other, in Boston and D etroit. The form er was an offshoot of the Vocational Bureau of Boston* and •The Vocational Bureau had been founded two years earlier by engineer Frank Parsons, the 'father of vocational guidance.” Parsons viewed human material like any other. In his book Our Country’s Need, or the Development o f a Scientific Industrialism, he wrote: "Life can be moulded into any conceivable form. Draw up your specifications for a dog, or man . . . and if you will give me control of the environment, and time enough, I will clothe your dreams in flesh and blood.. . . A sensible industrial system will seek to put men, as well as timber, stone, and iron, in the places for which their natures fit them, and to polish and prepare them for efficient service with at least as much care as is bestowed upon clocks, electric dynamos, or locomotives." Quoted in Joel Spring, Educa­ tion and the Rise o f the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), pp. 92, 93.

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included representatives from such firms as G E, Cheney Brothers, Dennison M anufacturing Company, and N orton Company. The latter, a special comm ittee of the D etroit Executives’ Club, included m anagers from Ford, Studebaker, Packard, Dodge Brothers, M ichigan State Telephone Company, and Saxon-Solvay Company. By 1917 there were ten such associations on the local level, representing one thousand business concerns.* In all of these associations, engineering-oriented companies tended to dom inate the proceedings. F or the first few years the associations cooperated through common membership in trade associations, and after 1913 through the NACS, which served as a clearinghouse for all employment as well as educational activities o f member concerns. In 1917 employment m anagers assembled at the University of Pennsylvania to establish a national organization for employment-management activities exclusively; dom inating the confer­ ence were the leaders of the employment-managers movement in the United States, men like Alexander (G E), Fisher (D etroit Executives* Club), John Bower (W estinghouse), L. B. Ermeling (General Railway Signal Company o f Rochester), Henry Dennison (Dennison M anufac­ turing Company), and scientific management revisionists M orris Cooke and Ordway Tead. Clarence H. Howard, president o f the Common­ wealth Steel Company, voiced the keynote of the conference. “The most im portant engineering course today,” he declared, “is hum an engineering.” A nother conferee, and a fam iliar member o f the NACS, was Professor W alter D ill Scott, whose presence reflected the growing interest in applied psychology as a management tool, an interest m ost pronounced at AT&T. Professional psychology was first applied to industry in the realm o f advertising by Scott and his associates as early as the late 1890s. By 1913, a m ore comprehensive form ulation of its utility in personnel management had been offered by Professor Hugo M unsterberg o f H ar­ vard. According to M unsterberg, a keen observer of the scientificmanagement movement in industry, psychology could be used to detect “those personalities which, by their m ental qualities, are especially fit for a particular kind of economic work” ; ultim ately, he argued, its use could lead to “overflowing joy and perfect inner harm ony” throughout *Among these were the associations.of Chicago (Sears, Commonwealth Edison, Armour, Marshall Field, etc.); Newark (Thomas A. Edison, Inc., Western Electrical Instrument Company, Hyatt Roller Bearing); New York (New York Edison, ATAT, Macy’s); Philadelphia (Curtis Publishing Company, Strawbridge and Clothier, American Pulley Company); and Rochester, New York (Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, Taylor Instruments, and General Railway Signal Company).

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the realm o f industry. M unsterberg had drawn upon the testing tech­ niques o f Alfred Binet and had established testing procedures at the Boston Elevated Railway Company, AT&T, and the American To­ bacco Company in an effort to solve their labor-turnover problems. A t the request of a consultant engineer, Scott joined the work at American Tobacco and, in addition, developed testing program s at W estern Elec­ tric, the N ational Lead Company, and other firms. E. L. Thorndike, another pioneer in applied psychology, did sim ilar work for the M etro­ politan Life Insurance Company. In 1915 the Carnegie Institute o f Technology established the country’s first center for such industrialservice activities, headed by Scott, Thurstone, and W alter Bingham, and it carried on testing work for such companies as W estinghouse, Burroughs Adding Machine, Carnegie Steel, and Packard M otor Car. D uring the w ar the Carnegie group played a m ajor role in the creation and operation of the CCP in the Arm y, the Psychology Division of the NRC, and the CEST, and after the war it contributed to the establish­ m ent of the Personnel Research Federation.49 From the outset, industrial psychology, as form ulated by M unsterberg and practiced by Scott and his associates, had been influenced by the management work of engineers. As one of the few historians of the subject has observed, “scientific management not only conditioned the industrial clim ate for the psychologists, it determ ined to a large degree the direction, scope, and nature of psychological research. The engi­ neers raised most of the problems with which the later psychologists grappled, and m ore im portant, scientific management gave to industrial psychology its purpose, its ethic.’’ Both the revisionists within the Taylor movement and the leaders o f the corporate liberal management movement viewed industrial psychology as the solution to their “hu­ man factor” problems.* A t the same tim e, in their enthusiastic adop­ tion of its techniques, they informed it with their own particular management orientation; industrial psychology and management merged very early in the history o f both. Addressing the representatives o f the most management-minded and science-minded companies in the *It is not hard to guess why the engineers so readily adopted the behaviorist approach proffered by the industrial psychologists and later sociologists to select, classify, and motivate workers. It minimized the significance of the major characteristic distinguishing society from nature, people from things—human consciousness, rational purpose; it enabled the engineers to study the human being as if “it” were animated by hidden laws of behavior, laws not altogether different from those which regulated physical bodies. The engineers appropriated the findings and methods of the psychologists with such en­ thusiasm simply because these enabled them to manipulate people without appeal to reason. {Continued, p. 298)

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country, therefore, Scott had little difficulty prom oting his wares. “W hen the employment departm ent becomes, as it should, the pivotal departm ent in our commercial and industrial organizations,“ Scott declared, “every position will be looked upon, not merely as a produc­ tive unit, but also as a place for training and for testing for m ore responsible positions-----If this group o f employment managers is really to become professional, I think it m ust be because you do w hat other professions do, you utilize all that science has available for you at the tim e.”*0 The Philadelphia conference appointed an organizing com m ittee charged with the creation of a national group, and the declaration o f war caused them to redouble their efforts. In the m idst o f a serious labor shortage, there was now an unprecedented demand for labor in m uni­ tions plants, war-supply industries, and shipbuilding. The war at once dram atized the need for efficient personnel management and precipi­ tated the “marvelous expansion,” in Alford’s words, o f the personnelmanagement movement. M orris Cooke, chairm an o f the Storage Committee o f the CND and later head o f labor relations for the O rd­ nance D epartm ent, immediately recognized the needs and opportuni­ ties which the war had generated. Early in 1917 he suggested that the government arrange for the establishm ent of employment-management training courses in the country’s colleges, to prepare men for wartime personnel work. The Army, Navy, Ordnance D epartm ent, Q uarter­ m aster Corps, and Emergency Fleet Corporation all welcomed the Whereas Taylor, for all his shortcomings, relied upon the reasoning ability of his subordinates to see the value to them of scientific management—and disciplined or dismissed them if they failed to see it—his more sophisticated successors, while claiming to deal more directly with the human factor, in reality sidestepped it altogether. Ignoring the consciousness of the worker—which they came to view as merely epiphenomenal, symptomatic of underlying drives—they focused upon the unconscious, irrational under­ pinnings of human behavior. "It is dear,” Professor Schell lectured his students, "that if we are to usefully interpret human behavior we must appreciate that it is actuated by many forces other than those of reason.” "Men do not live by logic alone,” Wickenden wrote in 1923. “The student engineer must get some understanding of the complexities that lie back of human psychology," Joseph Willets of Wharton School argued in 1926. 'T h e student should learn not to expect rationality in human responses." The purpose underlying this fascination with worker psychology was made clear by Professor Schell: "If the executive acknowledges the presence of these instincts he may find explanation for many occurrences which are otherwise mystifying. He may also learn to use them in inciting desired behavior, in organizing group will." Joseph Willets, discussion in The Teaching o f Labor Relations in Engineering Schools, An Inform al Conference o f Engineer­ ing Educators at the Home o f Sam A. Lewisohn (privately printed, 1931), MIT Dewey Library. William Wickenden, “The Engineer as a Leader in Business,” SPEE Proceed­ ings, XXXI (1923), 113. Erwin Schell, Course Record in Business Management, 1920,

MIT Archives.

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suggestion and appointed Boyd Fisher of the D etroit Executives* Club — now a captain in the Ordnance D epartm ent—to take charge o f the courses. Emergency Training Courses for Employment M anagers were subsequently established at the University o f Rochester, H arvard, Co­ lumbia, University of Pittsburgh, University of W ashington, and Uni­ versity o f California to provide this necessary service.*1 In May 1918 the first class of “students” graduated from the Univer­ sity of Rochester. This first course, Secretary o f W ar Baker noted, had been conducted “w ithout cost, either to the government or to the students, and had been taught prim arily by representatives o f Kodak, Dodge Brothers, and Bausch and Lomb; among the first graduates were m anagers from D u Pont, GE, Packard, and the Malleable Castings Company. “We have trained employment or service men,** the director o f the Rochester course explained, “men who will spend their lives handling the labor problem. We have taught our service men to regard the laborer as a hum an being,” the director continued, “a hum an being with instincts that are essentially hum an, and with aspirations th at are sometimes superhuman.**93 He neglected to add th at the “labor prob­ lem” was not a problem for labor. This commencement for the Rochester course was also the occasion for the second national conference o f employment managers and the founding convention o f the new N ational Employment Managers* As­ sociation. The conference and the new organization once again brought together the revisionists within the Taylor movement and the personnel managers of the large corporations. Typically, the conference was dom­ inated by representatives from such science-based companies as G E, Du Pont, W estinghouse, Kodak, and International Harvester. The N ational Employment Managers* Association immediately became the dom inant national forum for all employment-management m atters. Its members cooperated extensively, during the war, with the CCP in the Army, the CEST, the NACS, and the Psychology Committee o f the NRC. A fter the war they continued to work intim ately with the NRC, the NACS, and the new Personnel Research Federation. In 1921 the NEM A changed its name to the N ational Industrial Relations Associa­ tion and then merged with the NACS (renam ed the NACT) to form the N ational Personnel Association, adopting the word which the war had put on every manager’s lips. In 1923 this organization changed its name to the American M anagement Association.99 Personnel managers tried not merely to process industrial labor, they were compelled to produce it as well. Just as it had created the modem engineer himself, industrial capitalism had generated the need for the

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skilled workers upon whom the engineer could depend to effect his designs. The development of the m odem factory system, however, destroyed the traditional form o f apprenticeship which had provided such workers. The new industrial system, with its extrem e division o f labor, broke up the crafts, replacing versatile craftsm en with the cheaper detail-workers who attended the machinery. A nd those crafts­ men who remained—in the m achine shop o r foundry, for example— were increasingly required to devote their full energies to efficient m a­ chine-like production and thus had no tim e in which to train appren­ tices. By the turn of the century, therefore, there was already a shortage of skilled workers for industry and the supply was dwindling. A t the same tim e, there was an unprecedented dem and for disciplined “un­ skilled” workers to man the factory production lines and for a new breed of technically trained “semi-skilled” w orker whose specialized talents adapted him to the requirem ents o f large-scale capitalist produc­ tion. The new apprenticeship system o f industrial education, prom oted by corporate educational reform ers early in the century, was designed to meet these demands. The corporate drive to create a new apprenticeship system meshed nicely with a growing popular dem and for the extension o f educational opportunity, on the one hand, and a growing concern among educators over the educational requirem ents o f a m odem industrial and highly technological society, on the other. The form er was reflected in such developments as the university extension movement, the vocationalguidance movement, and the plethora o f correspondence schools, con­ tinuation schools, and part-tim e and evening courses for working people. The latter appeared in the form o f cooperative education on the public-school level as in Cincinnati, and Fitchburg, M assachusetts; modem trade schools such as those in W orcester, Rochester, New York, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia; and the innovative G ary Plan, which combined shopwork and trade education with the m ore tradi­ tional “cultural offerings” in the public schools. But whereas many o f these educational-reform measures were directed tow ard greater educa­ tional opportunity and greater correspondence between education and industrial reality—so-called “education for life”—as ends in them ­ selves (notably in the work o f John Dewey), the corporate educational reform ers of the day viewed them as means to corporate ends. G reater educational opportunity for working people, for example, was viewed not as opportunity for upward m obility, but rather as the precondition for more efficient and valuable corporate service; inclusion o f shopwork in the curricula m eant not a broader-based education for the

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individual, but rather one which better prepared him for industrial employm ent.94 Engineers played a prom inent role in the development o f corporate educational reform , and for an im portant reason. “In all industries,“ President Pritchett of M IT observed in 1902, “the dem and is becoming urgent for men and women who have had sufficient training in applied science to grasp the plans o f the engineer above them , and who have the practical knowledge to carry them into execution.“ The growing num ber o f engineers were dependent upon skilled labor to practice their profession. If an engineer had to draw all the plans, produce the ma­ chine parts to specifications, and assemble his creations, then he would no longer be an engineer; he would once again be a draftsm an, a mechanic, a technician. As M ilton P. Higgins, a shop-culture engineer who founded the N orton Company, put it, the apprenticeship system was essential for the supply of “the workmen upon whom the engineer m ust depend to realize his ideas.“ 95 As a leading educator of engineers and a great adm irer o f corporate accomplishments, Henry Pritchett decried the sorry state o f industrial education in the United States. Speaking before the Twentieth Century Club in Boston in 1902, he pointed out the alarm ing fact that less than one third o f one percent of workers between the ages o f fifteen and twenty-four were receiving “any form al instruction from the state o r from private institutions concerning the arts and sciences which bear directly upon their occupation.“ W hile the apprenticeship system o f old was breaking down day by day, Pritchett argued, there was no available “technical equipm ent“ to replace it. He pointed to the growing num ber of private trade schools, the correspondence schools, and the YMCA educational program s as but tem porary solutions to the problem and, alluding to Germ any’s efficient system o f trade education, posed the question “w hether our plan o f popular education can be made to m inis­ ter to this vast host.” America needed a distinct system of trade educa­ tion, Pritchett asserted, one which could meet the pressing needs o f Am erican industry and at the same tim e extend the advantages o f “popular” education to all working people. “We have grown too much accustomed in our schools and in our colleges to hold out the extraordi­ nary rew ards o f college education [the careers o f lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc.] as a reason for education,” Pritchett argued; it was high tim e th at popular education was offered to the “vast host” o f untrained workers on the grounds that it would make them better workers, more efficient and contented subordinates in industry, rather than because they m ight be able thereby to “uplift” themselves into the class o f

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professionals and managers. Like a num ber o f his colleagues in th e corporate and educational communities, Pritchett endorsed a “dual system” o f public education for the U nited States, one which offered two different kinds of educational “opportunity.” * Sim ilar approaches to the problem had been made by Dugald Jackson and M agnus Alexan­ der the year before, and by men like James Mapes Dodge, Charles R. Richards, Charles A. Prosser, David Snedden, and the ubiquitous Frank Vanderlip. Frederick P. Fish, AT&T president and chairm an o f the M assachusetts State Board of Education during Snedden’s tenure as commissioner, called for a vocational-education system paralleling the traditional schools which would meet “the practical needs of life” for the “rank and file” of industry. A ll o f these men argued for the early determ ination o f the destiny of children so that they m ight be placed on the proper educational track (an approach to education which Dewey caustically labeled “social predestination”). ‘T h e ‘room at the top* m otto,” Pritchett told his fellows at the elite Twentieth Century Club, “has been overworked.”*6 Corporate reform efforts in the area o f industrial or vocational educa­ tion fell into three categories: the creation o f private trade schools, the establishm ent o f corporation schools for apprentices, and the drive for publicly supported industrial education. Engineers participated in all three areas of activity, and most significantly in the last two. Herm an Schneider, for example, was directly responsible for the establishm ent of the work-study program s in the public schools o f Cincinnati and Fitchburg, M assachusetts; M ilton Higgins was the prim e mover behind the establishm ent of the famous W orcester T rade School; and men such as M IT-trained Charles R. Richards pioneered in vocational education at places like the Cooper Union in New York. The system atic and coordinated efforts o f engineer-managers to set up apprentice-training schools within the industrial plants, however, easily outweighed these isolated developments. M agnus Alexander established one o f the nation’s first such schools at Lynn in 1902, designed to train youths “for a life o f industrial efficiency.” A lert to the fact that “the supply o f skilled workmen in this country” was “utterly inadequate,” Alexander set up special “training rooms” at G E devoted exclusively to apprenticeship training. Instruc•The difference between the new industrial education and that which engineers received was neatly summarized by Professor Schell of M IT in one of his weekly quizzes. Whereas the goal of the former was “discipline and reflex action,” the aim of the latter was “knowledge.” Lectures in Business Management, 1920-21, MIT Archives.

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tors were selected from the company staff on the basis o f their actual teaching ability rather than simply because o f their knowledge or expe­ rience, and form al lectures on scientific subjects supplemented the trade-shop training. The G E apprentice school, moreover, provided m ore than mere training in a skilled trade. Like the Test Course for graduate engineers, also directed by Alexander, it was designed to habituate apprentices to the requirem ents o f subordinate corporate employment and “teamwork.” Alexander stressed the “great psycho­ logical im portance” of having apprentices do actual commercial work, work which gave them a feeling for their “place in real industrial life” and an appreciation of “the value o f tim e and money.” In addition, the course was designed to prom ote a “feeling o f loyalty” among the boys tow ard G E, “their alm a m ater,” a feeling which was reinforced through the company-sponsored Apprentice Alum ni Association. Noting that nearly eighty percent of apprentice-course graduates either stayed with o r returned to G E, Alexander rem arked that “this feeling of loyalty is a gratifying assurance o f the future personnel. . . of the company.”87 D uring the next decade a large num ber o f companies set up appren­ tice-training schools to meet their need for skilled labor. Among the earliest were International Harvester, W estern Electric, Yale and Towne, W estinghouse, and Brown and Sharpe M anufacturing Com­ pany. In 1913 these companies joined with others sim ilarly engaged in educational work to form the NACS, which became the clearing­ house for the cooperative solution of employment and training prob­ lems.88 The corporation-school educators went a long way toward meeting the industrial demand for skilled labor. In 1914 President W illiam Redfield o f the NSPIE, the form er Secretary o f Commerce under W oodrow W ilson, wrote to the NACS th at “the training o f the worker [is] the largest and most im portant factor in the whole problem o f production.” “N o institutions have m et better the needs of industry,” he added, “than have these corporation schools.” The approach o f the corporation educators was summarized by Charles Steinm etz o f G E at the organizing meeting o f the NACS (Steinm etz was at the tim e presi­ dent of the school board in Schenectady): The cogs in the wheels of modem industry are human beings; as an essential factor, then, in the work and in the efficiency of the corpora­ tion enters the human element___ O ur work is more than merely the organization of corporation schools into an association . . . ; it means developing and organizing the essential part of human corporate devel­ opment, the educational feature of the human element.

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Channing R. Dooley, educational director for W estinghouse (which operated the famous Casino Technical N ight School), put the same point another way: “Education is not an end, it is a means. It is not an ornam ent, but a facility to use. It does not make life easier, but on the contrary fits a man for harder work.” *9 For the corporation educators, education was essentially a corporate management problem and, as such, an engineering problem as well. W. W. Kincaid o f the Spirella Company, a leader in the personnel-manage­ ment and educational movements, explained th at education was a “management process,“ whether it was directed tow ard apprentices, managers, engineers, or salesmen. It did not merely provide for devel­ opment o f the individual but, more im portantly, it developed the corpo­ rate “team .“ “One of the most im portant elements in an educational program today,“ Kincaid wrote in an early issue o f the American M anagement Review, “is the molding o f a united work force“; m ore im portant than the mere training of individuals, “it is a job o f develop­ ing teamwork within the organization. Every w orker m ust be shown how to make his efforts fit into and support the work . . . of the whole organization.“60 Like the other areas of management, education was a problem for engineering analysis and solution. In this case, it was a branch o f “human engineering,“ involving the usual trappings: psychological tests, job specifications, rating systems, and the like, all o f which were designed to afford “maximum thoroughness in minimum tim e.“61 A d­ dressing the corporation educators on the “principles o f effective train­ ing of employees,“ Charles M ann explained what most of his audience already well understood. “Job specifications and objective tests are at present the best available measuring device for fitting together men and jobs,“ he asserted, drawing upon the well-known experience o f the A rm y's CEST. They are all that is needed when there are plenty of skilled men and the problem is to place the men most advantageously-----When the supply of skilled men is exhausted, green men have to be trained to do the work. The job specifications then define the objective of training. They set the goal. The tests then measure progress and tell when the man has arrived.63

The engineering approach to education dom inated discussions o f educational techniques among the corporation educators. Henry H. Tukey, educational director of the Submarine Boat Corporation, crys­

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tallized this common perspective in his call for “educational engi­ neers.” ‘T h e problems o f the educational engineer are somewhat com parable to those of the production engineer,” he explained to the members o f NA CT in 1921. He must recognize plant conditions, analyze them to determine the kinds of training needed, establish aims which conform to the needs, select methods suited to aims and training conditions, analyze trade content and arrange it in suitable learning order, establish methods of ascertaining the learners* progress, continually measure effectiveness of training results, estimate and provide records of training costs, promote and maintain the plant interest in training, etc-----These and many others are among the hard “nuts” he must crack-----The educational engineer must know the actual effect of the efforts of his departm ent upon production and upon labor turnover. He must continually check up his results in terms of dollars and cents and specific educational progress. If he deals in generalities he has no license to the term “engineer.”63

The corporation-school educators sought to reduce education to a sci­ entific procedure, much as they had sought to reduce the problems of management in general to engineering design. Education thus became an integral mechanism of the corporate production process, geared, like all others, tow ard efficiency and stability, and hardly reflecting the hum anity o f the m aterial th at was routinely processed. “Endless statis­ tics are available as to machine-hours, costs, etc.,” Dooley observed, “but relatively none as to the qualities o f men for the various jobs and how to determ ine them impersonally----- It is good business to consider personnel problems impersonally,” he noted. “Sounds strange, doesn’t it, but it is true.”64 The scope o f corporate educational activities reflected the corpora­ tion educators* broad perspective o f their function in industry. They hardly restricted themselves to pedagogy, but rather spent the bulk o f their tim e developing techniques of personnel management and voca­ tional guidance: fitting the man to the job through training. In addition, they devoted considerable attention to such “educational problems” as industrial safety and the inefficiency and “menace” o f im m igrant work­ ers. Focusing upon the worker as the prim ary cause o f “wasteful” industrial accidents, for example, they vigorously supported the “safety first” movement and developed m ethods of safety instruction. W ith regard to the “im m igrant labor problem ”—the need to discipline and train those who were displacing the skilled craftsm en in industry—they

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strongly supported the movement to “Am ericanize” the im m igrant, “to make loyal Am erican citizens and productive workers out of the great mass o f our foreign-born population.” Perceiving Am ericanization as a “problem in hum an engineering,” the editor o f the Engineering NewsRecord called upon fellow engineers to take a leading role in the movement; besides being in the “strategic position to take the first steps,” he argued, engineers were m ost capable o f developing “a scien­ tific way to make [such] workers an integral part o f the [industrial] enterprise.” Since America and corporate industry were closely identi­ fied in the m inds of corporate educators, A m ericanization meant, in their view, the socialization o f aliens to the “Am erican way of life” and the habituation of imm igrants to the discipline o f industrial employ­ ment. And precisely because they viewed the im m igrants as “aliens,” they were able to m anipulate them with considerable “scientific” de­ tachm ent.*68 As was the case with scientific research and engineering education, the corporate reformers never viewed privately financed agencies as the final solution to their labor problems. W hile they depended upon such activities in the short run, they sought at the same tim e to gear existing public institutions to provide the necessary service at public expense. Charles Prosser, a leading advocate o f separate industrial education in the public school system, pointed out that the corporation schools, however effective, reached only “a small part o f the mass of workers • “ Immigrants must be absorbed," Westinghouse’s Channing Dooley declared. "The welfare of industry, as well as of community life, demands the Americanization of the foreign bom citizen. Industrial managers must make plans to absorb these men into the full spirit of American industry and American life." The engineers, like many others who supported the movement, saw it as a means of adjusting the potentially radical "foreignbom" to American life, a life dominated more every day by the requirements of corporate industry. It is thus not surprising to find that a meeting of the Immigration Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, called by Vincent Astor for the discussion of Americanization, was heavily attended by corporate engineers, many of them prominent figures in the various educational-reform movements. Among them were Frederick Bishop, Ira Hollis, Dexter Kimball, Dugald Jackson, Arthur Greene, Charles Mann, Frank Jewett, J. J. Carty, Calvin Rice, and Magnus Alexander; the chairman of the meeting was Gano Dunn of the Engineering Foundation. "Memorandum of the Meeting of the Immigration Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce," January 19, 1917, Records of the Division of Industrial Relations, National Research Council Archives; C. R. Dooley, "Education and Americanization,” Industrial Management, October 1917, pp. 49-50. For a discussion of the broader implications of Americaniza­ tion, see Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), pp. 3-78; for a contemporary critique of Americanization, see Robert Williams Dunn, The Americanization o f Labor: The Employers' Offensive Against the Trade Unions (New York: International Publishers, 1927).

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in the country.** “One of the most im portant factors in this question of scientific management,’*Prosser argued, “is the hum an element, and one of the very large factors in the whole problem is to be the school . . . ; the question is how the school is to play its part in the selection and training o f workers o f every kind.**60 M anufacturers throughout the country had long been interested in the public schools as a supplier o f workers, and it was certainly not unusual for men like Steinmetz o f GE, Higgins o f N orton Company, and Fish o f AT&T to sit on city and state boards o f education. Indeed, Scott Nearing found in 1917 that in 104 of the country’s largest indus­ trial cities, over h alf o f the school-board members were businessmen— m erchants, m anufacturers, and bankers.67 W hile businessmen exer­ cised considerable influence on public education in the United States, however, it was not until 1906 th at any concerted attem pt was made to earm ark public funds for trade-school education. The breakthrough came in 1906 with the Douglass Commission report in the state of M assachusetts. The commission, set up by Governor Douglass (a shoe m anufacturer himself) in response to pressure from m anufacturers in the state, surveyed the needs for trade education and the means avail­ able for meeting them. Finding th at some 25,000 children between the ages o f fourteen and sixteen (the so-called wasted years) were either at work or idle rather than actively learning a trade, the commission recommended th at elementary and high schools be modified so as to provide instruction which would prom ote the “industrial intelligence** required by industry. The commission set up a perm anent Commission on Industrial Education charged with establishing industrial schools independent o f and parallel to the public school system under the Board o f Education. In 1909 this commission was merged with the State Board o f Education, headed by Frederick P. Fish. David Snedden was named commissioner and Charles Prosser was m ade director o f voca­ tional education.66 The Douglass Commission report and the subsequent work of the Commission on Industrial Education launched a nationwide 'Voca­ tional education movement.’*W hile the N ational Association of M anu­ facturers and local chambers o f commerce cham pioned the cause, many teachers* organizations and the craft-based labor unions vehe­ mently opposed it, the latter fearing th at the spread o f industrial educa­ tion would provide an unprecedented source o f “cheap labor** for industrialists and thus threaten the unions* bargaining position. W hile debate raged within local school boards over the m erits o f vocational education, the labor unions and teachers* organizations blocked early

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attem pts to establish “dual systems“ in Chicago, A tlanta, New York, and elsewhere, and unions began to set up their own union-run “labor colleges” to circum vent the business-controlled public educational system.6* The violent debates within the N ational Education Association graphically reflected the dimensions o f the struggle. Frederick Rom an, an economics professor from Syracuse University, strongly denounced the dual system o f education, declaring th at “our capitalists have al­ ready robbed our forests and our mines and the natural resources of the country generally—and we are now asked to accept a system o f educa­ tion which looks to the exploiting o f our children.“70 And Ella Flagg Young, superintendent o f schools in Chicago and form er colleague o f John Dewey at the University of Chicago Laboratory School, critically observed that We are constantly being confronted by complaints from the outside that our manual training courses and technical work do not fit the children to take the lower types of work and remain satisfied with their jobs. They complain that our training fits them to be foremen; they want us to turn out the kind o f labor that they have been im porting from Europe-----71

Young perceived the demands “from the outside” as being antithetical to education: “N ot one man in 500 will come out at the top, but every man should want to be one of the 499 others th at have tried and failed___ It is ridiculous to bind any boy or girl to a life vocation at from ten to fourteen.” George Counts, in his study o f the school system of Chicago, drove home the same point another way; he noted th at o f the many businessmen supporters o f vocational education, not one “expressed the hope that [his] own children would enter the industrial occupations by way of the proposed system o f vocational education.” 7* The most im portant agency to emerge in support o f vocational edu­ cation reform was the National Society for the Prom otion o f Industrial Education (NSPIE). W hile it included spokesmen from teachers' asso­ ciations and labor organizations and prom inent “uplifters” such as Jane Addams, the N SPIE was from the outset the creation of, and vehicle for, corporate liberal educational reform ers. The N SPIE grew out of a meeting at the Engineers Club of New York, called immedi­ ately after the appearance of the Douglass Commission report by Charles R. Richards, then professor o f m anual training at Colum bia's Teachers College, and James P. Haney, director of m anual training in the New Y ork City school system. A t this first meeting, an organization

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committee was appointed to set up a national association to prom ote the ideas presented in the M assachusetts report. M ilton Higgins, presi­ dent o f the N orton Company and pioneer in trade-school education, was named chairm an. In January 1907, a half-year after the first meet­ ing, the N SPIE was formally established. Henry Pritchett was its presi­ dent; M agnus Alexander was vice-president. Among the members o f the first board o f managers were Higgins, Frank Vanderlip, Frederick W. Taylor, and Frederick P. Fish; included in the first membership roster were J. J. C arty, Charles A. Coffin, president of G E, C. R. Dooley o f W estinghouse, W. W. K incaid o f the Spirella Company, Charles M ann, and Dugald Jackson.73 In the view o f N SPIE leaders, the drive for public industrial educa­ tion was but another phase in the extension o f corporate personnel management. ‘T h e underlying purpose which gave birth to this associ­ ation,” Pritchett told its members at the organizing convention, “is the thought th at we are no longer fitting our youths for their opportunities in the way in which they m ust be fitted. In this day, every nation m ust make of each citizen an effective, economic unit, and then m ust bring these units into efficient organization.” The objective o f the society, according to the N SPIE constitution, was “to bring to public attention the im portance o f industrial education as a factor in the industrial development o f the U nited States.” The N SPIE was thus created to extend the work o f M assachusetts to the rest o f the country, a purpose reflected in the fact th at the chairm an o f the Douglass Commission, Carroll D. W right (father-in-law of Samuel Capen), succeeded Pritch­ ett as president o f the NSPIE.74 W hile one branch of the national organization devoted its energies to studies and surveys, another, under the direction of M agnus Alexan­ der, undertook a propaganda campaign to push the industrial-educa­ tion idea throughout the country. By the close o f 1907 thirty-eight state committees had been established to arouse and crystallize public opin­ ion in favor o f the movement, and to pressure state legislators for public appropriations. The committees in Ohio, New Jersey, and W isconsin, where the efforts were directed by Charles R. Van Hise and Louis E. Reber o f the University of W isconsin, were among the earliest to secure public funds. W hile M agnus Alexander, acting as “national commissioner,” di­ rected such local activities, others within the N SPIE lobbied for federal support. In 1912 the NSPIE hired Charles Prosser o f the M assachusetts Board of Education to direct its lobbying efforts in W ashington and, after five years of difficult politicking with labor groups, farm ers, and

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teachers, succeeded in steering the Smith-Hughes Bill through Con­ gress. A uthored largely by Prosser, the act stressed the im portance o f “fitting for useful employment’*all persons between the ages o f fourteen and eighteen; in addition, it created a Federal Board for Vocational Education, with Prosser as director, charged with establishing and adm inistering a separate vocational-education system for the United States. W hile its immediate effects were overshadowed by the wartim e training activities of the CEST, the act set the pattern for nearly fifty years o f federal aid for vocational education.7* By the 1920s, modern management, with its focus upon the “hum an factor” in industry, was firmly in the corporate saddle. Its emergence did not mean a change in industry alone; it signaled as well an expan­ sion of the professional province o f the engineer. W illiam W ickenden was fond of quoting an Englishman’s retort to the boasts o f a French engineer, by way o f illustrating the changes within both industry and engineering. “There would be about as m uch sense in making an engi­ neer the executive head o f an industry,” the Englishman quipped, “as in making a veterinarian the comm ander o f a regim ent o f cavalry.”76 W ickenden had then but to survey the realities o f m odem industry to show how out o f touch with the tim es the Englishm an was. One year before the twentieth century began, Cheeseman H errick had prophesied th at “business now means m ore than a rule of thum b, it is complex, intricate, scientific and those who are to engage in it need a different equipm ent than has hitherto been thought sufficient for the businessman.”77 From that tim e on, engineers—men with the “differ­ ent equipm ent” o f sound scientific training—had flowed into manage­ rial positions in industry; successive studies conducted between 1904 and 1929 documented that between two thirds and three fourths o f engineering-school graduates were becoming managers in industry fifteen years out o f school. The im pact upon both industry and the engineering profession is most dram atically suggested by the fact th at in the 1920s an engineer became President and the chief executives o f five o f the largest and most dynamic corporations in the country— General M otors, Singer Sewing M achine Company, General Electric, D u Pont, and Goodyear—had been classmates in engineering at M IT. “Business depends m ore and more on the efficiency, the sm ooth opera­ tion o f our huge production m achinery,” the banker O. H. Cheney observed in 1926; “for this reason m ore and m ore o f the executives are men with engineering training. M ore and m ore are the business owners,

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the investor, and the banker turning the management o f industry over to the engineer.” *’* “The engineer is a team worker,” W ickenden often boasted; he was quick to add, however, that “fortunately for him, his basic training gives him command of the forms o f knowledge hardest to improvise— the science and the technology of production—and this is a weighty advantage in com petition for the captaincy of the team .”79 There can be no doubt th at the engineer’s rise to “captaincy” owed m ore to his technical expertise in the m atters o f production than to anything else. Once in a commanding position, however, the engineer quickly found his training in science less than adequate preparation for management responsibilities, the “handling of m en.” D uring the first three decades of the century, therefore, engineers in industry cooperated with college and technical-school educators to expand the content of engineering training, to focus more upon the “hum an element” and upon the m yr­ iad social factors involved in all engineering practice. The pream ble of the American Engineering Council constitution defined engineering as “the science o f controlling the forces and utiliz­ ing the m aterials o f nature” and “the art o f organizing and directing hum an activities in connection therew ith.” “The tw entieth century addition to the definition of one hundred years ago,” Leon Alford pointed out, “is the words ‘and the a rt o f organizing and directing hum an activities in connection therewith.* ” This expanding notion o f •The Wickenden findings of the 1920s have been confirmed by subsequent studies. See, for example, William K. LeBold, Warren Howland, and Robert Perrucci, “The Engineer in Industry and Government,“ JEE, March 1966, p. 239; “What Engineers are Doing Six to Thirty Years after Graduation,” Power Engineering, August 19SS, pp. 100-1; Carolyn G Perrucci and William K. LeBold, The Engineer and Scientist: Student, Professional, Citizen, Purdue University Engineering Bulletin, Engineering Extension Series No. 125 (January 1967), p. 22, Figure 4.4; John B. Rae, “Engineering Education as Preparation for Management: A Study of M.I.T. Alumni,” Business History Review, XXIX (1955), 64-79. This advancement of engineers into management has had a profound effect upon the composition of the nation’s top corporate executives. A 1964 study of the social and educational backgrounds of top executives of the nation's six hundred largest industrial corporations found that “the professionalization of the big business executive is increas­ ingly correlated with qualification in science and technology” and that “the most rapidly increasing number [of executives] had begun as engineers.” O f the top executives in 1900 only seven percent had degrees in science or engineering. By 1920 that proportion had jumped to twenty percent and by 1964 it was a third. See The Big Business Execu­ tiv e /1964: A Study o f His Social and Educational Background (New York: Scientific American, 1965). This study updates and confirms the earlier findings of Mabel New­ comer, The Big Business Executive: The Factors That M ade Him, 1900-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955).

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engineering practice, reflecting the growth o f m odern management from within engineering, reflected also what Charles M ann—author o f the first m ajor study of engineering education—called “the expansion o f the engineering spirit.“ ‘T h e successful engineer today m ust direct the powers of men as well as the powers of nature,“ M ann observed; “the problems o f the conservation of hum an resources are as much engineering problems as are those o f the conservation o f m aterial re­ sources.“ Charles F. Scott, an early engineering educator at W estinghouse and Yale, similarly reflected in 1926 th at “with expanding industry the work of the engineer has expanded wonderfully. Instead of regarding the activities of the engineer as confined to the drafting room, we now have the demand for personnel training.“ By the 1920s management had clearly become a recognized branch o f professional engineering; the engineer, in directing the m achinery o f industry, had realized th at he had also to ensure “th at the bearings of our hum an industrial structure are properly designed, properly constructed, and properly adjusted.”80 The changing content o f engineering was perhaps nowhere better reflected than in the schools of engineering and the curricula they offered. In 1926 one of a series of inform al conferences o f engineering educators was called by the president o f the Am erican M anagement Association and the educational director o f AT&T, to prom ote the teaching of management in engineering schools. H arry P. Hammond, assistant director o f the W ickenden investigation, reflected then th at Engineering education has made remarkable progress in the direction that M r. Lewisohn [president of AMA] had in mind in calling this meeting. When I took my course in engineering, about twenty years ago, labor problems, adm inistration problems, management problems were hardly ever thought of or provided for in the curriculum . In looking over college catalogues of that period one can hardly find a single instance of any such subject in the curriculum . Now they are to be found in almost all college curricula in one place or another, either as distinct courses of study [e.g., “industrial engineering,” “engineering management”] or as required subjects [in mechanical-engineering or electrical-engineering courses] or as seminars.81

Clearly, by 1926 the innovative courses introduced by D exter Kimball at Cornell and Hugo Diemer at Penn State had become dim memories. W hereas in 1922 at least ten engineering schools were giving form al instruction in management subjects, by 1932 this num ber had jum ped to thirty-five; the range o f subjects, moreover, had extended far beyond

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the problems o f production, the original focus, to include the problems of distribution, merchandising, finance, office adm inistration, patent law, cost accounting, and the various aspects o f the “personnel problem .”82 The history of management training at M IT illustrates the scope o f such instruction as well as the influence o f engineers in this new field of scientific capitalism . M IT s Course XV, Engineering Adm inistra­ tion, was established in 1913; in 1932 it became a separate departm ent in the School o f Engineering, and in 1952 the independent School o f Industrial M anagement (now the Sloan School).* One of the m ost im portant figures in the early management training program was Erwin Schell, an M IT-trained mechanical engineer who returned to his alm a m ater after a brief stint in industry to teach Course XV and later head the new departm ent. Twenty years later when the School o f Industrial M anagement was founded—owing to the largess o f alum nus Alfred Sloan—fully one-third o f the top industrial executives who sat on the steering com m ittee had professional engineering degrees. The first dean of the new school, E. P. Brooks, a vice-president of Sears Roebuck, had been a member of the first graduating class o f Course XV. Instruction in Course XV covered all aspects o f works management, economics, finance, accounting, business law, and m arketing. Students were brought into contact with working executives at dinners and on *It would be a mistake to view Course XV as a minor curriculum innovation of a single school; it was rather the brainchild of a new breed of industrial leaders intent on reproducing themselves. The MIT course was patterned after the Carnegie Tech course in “commercial engineering’’ which had been created a few years earlier in response to the “persistent demands on the part of the larger industries [of Pittsburgh] for graduates who have completed a curriculum in accordance with their outline.” At MIT, too, the new form of education was established “in recognition of the changes that have come into our industrial and business life,. . . to train men effectively to meet the new condi­ tions.” Among the industrial leaders who had a hand in setting up the course in 1913 were the presidents of GE, Du Pont, U.S. Steel, General Chemical, the Northern Pacific Railroad, and Alcoa. In 1926, members of the Course XV “Advisory Committee” who met at the Bankers’ Club in New York City included a present and a past president of GE, the presidents of General Motors, Stone and Webster, American International Corporation, Yale and Towne, and the Guaranty Trust Company, and vice presidents of Eastman Kodak, White Motor Co., Singer, Union Carbide, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Similarly, in 1952, when the School of Industrial Management was founded, the advisory committee members included the chief executives of Du Pont, GM, West­ inghouse, Sears Roebuck, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of Indiana, Interna­ tional Harvester, Sprague Electric, and Chicopee Mills, as well as the chairman of the federal reserve bank of Cleveland, a partner of Lehman Brothers investment bankers, and a vice president of AT&T. See “Report of the Committee on Business Engineering of the Alumni Council,” May 19,1913; “Minutes of the Advisory Committee on Course XV,” February 23,1926; and “Minutes of the Advisory Committee of the School of Industrial Management’s Advisory Council,” 1932. All in Presidential Files, MIT Archives.

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field trips and during summer employment, and heard lectures by prom inent proponents of scientific management—G ilbreth, Hathaway, H arrington Emerson—on such topics as tim e-and-m otion study, indus­ trial fatigue, employment departm ents, and shop committees. A m ajor focus o f attention throughout was the hum an factor. “The horizon o f scientific management may be lim ited to th at one phase of shop o r industrial life which has to do w ith ------ ,” read a question in one o f Professor Schell’s periodic quizzes. The correct answer was straightfor­ ward enough: “the control of men.“ Schell repeatedly emphasized to his students that “labor management [was] their great responsibility,“ th at “their success or failure in accomplishing [their] w o r k . . . will not be m easured in term s of their technical knowledge nor in term s o f their technical skill, but rather in term s o f their proficiency in organizing the will o f the employees—in handling men and women.“*3 Schell thus urged his students to consult the growing body of scien­ tific knowledge about “the workings of the hum an m ind“ and lectured them on the various factors which govern worker behavior. Like many of his colleagues in industry, he stressed the im portance of irrational drives, deep-seated instincts which executives could learn to use “in inciting desired behavior and in organizing group-will.“ * In a lecture entitled “The W orkmen: Their Impulses and Desires,“ Schell discussed the various instincts that he believed lay behind w orker behavior and how the skillful manager might use them : “The executive who, by facilitating prom otion . . . makes m arriage a possibility for a young m an“—thereby dealing with the “Sex Im pulse“— “stands to receive large dividends in increased loyalty and length o f service-----The executive who assigns the new employee a locker, a key, a machine and bench, with name affixed, is bringing instinctive satisfactions of proprie­ torship [“the W ish to Possess“] which show returns in reduced labor turnover.“ The fact that shop committees provide an outlet for the *Such concern was not just a passing fancy, not just a reflection of lay fascination with Freudian psychology. In 1913, the MIT committee which originally proposed the estab­ lishment of Course XV had emphasized the practical import of psychology, in advertising and salesmanship, for example. Most important, they stressed the fact that “the efficiency of labor is largely dependent on the assignment of individuals to the work for which their mental characteristics fit them.” Similarly, when Dean Brooks outlined the seven “guideposts” for the new School of Industrial Management in 1953, he topped his list with “the need in industry for greater emphasis upon an understanding of human behavior.” This was followed directly by “the need for increased emphasis on developing a better under­ standing of the American enterprise system and the significance of profits.” See “Report of the Committee on Business Engineering of the Alumni Council," May 19, 1913; and “Minutes of the Advisory Committee of the School of Industrial Management,” October 6, 1953. Presidential Files, MIT Archives.

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workers’ “Desire for Self-expression” accounts “for their success in bringing greater satisfaction to the employees as well as in developing a formidable barrier to the spread o f trade unionism -----The Desire for Leadership . . . is sometimes called the submissive impulse. I like to think o f it, however, as the desire to work under good leadership----The Fighting Spirit. . . is found in every norm al person. It rests with the leader to divert it into useful channels.”*4 It is significant that while Schell emphasized the essentially irratio­ nal, unconscious roots of worker behavior, he took pains to instruct his students, the future managers, to act in an exaggeratedly rational man­ ner. M anagers should express no emotion whatever, he urged. “The executive should make it clear that his actions are impersonal and in a sense autom atic.” “Self-control” was the most im portant executive trait; “your attitude m ust always be im personal.” Schell’s aim was to foster a code of managerial conduct th at would make the control o f people by other people appear to be the control of people by an autom a­ tic mechanism. M anagers, in m anipulating the irrational drives under­ lying worker behavior, were thus to assume the pose o f reason itself.*5 Paralleling the emergence of management training within the engi­ neering schools was the growth o f graduate schools of business adm in­ istration. Among the more prom inent o f these were the Amos Tuck School at D artm outh, the H arvard G raduate School o f Business Ad­ m inistration, and the W harton School o f Finance. A t such schools, established by businessmen and economists rather than by engineers, the focus was placed more upon the commercial aspects o f industry— finance, accounting, law, m erchandising, etc.—than upon production. W hile the two types of management schools often found themselves in com petition for students and support, they quite commonly cooperated in their efforts. A t H arvard, for example, there was a five-year program which formally combined the resources of the business-adm inistration and engineering schools for the teaching o f potential managers. In addition, the business schools actively recruited engineering graduates as students, and more and more engineers followed up their technical training with graduate work in business adm inistration before seeking employment.* A t the University o f M innesota the business school so *This trend has continued. In 1974 sixty-five percent of the students at Purdue’s Gradu­ ate School of Industrial Administration held the B.S. degree in engineering, and another thirty-five percent held the same degree in the hard sciences; while these particular figures are unusually high, they do reflect the general trend. Among the class of 1973 of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, the largest single group were B.S. engineers, twenty-seven percent, and hard scientists accounted for another twelve per­ cent. See The H arvard Business School Bulletin, November 1972, p. 20.

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appreciated the value of engineering training in successful management that it required its students to spend their first two years in the engineer­ ing school "in order to get the fundam ental engineering atm osphere and viewpoint.”86 The expansion o f engineering education was reflected also in the increased subject requirements in the hum anities and social sciences. Throughout the twentieth century the proportion o f the four-year cur­ riculum devoted to such studies grew until by the 1950s it had become twenty percent. In the first study o f engineering education, in 1918, Charles M ann emphasized the need for m ore instruction in social science; a decade later W ickenden repeated the message, stressing the point that "the choice o f hum anities studies is to be governed . . . by their functional relation to engineering pursuits.” The SPEE Ham­ mond Report o f 1940 finally adopted the minimum o f twenty percent for courses in economics, sociology, psychology, government, and his­ tory (above and beyond the offerings in accounting, finance, and m an­ agement proper).87 O f course, teachers o f hum anities and social sciences lobbied strenu­ ously for an extension of their dom ain within the engineering schools. But the m ajor impetus came neither from them nor from their engineer colleagues; it came from the practicing engineers in industry, who recognized the need for a broader engineering training, one which better prepared graduates for their ultim ate m anagerial responsibilities. Robert Rees of AT&T, for example, called for greater emphasis upon the "hum an factor” in engineering education. "O ur task,” he told assembled engineering educators at Am erican M anagement Associa­ tion President Sam Lewisohn’s house, "is to make the engineer m ore conscious of the hum an factors, to indoctrinate him so th at he will realize that, after all, the man him self is the all-im portant problem .”88 "Such technical questions as the frequency and length o f rest periods in work carried on at different degrees o f speed and intensity,” econo­ mist Don Lescohier suggested, "are as im portant in technical training as an understanding of the peculiarities o f iron o r copper or o f en­ ergy.”88 The underlying motive behind the expansion o f the curriculum was succinctly expressed by Samuel Stratton, first director of the N a­ tional Bureau o f Standards, when he became president o f M IT in 1923: O ur technical schools are training the future brain workers and manag­ ers of industry. We may, therefore, well ask ourselves, at this time, if there is anything we can do beyond what we are now doing to train our students to understand more fundamentally and to meet successfully

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the gravest of all their future responsibilities, the organization and management of men.*0

As the evolution of the engineering curriculum suggests, engineers by the 1920s had begun to turn to the social sciences—economics, psychology, and sociology—for new ways of comprehending and carry­ ing out their m anagerial responsibilities. W hile they viewed these younger “soft” sciences as considerably less scientific than the “hard” physical sciences, engineers nevertheless began to realize th at the social sciences, however imperfect, might provide solutions to pressing prob­ lems which seemed to defy traditional engineering methods. One ardent proponent of this new creed in engineering was W illard Hotchkiss. An economist by training, and the founder of the schools of business adm inistration at both Stanford and N orthw estern, H otch­ kiss served as president of the A rm our Institute o f Technology in Chicago before becoming director o f hum anistic-social studies at Carnegie Tech. In 1935 he discussed the role o f “social sciences in engineering schools,” in answer to the question “Is the m aterial [of the social sciences] relevant to an engineering education?” Successful engineers today are influencing the social aspects of engi­ neering and industrial enterprises as completely as they are the techni­ cal aspects. Even purely designing engineers cannot advance very far without having considerable responsibility for handling men, an obvi­ ously social activity. It is just as essential that engineers know what they are doing and why, when they deal with these social and economic questions as when they consider the technical side of their work. The fact that engineers in the past have tended to isolate the physical bases upon which their projects rest and deal with the measurable and finite forces and values embodied in them , does not make these measurable and finite forces and values in any sense the exclusively im portant factors with which engineering and engineers are concerned. There is ample evidence that shying away from the human factors in engineer­ ing places a lim it upon the success which engineers are able to secure as a result of their work----Though cause and effect may be more obscure in the social sciences today than they are in mathematics and in physics, it is one of the major tasks o f study in this field to clarify these relations. Progress sim ilar to that which was previously made in physical science is now being made in various branches of social science, in proceeding objectively from the known to the unknown. The fact that data are complex is an added reason why engineering students should expand and adapt methods of reasoning which have earned their respect in physical science and engineering.*1

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In a sim ilar vein, and from an engineering perspective, W illiam W ickenden called for more integration of social science within engi­ neering. “Few would suggest that social science is as yet sufficiently advanced to play an instrum ental part, that is to supply either tools o f analysis or criteria of decision for use in solving actual engineering problems,” W ickenden conceded in 1937, in his retirem ent address as chairm an o f the engineering section o f the Am erican Association for the Advancement of Science. But, he argued, “if we can get engineers and social scientists to doing actual work together the problem will tend to solve itself.. . . O ur part is to create a sphere o f action for the social scientist in our dom ain” which will encourage him in his work to “dovetail into our inherently concrete, inductive and instrum ental ways o f thinking and doing.” Meanwhile, W ickenden suggested, the engi­ neers themselves must try to “blend” the physical and social sciences. As he well realized, he was once again suggesting a fundam ental change in the engineer’s perception of the world, and in his way of dealing with it, a challenge he had made fourteen years earlier, in an SPEE report on business training for engineers: The broader conceptions of the engineer’s work in adapting energy and m atter to social and economic ends can be brought about, not by major or m inor changes in the engineering curricula, but by a comprehensive change in the viewpoint of the entire engineering fraternity.

An engineer as well as an educator and employer of engineers, Wicken­ den fully recognized that the increasing m anagerial responsibilities of engineers, and the subsequent development of scientific management by engineer-managers, reflected profound changes within engineering. His call for a “comprehensive change” in the engineering viewpoint, to enable engineers to deal effectively with men as well as m atter, was an indication of how real that change had already become. Wickenden closed his 1923 report with an acknowledgment o f th at fact; “the signs of the tim es,” he rem arked, “indicate that this change is fast taking place.”*2 One such sign was the work o f some of W ickenden’s electrical­ engineering colleagues in the Engineering Division o f the NRC. Early in January 1924 Dugald Jackson and C. G. Stoll o f W estern Electric met in the office o f Frank Jewett to form ulate a study o f the effect o f illum ination quality and intensity upon worker productivity. As origi­ nally conceived, the study involved a broad range o f activities, includ­ ing the physics of light, the physiology o f sight, worker psychology, and

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illum ination engineering, and was to be carried out in scientific labora­ tories, psychology laboratories, and the plants o f such companies as GE, W estern Electric, and the Dennison M anufacturing Company— all im portant sites in the development o f m odem management. Thomas A. Edison was named honorary chairm an o f the study com m ittee." D uring the next few years the researchers, under Jackson’s direction, focused upon the Hawthorne plant o f W estern Electric; their studies ran the gam ut of management techniques then available—mechanical correlations, fatigue studies, and individual psychology—but failed to produce any consistent results. Jackson’s reports between 1925 and 1931, to the N RC and the president o f M IT, reflect both a m ounting frustration and a heightened determ ination, as he repeatedly had to postpone making any final conclusions. The “nut” was finally cracked not by the engineers or the psychologists, but by Elton Mayo and his associates from the H arvard Business School, who had arrived at Haw­ thorne in 1927. A fter careful study, M ayo and his colleagues had discovered th at an intricate network o f social relations existed among the workers through which they, and not management, regulated out­ put; they also found that a worker’s productivity was a function of the attention given him by management (the so-called H awthorne Effect). The discoveries of Mayo and his colleagues were startling and consti­ tuted a revolution in management thought; needless to say, the engi­ neers who had conceived the original project had hardly suspected anything o f the kind. They had unknowingly launched what has been called “the first m ajor social-science experim ent,” “the single most im portant social-science research project ever conducted in indus­ try.”" The H awthorne experience called into question many of the basic assum ptions of scientific management, gave im petus to the infant ap­ plied sciences o f industrial psychology and sociology, ushered in the new field o f “hum an relations,” and provided management educators with a wealth o f case-study m aterial. Less obviously, it reflected the extent to which the horizons of engineering had expanded as engineers strove to control the elusive hum an factor in every engineering prob­ lem. F or it had been the corporate engineers, with the support of the large corporations of the science-based electrical industry, who had #conceived the project and pushed it ahead to its unanticipated conclu­ sion. (“The present big need,” Jackson had w ritten in 1928 after re­ peated frustration at Hawthorne, “is encouragem ent and support for psycho-physical research in the field until the principles are discovered and verified.”)95 A nd it was not long after the experim ent was over th at

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the same engineers began to incorporate industrial sociology within the engineering curriculum , declaring M ayo's writings to be required read­ ing for all student engineers.*6 In 1929, in his final report as director o f the m ost thorough study o f engineering education in history, W illiam W ickenden again called at­ tention to the “expanding scope o f the engineer’s work and training.*' “The rise o f the engineer as an organizer and manager,** he wrote, “has been a natural evolution covering the last half century. The concern of industry has advanced from isolated tools and processes to an organic conception of production and service as a whole, in which pure mechanics could not be segregated from financial, legal, m arket­ ing and personnel problems, so that the engineer in his planning, is dealing quite as often with money and men, as with m aterials and machines.*7

“Looking to the future,’’ W ickenden concluded, “the schools o f engi­ neering can scarcely lim it their concern to the m athem atical and physi­ cal sciences, to problems of design and construction, and to the specific details o f engineering economy. Engineering will include in its tools any and all sciences as they become exact enough to yield economically predictable results.** Among the m ore urgent challenges to the profes­ sion, W ickenden argued, was the need “to bring together the mechan­ ical, physiological, and psychological factors in hum an work within the bounds o f a predictable science.”98 Thus, H aw thorne was more than merely a chapter in the history of management; it was the latest phase in the evolution of engineering. Bora into the world of production, the corporate engineers of science-based industry had taken for their task the production o f a world.

Epilogue

Has m odern technology in America been tamed? Has the most potent revolution in social production since the invention of agriculture1 become merely a means to corporate ends, avehicle of capitalist domi­ nation? The social history of engineering in this country lends itself to such a sober conclusion. For the creators o f the new scientific mode o f production, the self-proclaimed revolutionaries who unlocked the forces o f nature and heralded the coming of a new day for m ankind, worked a counterrevolution as well. In standardizing science and in- \ dustry, reforming the patent system, routinizing research, transform ing • education, and developing modem management, the corporate engi- > neers of science-based industry strove at once to push forward and to stay their revolution, to reap its im m ediate benefits and yet forestall the coming o f th at new day which it seemed to portend. Those who have followed in the footsteps of the men described here have com petently and sometimes cleverly continued their work, only now they take for granted the social order which was, not so very long ago, fashioned by design. A description in Fortune of what had become of the General Electric Test Course program by 19S3 bears this out. "H um an relations is now the key," the journalist reported. The m odem engineer-manager will be a generalist who will not think in term s of specific work but rather in term s of the art of managing other people’s work. It is the technique of managing, not the content of what is managed, therefore, that will be his preoccupation. He encourages, or, rather, motivates others to work; he does not create, but moderates and adjusts.

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The emphasis is on “well-roundedness,” fitting in, getting along. “Bril­ liance is alm ost becoming a dirty word,” the reporter discovered. “I would sacrifice brilliance to human understanding every time,” one trainee says. Trainee after trainee makes the same point. For one thing, they don’t think brilliance is particularly necessary anymore. “All the basic creative work in engineering,” as one young man explains, “has already been done.” Is a man like Steinmetz any longer apropos? “ I don’t think anybody would put up with a fellow like him now," says a G.E. trainee.*

This dom esticated breed o f engineer personifies a social transform a­ tion o f m ajor proportions, and attests to the success of corporate efforts in bringing about a stable correspondence between forces of production and social relations, “a better balance between technological progress and social control.”* On the whole, corporate m anagers since 1930 have not departed significantly from this objective. The most dram atic changes—the massive expansion o f m ilitary and government participa­ tion in the technological enterprise since W orld W ar II and the trem en­ dous growth in the num ber of engineers since Sputnik—have only advanced their ends by providing for the wholesale public subsidization of private enterprise and the increasing proletarianization of technical workers.4 M oreover, the engineer-managers are now equipped with new m ethods of analysis and control, some borrowed from the social sciences, and new took o f analysk, developed largely in electrical engi­ neering.* This fact has prom pted not a few observers to proclaim that we are living in a technocracy, run by and for the technical elite, according to the cold compulsions of technical reason. As the present study suggests, such proclam ations of technocracy are prem ature at best, and are but another expression of the general mystification o f technology th at m arks our age. For people—engineers included—do not live by techni­ cal reason alone. Although, in the wake of m odem engineering, corpo­ rate industry has taken on a scientific aura and capitalism has assumed the appearance of reason itself, the engineers have no m ore replaced the capitalist than science has replaced capitalism . W hether as managers •The statistical procedures vital to economic forecasting as well as psychological and sociological concepts and methods were borrowed primarily from the social sciences, while electrical engineering itself gave birth both to the computer, the cornerstone of operations research, and, through circuit theory, to modern systems analysis. The inter­ dependent social and intellectual histories of engineering and the social sciences in the twentieth century, and their coalescence in scientific management, are the subjects of a separate study, now underway.

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or technical experts, the engineers have merely continued to serve capital, wittingly or not, their habits o f thinking about problems and form ulating solutions constituting for the most part but a highly refined form of capitalist reason. Thus, in their work they have continued to labor, routinely if not always consciously, to resolve in practice the tension between the potentials of m odem technology and the dictates of the corporate order. This is not to say, however, th at the conflicts inherent in the capitalist mode o f production have thereby been al­ together overcome. This study, in fact, suggests a contrary view. A workable once-and-for-all design for Am erica did not spring full­ blown from the drawing boards o f corporate engineers. The task of designing Am erica has rather been an ongoing social process, one m arked as m uch by hum an conflict (and design failure) as by smoothly running machinery. Thus, as the piles o f scrapped designs grew, the corporate engineers increasingly called upon their colleagues and in­ structed their successors to be flexible, to try new methods, to be alert to ever new demands and changing social conditions. Society, they slowly discovered the hard way, was not simply a second N ature, to be understood and controlled in the same way one understood and con­ trolled the first. Borrowing heavily from positivist and behavioral social sciences, the engineers strove to “expand and adapt“ their m ethods of reasoning, to seek new ways of solving old problems. But to what, one m ust ask, were they forever trying to adapt their methods? W hat was it that compelled them to try to enlarge their vision, to broaden the scope of their designs, to blur the once rigid distinction between the “hard” and “soft” sciences? The conventional historical account o f the activities o f men like these pictures them struggling against all odds to forge a workable corporate order, but against no people. To be sure, they have been confronted by develop­ ments in science and technology whose im plications have not always been readily apparent. And, of course, they have had to face the peri­ odic crises th at regularly plague the capitalist economy, to guard against m arket failure, to seek ways o f outm aneuvering com petitors, to oversee the routine complexities of m am m oth enterprise. But these have never been the m ajor focus o f attention, nor are they now. How­ ever impersonally the “problems” m ight be form ulated, the main chal­ lenge has always been people, people with a different vision perhaps, with equally rational but nevertheless conflicting aims. Thus, no m atter how sophisticated their approach, how flexible their m ethods, how pure their intent, the corporate engineers have consistently encountered considerable difficulties in trying to implement their designs “in the

AMERICA

BY

DESION

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field/’ opposition which they disparaged as “labor trouble,” “personnel problem s,” or simply “politics.” A nd their trials serve as a rem inder that this book describes only one aspect o f Am erican history in the twentieth century: other people shaped th at history too. However firmly the protagonists o f this story (or their contem porary successors) convinced themselves that they served the interests o f society as a whole, they in reality served only the dom inant class in society, that class which, in order to survive, m ust forever struggle to extract labor from, and thus to control the lives of, the class beneath it. No m yth o f classlessness, no “end of ideology” ideology, however comforting, how­ ever innocent, can ever obscure this fact. And it is precisely this fact, manifested in the m yriad “problems” which m ust forever be analyzed, engineered, o r adm inistered away, which both underlies the evolving corporate design for America and defies it.

Notes Index

Notes

Introduction 1. K arl Marx, Grundrisse, translated by M artin Nicolaus (New York: Vin­ tage Books, 1973), p. 706. 2. See Thorstein Veblen, The Engineers and the Price System (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1921); for a valuable commentary, see Edwin Layton, » “Veblen and the Engineers,“ American Quarterly, Spring 1962, pp. 6472. See also Charles P. Steinmetz, America and the New Epoch (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1916). 3. See Hans G erth and C. W right Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946). See Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964). See Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: H arcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1934), and The Myth o f the Machine, 2 vols. (New York: H arcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1967, 1970). 4. See Georg Lukàcs, “Class Consciousness“ and “Reification and the Con­ sciousness of the Proletariat” in his History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1968). See Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic o f Enlighten­ ment (New York: H erder and Herder, 1972). For a more accessible discussion, see William Leiss, The Domination o f Nature (New York: George Braziller, 1972), or Horkheimer’s classic Eclipse o f Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947). Herbert Marcuse, “ Industrialization and Capitalism in the W ork of Max Weber,“ in Negations (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), p. 29. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, p. 32. See also Jürgen Habermas, 'Technology as Ideology,“ in his Toward a Rational Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970).

327

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Notes for Pages xxii-11

5. Herbert Marcuse, "Some Social Im plications of M odem Technology/’ Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, IX (1941), 414. 6. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, p. 32. 7. K arl Marx, Capital (Chicago: Charles H. K err and Co., 1926), I, 397. Marcuse, “Some Social Im plications of M odem Technology,” p. 424.

Chapter 1 1. Benjamin Franklin, quoted in Hugo Meier, "The Technological Concept in American Social H istory/’ unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1930, p. 347. Jacob Bigelow, Elements o f Technology (Boston: Boston Press, 1829), pp. iii-v. 2. For some further discussion o f the origins o f scientific technology, see Peter F. Drucker, "The Technological Revolution,” Technology and Culture, II, 342-9; Lewis Mumford, ’Technics and the N ature of M an,” Technology and Culture, V II, 303; Lynn W hite, "The Historical Roots o f O ur Ecological Crisis,” Science, CLV (M arch 1967), 1203; Daniel Horowitz, “Insight into Industrialization: American Conceptions o f Economic Development and M echanization, 1863-1910,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, H arvard University, 1966, p. 32; and George H. Daniels, Science in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), p. 271. 3. K arl Marx, The Grundrisse, translated by David McLellan (New York: H arper and Row, 1971), p. 140. 4. H arry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York: M onthly Review Press, 1974), p. 166. 3. Annual Report quoted in Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufactur­ ers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933), p. 34. 6. Edison quoted in Philip Alger, The Human Side o f Engineering (Sche­ nectady: Mohawk Development Service, 1972), p. 18. Thomas P. Hughes, "The Electrification of America, 1870-1930,” address delivered at the Bicentennial Convention of the Society for the History of Technology, W ashington, D.C., October 18, 1973. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, p. 177. 7. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, p. 83. 8. Ibid., pp. 323, 104. “Frederick P. Fish,” in National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, XXVI, 202; XXXIX, 278. Proceedings o f the Bar

Association o f the City o f Boston and o f the District Court o f the United Statesfor the District ofMassachusetts, “In Memory ofFrederick P. Fish, Boston, Massachusetts, December26,1931, ” p. 4, M assachusetts H istori­ cal Society, Boston. See also Edward C. K irkland, Industry Comes o f Age (New York: Holt, Rinehart and W inston, 1961), pp. 191-2. 9. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, pp. 129-76. 10. Malcolm Mac Laren, The Rise o f the Electrical Industry During the Nine­ teenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), pp. 103-6. 11. N. R. Danielian, A T AT: The Story o f Industrial Conquest (New York: Vanguard Press, 1939), p. 94 and C hapter 3. See also Horace Coon,

Notes for Pages 12-21

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American Tel A Tek The Story o f a Great Monopoly (New York: Long­ mans, Green A Co., 1939), pp. 31-93. 12. Theodore N. Vail, quoted in Danielian, ATAT, p. 93. Frederick P. Fish, ‘T h e Patent System," Transactions o f the American Institute o f Electrical Engineers, 1909, p. 333. 13. Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph o f Conservatism (New York: Free Press, 1963), p. 47. 14. The following discussion o f the rise of chemical manufactures in the United States is based prim arily upon W illiams Haynes’ six-volume American Chemical Industry—A History (New York: D. Van N ostrand Co., 1934); Williams Haynes and Edward L. Gordy, eds., Chemical Industry's Contribution to the Nation, 1635-1935, Supplement to Chemi­ cal Industries, 1933; The Chemical Industry Facts Book (New York: M anufacturing Chemists Association, 1933); Don W hitehead, The Dow Story (New York: M cGraw-Hill, 1968); and W illiam S. D utton, Du Pont (New York:vCharles Scribner’s Sons, 1949). 13. Herstein’s study, cited by Haynes, American ChemicalIndustry, III, 411. 16. Haynes, American Chemical Industry, III, 409. See also Haynes and Gordy, eds., Chemical Industry's Contribution to the Nation. 17. Haynes, American Chemical Industry, IV, 33. 18. Haynes, American Chemical Industry, IV, 10-11. 19. See, for example, Competition and Monopoly in American Industry, Tem­ porary National Economic Committee Investigation of the Concentra­ tion of Economic Power, M onograph No. 21 (W ashington: Government Printing Office, 1938). 20. For the impact of the chemical industry upon other industries, see W. D. Horne e ta l, "Sugar Chemistry,*’ Industrial and Engineering Chemis­ try, X LIII, 803-9; W. O. Kenyon, "Cellulose Chemistry,’’ Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X L III, 820-30; R. M. Bums, "Electro-chemical Industry,’’ Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X LIII, 301; H. G. Turley, "Leather Making,’’ Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X LIII, 303; E. W. Tillotson, "G lass and Ceramics,’’ Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X L III, 311; G. Egloff and M. L. Alexander, “Petroleum Chemistry,’’ Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X L III, 809-19; R. P. Dinsmore, "R ubber Chem istry,’’ Industrial and Engineer­ ing Chemistry, X LIII, 793-803; Harold F. W illiams etal., The American Petroleum Industry, 2 vols. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1939), p. 1963; John B. Rae, The American Automobile (Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1963).

C hapter 2 1. Charles R. M ann, "The American Spirit in Education,’’ U.S Bureau o f Education Bulletin Na 30 (1919), p. 14. 2. Ian Braley, "The Evolution o f Humanistic-Social Courses for Under­ graduate Engineers’* (unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, Stanford Univer­ sity School of Education, 1961), p. 32.

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Notes for Pages 21-26

3. The Inventor, quoted in Hugo Meier, 'T h e Technological Concept in American Social History” (unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, University o f Wisconsin, 1930), p. 352. Turner, quoted in Charles R. M ann, A Study o f Engineering Education (Boston: M errymount Press, 1918), p. 10. For further discussion of the early history of technical education in the U.S., see William E. W ickenden, “A Comparative Study of the Engineering Education in the U.S. and Europe,” Report o f the Investigation o f Engineering Education (Pitts* burgh: Society for the Promotion o f Engineering Education, 1930), I, 807-24; James Kip Finch, Trends in Engineering Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948); B raky’s dissertation; Daniel Calhoun, The American Civil Engineer (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1960); and M onte Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967). 4. Amos Eaton, quoted in Braley, “Evolution,” p. 30. 5. Abbott Lawrence, letter to Samuel A. Eliot, June 7, 1847, quoted in Braley, “Evolution,” p. 65. See also Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centu­ ries o f Harvard College, 1636-1936 (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1936), pp. 279-80. 6. M ann, Study o f Engineering Education, pp. 6, 9. 7. For discussion of early university training in chemistry, see W illiams Haynes, The American Chemical Industry—A History (New York: D. Van N ostrand Co., 1934), 1 ,393; Alfred H. W hite, “Chemical Engineer* ing Education,” in Sidney D. K irkpatrick, ed., Twenty-five Years o f Chemical Engineering Progress (American Institute o f Chemical Engi­ neers, 1933). 8. M ann, Study o f Engineering Education, p. 6. 9. Mansfield M erriman, “Past and Present Tendencies in Engineering Edu­ cation,” Societyfo r the Promotion ofEngineering Education Proceedings, IV (1896), 17. 10. Quoted in Haynes, American Chemical Industry, I, 393. 11. Palmer Ricketts, “Discussion,” Societyfo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings. I (1893), 64. DeVolson Wood, “Presidential Address,” Societyfo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, II (1894), 21. On the status of scientists within the academy, see George H. Daniels, Science in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), p. 280. 12. Samuel W arren quoted in Braley, “Evolution,” p. 24. Francis A. W alker, “The Place of the Schools of Technology in Ameri­ can Education,” Educational Review, II (October 1891), 209. 13. E. A. Fuertes, “Discussion,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, IV (1896), 22. 14. For discussion of the evolving content o f engineering education in this period, see Esther Lucille Brown, The Professional Engineer (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1936), p. 13; Robert Fletcher, “A Q uarter Century of Progress in Engineering Education,” Society fo r the Promo­ tion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, V II (1899); and W illiam Wickenden, “A Study of Evolutionary Trends in Engineering C ur-

Notes for Pages 27-32

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24. 25.

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ricula,” in Report o f the Investigation o f Engineering Education. I, 52255. On early electrical engineering training, see Dugald C. Jackson, “The Technical Education of the Electrical Engineer," Transactions o f the Am erican Institute o f Electrical Engineers, IX (1892), 472-86, and James E. B rittain, "B. A. Behrend and the Beginnings of Electrical Engineering, 1870-1920” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Case W estern Reserve University, 1969). On chemical-engineering education, see A lfred H. W hite, "Chemical Engineering Education in the U .S.," Transactions o f the Am erican Institute o f Chem ical Engineers, XXI (1928), 55-85, and W. A. Pardee and T. H. Childon, "Industrial and Engineering Chemis­ try," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. X LIII. Wickenden, "Comparative Study of Engineering Education," p. 821. For further discussion of the emerging scientific bases of engineering, see Edwin Layton, "M irror-Im age Twins: The Communities of Science and Technology," in George H. Daniels, ed., N ineteenth Century Am erican Science (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972). Calvert, M echanical Engineer in Am erica, pp. 3-40. See also Joel G erstl and Robert Perucci, Profession W ithout Com m unity: Engineers in Am eri­ can Society (New York: Random House, 1969), p. 61. Ashbel Welch, quoted in Braley, “Evolution," p. 70. William H. Burr, “The Ideal Engineering Education," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, I (1893), 2. Wickenden, “Comparative Study of Engineering Education," pp. 81920. See also Society fo r the Promotion ofE ngineering Education Proceed­ ings, from 1893 to 1910. Burr, “ Ideal Engineering Education," pp. 30, 36, 40. For a brief discussion of the early corporation-school movement, see Berenice Fisher, Industrial Education: Am erican Ideals and Institutions (M adison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 110. For a description of the G E Test Course, see Charles M. Ripley, L ife in a Large M anufacturing Plant (Schenectady: General Electric Com­ pany Publication Bureau, 1919), p. 145. Amos Eaton, quoted in Braley, "Evolution," p. 52. M orrill Act, quoted in M ann, “American Spirit in Education," p. 41. For detailed discussion of the evolution of humanities and social-science courses in engineering schools, see Braley. Burr, "Ideal Engineering Education," pp. 19-20. Robert Thurston, “G raduate and Post-G raduate Engineering De­ grees," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, II (1894), 78. Henry T. Eddy, “On Engineering Education," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, V (1898), 14. W alker, “Place of the Schools of Technology," p. 219. John B. Johnson, “Discussion," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, IX (1901), 76. M erriman, “Past and Present Tendencies," pp. 26-27. Burr, “ Ideal Engineering Education," p. 20.

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Notes for Pages 33-37

Wickenden, Report o f the Investigation o f Engineering Education. I, 46, 47, 232. See also M ann, Study o f Engineering Education, pp. 107-

111.

R. W. Raymond, quoted in Braley, “ Evolution,” p. 72.

Chapter 3 1. For a brief discussion of early contact between science and manufactures, see Tom Burns, “The Social C haracter o f Technology,” Impact, V II (September 1936), 133-64. 2. Ralph E Flanders, “The New Age and the New Man,” in Charles A. Beard, ed., Toward Civilization (London: Longmans, Green ft Co., 1930), p. 22. 3. Dugald C. Jackson, Present Status and Trends in Engineering Education (New York: Engineers’ Council for Professional Development, 1939), p. 97. 4. Daniel Horowitz, “ Insight into Industrialization: American Conceptions of Economic Development and M echanization, 1863-1910,” unpub­ lished Ph.D. dissertation, H arvard University, 1966, p. 238. 3. Henry Towne, Foreword to “Shop M anagement” in Frederick W. Tay­ lor, Scientific Management (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1947), pp. 3-6; quoted in Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York: M onthly Review Press, 1974), p. 200. Towne, “Industrial Engineering,” American Machinist, July 20,1903, p. 100. A. A. Potter, interview with author, Purdue University, 1974. President of Stevens Institute Alumni Association, quoted in M onte Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), p. 213. 6. Benjamin W right, American Railroad Journal, I (1832), 363, quoted in Daniel Calhoun, The American Civil Engineer (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1960), p. 87. For a fuller discussion o f civil engineering in the nineteenth century, see Calhoun. For an interesting description of early canal and railroad engineering, see Elting E. Morison, From Know-how to Nowhere (New York: Basic Books, 1974), Part One. 7. Calhoun, American Civil Engineer, pp. viii, 77, 194, 199. 8. U.S. Bureau of Education, Biennial Survey o f Education 1926-28, p. 698. 9. Edwin Layton, The Revolt o f the Engineers (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1971), pp. 41-30; Calvert, Mechanical Engi­ neer, p. 213. 10. The following discussion of the mechanical engineering profession is based prim arily upon Calvert, Mechanical Engineer, and Layton, Revolt

o f the Engineers. 11. Alexander Holley, quoted in Lyndall Urwick, “Management’s Debt to Engineers,” Advanced Management, December 1932, p. 9.

Notes for Pages 38-46

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12. Charles Steinmetz, “Discussion,” Transactions o f the American Institute o f Electrical Engineers, XXV (1906), 266. See also Wickenden, Report o f the Investigation ofEngineering Educa­ tion (Pittsburgh: Society for the Promotion o f Engineering Education, 1930), 1 ,821; Calvert, Mechanical Engineer, pp. 215—20; Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers, pp. 41-30. 13. Samuel P. Sadder, “Presidential Address,” Transactions o f the American Institute o f Chemical Engineers, I (1908), 36. See also Alfred H. W hite, “Chemical Engineering Education,” in Sid* ney D. Kirkpatrick, ed., Twenty-five Years o f Chemical Engineering Progress (American Institute o f Chemical Engineers, 1933). W. A. Par­ dee, “The American Chemical Society Division o f Industrial Chemistry and Chemical Engineering,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X LIII, 309. 14. See Edward Gross, “Change in Technological and Scientific Develop­ ments and Its Im pact upon the Occupational Structure,” in R o b o t Perrucci and Joel G ersti, eds., The Engineers and the Social System (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969), p. 17. Historical Statistics o f the United States, U.S. Departm ent of Com­ merce, Bureau of the Census, 1961, p. 75; and Biennial Survey o f Educa­ tion 1926-28, p. 698. 13. Jay Gould, The Technical Elite (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966), p. 172; Carolyn Cummings Perrucci, “Engineering and the Class Struc­ ture,” in Perrucci and G ersti, eds., Engineers and the Social System, p. 284; Wickenden, Report o f the Investigation, 1 ,162; Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers, p. 9. 16. Calvert, Mechanical Engineer, p. 242. 17. Wickenden, Report o f the Investigation, I, 232. See especially Fig. 2. 18. Calvert, Mechanical Engineer, p. 231. 19. Charles Steinmetz, “Individual and C orporate Development o f Indus­ try,” General Electric Review, X V III (1915), 816. 20. Ronald Tobey, The American Ideology o f National Science 1919-1930 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), p. 6. 21. Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers, p. 19. 22. Wickenden, Report o f the Investigation, I, 229. 23. Onward Bates, “Discussion,” Transactions o f the American Society o f Civil Engineers, LXIV (September 1909), 573. “Commercialized Engineering,” American Machinist, January 24, 1907, p. 573. 24. DeVolson Wood, “Presidential Address,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, I (1893), 21. H. F. J. Porter, “Discussion,” Transactions o f the American Society o f Mechanical Engineers, XIV (1893), 1004. 25. M atthew Elias Zaret, “An Historical Study of the Development o f the American Society for Engineering Education” (unpublished Ph.D. dis­ sertation, New York University, 1967), pp. 68,87. See further discussion and citations in C hapter 8. 26. Steinmetz, “Individual and C orporate Development,” p. 813.

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Notes for Pages 46-55

27. Charles R. M ann, “The American Spirit in Education,“ U.S Bureau o f Education Bulletin, No. 30 (1919), p. 50. 28. Alfred H. White, “Chemical Engineering Education in the U.S.,“ Trans­ actions o f the American Institute o f Chemical Engineers, XXI (1928), 85. 29. Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: M onthly Review Press, 1966), p. 16. 30. “William E Wickenden,” National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography. XXXVI, 391. See also Charles F. Scott, letter to Elmer Lindset, pub­ lished in The Case Alumnus, 1929. Wickenden Papers, Case W estern Reserve University Archives, Cleveland, Ohio. 31. William E. Wickenden, A Professional Guidefo r Junior Engineers (New York: Engineers* Council for Professional Development, 1949), pp. 1,20, 21, 29. 32. Ibid., p. 31. 33. Ibid, p. 47.

1. Christopher Lasch, “The M oral and Intellectual Rehabilitation of the Ruling Class,** in The World o f Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), pp. 80-102. 2. Magnus W. Alexander, The Economic Evolution o f the United States: Its Background and Significance (New York: National Industrial Confer­ ence Board, 1929), pp. 28-50. 3. Ib id , pp. 37, 38. 4. Alexander, quoted in George Soule, Prosperity Decade (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and W inston, 1947), p. 293. Alexander, Economic Evolution, p. 46. 5. The following brief description of the economic history of the period is based upon Recent Economic Changes (New York: M cGraw-Hill Book Co., 1929); Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: M onthly Review Press, 1966); Alfred D. Chandler, “The Large Indus­ trial Corporation and the Making of the M odem American Economy,*’ in Stephen E. Ambrose, ed., Institutions in Modem America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), pp. 71-101; Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1962); W illard L. Thorp, The Integration o f Industrial Operation, Departm ent of Com­ merce, Bureau of the Census M onograph III (W ashington: Government Printing Office, 1924); Edward C. K irkland, Industry Comes o f Age (New York: Holt, R inehart and W inston, 1961); Soule, Prosperity Decade: Harold U. Faulkner, The Decline o f Laissez-Faire, 1897-1917 (New York: H olt, Rinehart and W inston, 1951); M artin J. Sklar, “On the Proletarian Revolution and the End of Political-Economic Society,’’ Radical America, Vol. I ll, No. 3; and Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph o f Conservatism (New York: Free Press, 1963). 6. See, for example, Stuart B. Ewen, “Advertising as Social Production,** Radical America, III, 42-56, and his Captains o f Consciousness: Advertis-

Notes for Pages 55-63

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

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ing and the Social Roots o f tiw Consumer Culture (New York: McGraw* Hill, 1976). See, for example, Charles A. Conant, “Can New Openings Be Found for Capital?” Atlantic Monthly, LXXXIV (July-December 1899), 601-8 (courtesy of M artin J. Sklar). See also Sklar, “On The Proletarian Revo* lution," and Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital Faulkner, Decline o f Laissez-Faire, p. 31. The following brief discussion of labor history draws prim arily upon Faulkner, Decline o f Laissez-Faire, pp. 280-314; Soule, Prosperity Decade, pp. 187-200; K irkland, Industry Comes o f Age, pp. 356-81; David Montgomery, “The 'New Unionism' and the Transform ation of Workers* Consciousness in America, 1909-1922,” unpublished paper, 1972; and Graham Adams, Age o f Industrial Violence. 1910-1915 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966). Faulkner, Decline o f Laissez-Faire, p. 281. Adams, Age o f Industrial Violence, p. 228. Montgomery, “New Unionism,” pp. 7, 8. Faulkner, Decline o f Laissez-Faire, pp. 101-14. Adams, Age o f Industrial Violence, p. 228. See, for example, Magnus W. Alexander, “The Development and M ajor Aspects o f the Immigration Problem,” Proceedings o f the National Imm i­ gration Conference, Special Report No. 26 (New York: National Indus* trial Conference Board, 1924), pp. 25-44. James W einstein, The Decline o f Socialism in America, 1912-25 (New York: Random House, 1967), p. ix. Herbert G. Gutm an, “W ork, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919,” American Historical Review, July 1973, pp. 542-3. W einstein, Decline o f Socialism, p. ix. For further discussion of business responses to industrial strife and politi­ cal challenge, see Robert Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1962); Kolko, Triumph o f Conservatism; Sam­ uel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel o f Efficiency (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1959) and The Response to Industrialism, 1884-1914 (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1957); Samuel P. Hays, “The Politics of Reform in M unicipal Government in the Progres­ sive Era,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, LVIV (October 1964), 157-69; and James W einstein, “Organized Business and the City Commission and Manager Movements,” Journal o f Southern History, XXVIII (May 1962), 166-82; Samuel Haber Efficiency and Uplift (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). Edwin Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers (Cleveland: Case W estern Re­ serve University Press, 1971), pp. 64-72, and “Frederick Haynes Newell and the Revolt of the Engineers,” Journal o f the Midcontinent American Studies Association, V III (Fall 1962), 18-26. See also his perceptive “Veblen and the Engineers,” American Quarterly. XIV (Spring 1962), 64-72. On engineers and progressivism, see Bruce Sinclair, “The Cleveland

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Notes for Pages 63-74

Radicals: Urban Engineers in the Progressive Era, 1901-1917” (unpub­ lished paper). Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers, pp. 64-72. 22. William Ernest Akin, “History of Technocracy” (unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, University o f Rochester, 1971). See also Haber, Efficiency and Uplift, pp. 130-60. 23. Roosevelt and Potter letters published in The New York Times, O ctober 23, 1936, p. 25, and October 25, 1936, p. 1. Alexander, Economic Evolution, p. 48.

1. Lyman Gage, quoted by Henry S. Pritchett, “The Story of the Establish­ ment of the National Bureau o f Standards,” Science, XV (February 21, 1902), 282. 2. This brief discussion o f the early standardization movement is based upon Bruce Sinclair, “A t the Turn of the Screw: William Sellers, the Franklin Institute, and a Standard American Thread,” Technology and Culture, XI (1969), 20-34; M onte Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), pp. 170-5; Dugald C. Jackson, “The Relation of Standards and of Means for Accurate Measurement to Effective Development of Industrial Pro­ duction,” advance copy of a lecture to be delivered at Tokyo, October 1935, pp. 7-9,18, Jackson Papers, D epartm ent o f Electrical Engineering, M IT Archives, Cambridge, M assachusetts; and Comfort A. Adams, “In ­ dustrial Standardization,” Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science. LXXXII (1919), 289-99. 3. Jackson, “Relation of Standards,” pp. 14, 15. John Perry, The Story o f Standards (New York: Funk and W agnalls Co., 1955), pp. 127, 131. Pardee, “The ACS Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemis­ try,” p. 309. Comfort A. Adams, “The National Standards Movement—Its Evolu­ tion and Future,” in Dickson Reck, ed., National Standards in a Modem Economy (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1952), pp. 22-4. 4. “Henry S. Pritchett,” National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, XXIX, 124. 5. Calvert, Mechanical Engineer, p. 181. 6. Pritchett, “Story of the Establishment of the National Bureau of Stan­ dards,” p. 282. 7. Charles S. Peirce, quoted by A. H unter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1957), p. 271. NAS quoted in Perry, Story o f Standards, p. 128. 8. Henry S. Pritchett, “A Tale of Two Presidents,” Technology Review, February 1923, p. 199. Pritchett, “Story of the Establishment o f the National Bureau of Standards,” p. 282. See also John A. Brashear, “The Evolution of Stand-

Notes for Pages 74-82

9.

10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

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337

ards o f Measurement,” Cassiers M agazine, XX (M ay-October 1901), 417. Pritchett, ’T ale of Two Presidents,” p. 200; Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 272; Perry, Story o f Standards, p. 128; Pritchett, “Story of the Establishment of the N ational Bureau of Standards,” p. 282. Pritchett, “Story of the Establishment o f the National Bureau of Stan­ dards,” p. 282. Ib id , p. 282. Pritchett, ’T ale of Two Presidents,” p. 200. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 274. C. L. W arwick, “The W ork in the Field of Standardization of the American Society for Testing M aterials,” Annals o f the Am erican Academ y o f Political and Social Science, CXXXVII (May 1928), 49. H. G. Boutell, “The N ational Bureau of Standards,” Tech Engineering News (M IT), VI (October 1920), 4-7. Pritchett, “Tale of Two Presidents,” p. 200. George V. Thompson, “Intercom pany Technical Standardization in the Early American Automobile Industry,” Journal o f Economic H istory, XIV (W inter 1954), 2. Sinclair, “A t the Turn of the Screw," pp. 20-34. Adams, “ Industrial Standardization,” pp. 289-99. Calvert, M echanical Engineer, pp. 169-86. Charles E. Skinner, “The Present Status of Standards in the Electrical Industry,” Annals o f the Am erican Academ y o f Political and Social Science. CXXXVII (May 1928), 151. Adams, “National Standards Movement,” p. 23. See also Adams, “ In­ dustrial Standardization,” pp. 290-5; Skinner, “Present Status of Stan­ dards,” pp. 151-7. W. A. Pardee, “The American Chemical Society Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry,” pp. 309-10. Thompson, “ Intercompany Technical Standardization,” pp. 1-20. P. G. Agnew, “The W ork of the American Engineering Standards Com­ m ittee," Annals o f the Am erican Academ y ofP olitical and Social Science, CXXXVII (May 1928), 13. Adams, “National Standards Movement,” p. 23. “ Howard Coffin,” N ational Cyclopaedia o f Am erican Biography, XXX, 3; Lloyd N. Scott, The N aval Consulting Board o f the U .S (W ashington: Government Printing Office, 1920), pp. 27, 37-42. Leon P. Alford, ’Technical Changes in M anufacturing Industries,” in Recent Economic Changes (New York: M cGraw-Hill Book Co., 1929), I. 116. Perry, Story o f Standards, pp. 131, 132. Magnus W. Alexander, The Economic Evolution o f the U nited States: Its Background and Significance (New York: National Industrial Con­ ference Board, 1929), p. 34. Dexter S. Kimball, “Changes in New and Old Industries,” in Recent Economic Changes, I, 89; Alford, ’Technical Changes,” p. 116.

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Notes for Pages 82-90

Alexander, Economic Evolution, p. 37. See also Willard L. Thorp, 'T he Changing Structure of Industry,” Recent Economic Changes, I, 167-218; and E. W. McCullock, "The Relation of the Chamber of Com­ merce of the United States to the Growth of the Simplification Program in American Industry,” Annals o f the American Academy ofPolitical and Social Science, CXXXVII (May 1928), 9-12. 24. Alexander, Economic Evolution, p. 34. 25. For more on Taylor, see, for example, Hugh G. J. Aitken, Taylorism a t Watertown Arsenal (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 22, 30; Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974), pp. 85, 86; and Chapter 10 below. Jackson, "Relation of Standards,” p. 18-19. Kimball, "Changes in New and Old Industries,” p. 90.

1. E F. W. Alexanderson, “ Inventors I Have Known,” in Philip Alger, The H um an Side o f Engineering (Schenectady: Mohawk Development Ser­ vice, 1972), p. 137. 2. Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Frederick P. Fish, "The Patent System,” Transactions o f the Am erican In stitu te o f E lectrical Engineers, 1909, p. 315. 3. Bernhard J. Stem, "The Corporations as Beneficiaries,” Am erican Scholar. XVIII (1949), 112. Robert A. Brady, "N ot Patents But the Patent System," Am erican Scholar, XVIII (1949), 106. 4. L. W.Moffett, “A Big Handicap to Industry: How an Antiquated System o f Patent Laws Puts a Brake on Progress,” Iron Trade Review, LVI (M arch 8, 1915), 558. 5. Fish, "Patent System,” p. 315. 6. Ibid. pp. 320-2, 324. 7. Floyd L. Vaughan, The U nited States Patent System : Legal and Eco­ nom ic Conflicts in Am erican Patent H istory (Norm an: University o f Oklahoma Press, 1956), pp. 19, 21, 25. 8. Francis B. Crocker, "Discussion o f Fish Paper,” Transactions o f the Am erican Institute o f Electrical Engineers, May 18, 1909, p. 340. 9. Vaughan, U .S Patent System , pp. 33, 252. 10. Ibid., pp. 252, 33. 11. Fish, “Patent System,” p. 322. Vaughan, U .S Patent System , pp. 43, 39, 34, 35, 69. Alexanderson, "Inventors I Have Known,” p. 137. 12. Vaughan, U .S Patent System , pp. 43, 69, 40, 134, 70. 13. Edwin J. Prindle, "Patents as a Factor in a M anufacturing Business,” Engineering Magazine. XXXI (September 1906), 809-10; XXXII (O cto­ ber 1906), 90. 14. Ibid, XXXII, 168, 407. 15. Ibid, XXXII, 415. 16. Ibid, XXXII, 415.

Notes for Pages 91-100

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339

17. N. R. Danielian, ATàT: The Story o f Industrial Conquest (New York: Vanguard Press, 1939), p. 94. 18. Vail, quoted by Danielian, AT&T, pp. 93-6. 19. Ibid., pp. 99-100. 20. Vaughan, U.S Patentsystem, pp. 73-3; Danielian, AT&T, pp. 99-100. 21. Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 73. 22. Ibid., p. 75. See also the report by the Federal Communications Commis­ sion, Investigation o f the Telephone Industry in the U.S, 76th Congress, 1st Session, House Report No. 340, p. 214. 23. Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 268. 24. Ibid. p. 73. 25. Incandescent Electric Lamps, Tariff Commission Report No. 133 (1937), p. 36. Cited in Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 75. 26. United States vs. General Electric Company, 272 U.S. 476 (1926), pp. 480-1. Cited in Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 109. 27. United States vs. General Electric Company, 82 F. Supp. 753,798 (D .N .J. 1949), pp. 815, 817. Cited in Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 75. 28. Danielian, AT&T, pp. 75-6. 29. Ibid., p. 109. 30. Vaughan, U.S Patent System, pp. 75, 76; Danielian, AT&T, pp. 108,

110.

31. Vaughan, U.S Patentsystem, p. 76. See also “Weapons of Monopoly,” New Republic, February 14,1944, p. 199, and Alexander Morrow, “The Suppression of Patents,” American Scholar, XIV (W inter 1944-5), 210— 19. 32. Otterson, quoted in Danielian, AT&T, p. 115. 33. Danielian, AT& T, p. 117. See also Vaughan, U.S. P atentsystem , p. 153. 34. U.S vs. G.E (1949), p. 905. Cited in Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 154. 35. Vaughan, U.S Patent System, p. 33. 36. Danielian, AT&T, pp. 101-2, 92. 37. Carty memorandum, quoted in Danielian, AT&T, p. 104. 38. Jewett, quoted in Danielian, AT&T, p. 196. 39. Otterson memorandum, quoted in Danielian, AT&T, pp. 114-15. 40. Vaughan, U.S Patent System, pp. 261-5. 41. Ibid, pp. 261-262. 42. President o f Thomas A. Edison, Inc., cited in Vaughan, U.S. Patent System, p. 265. Alexanderson, “ Inventors I Have K nown," p. 135. Alger, The Human Side o f Engineering p. 43. Alexanderson, “ Inventors I Have K nown," p. 135. 43. Pooling o f Patents, Hearings Before House Committee on Patents on House Resolution 4523, 74th Congress, P art I, p. 860. Quoted in Vaug­ han, U.S. Patent System, p. 267. 44. Louis Brandeis, quoted in Vaughan, U.S. Patent System, p. 267. Alexanderson, “ Inventors I Have K nown," pp. 135, 136. 45. Stem, “Corporations as Beneficiaries," p. 112. 46. L. Sprague de Camp, The Heroic Age o f American Invention (Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1961), pp. 251-9.

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Notes for Pages 100-106

47. Vaughan, U S Patent System , p. 101. 48. Alvin D. Keene, former G E electrical engineer, interview with author, Rochester, New York, 1973. 49. De Camp, Heroic Age, p. 238. 30. Jewett, Pooling o f Patents, Part I, p. 276. Quoted in Vaughan, U .S P atent System , p. 283. 31. De Camp, Herme Age, pp. 237, 238. Alexanderson, “Inventors I Have Known,” p. 133. Stem, “Corporations as Beneficiaries,” p. 112. Fish, “Patent System,” p. 336. For a discussion of the impact o f patents upon industrial development, see Technology in Our Economy, Temporary N ational Economic Commission Investigation o f the Concen­ tration o f Economic Power, Monograph No. 22 (1941), pp. 212-7. 32. Conway P. Coe, “Factual D ata Supplied by the Commission of Patents,” reprinted in George E. Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress: A Sum m ary Analysis and Evaluation o f the Record o f Patents o f the Temporary N a­ tional Economic Commitee (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1942), p. 126. See also Jacob Schmookler, Patents, Inventions, and Economic Change (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1972), C hapter 3. 33. See, for example: “Proposed Patent Legislation,” Scientific Am erican, April 18, 1896; “ Proposed Changes in the Patent Laws," Iron Age, February 6, 1896; “Amendments to the Patent Statutes,” Scientific Am erican, M arch 20, 1897; Philip M auro, “Justifying the Past Practice of Liberality in G ranting Patents,” Transactions o f the Am erican In stitu te o f Electrical Engineers, February, M arch and April 1894; John Richards, “Patent Laws: Discussion of the Abolishment or Modification,” Journal o f the Associated Engineering Societies, XIV, p. 474; ‘T h e U.S. Patent Office," Century Magazine, LXI (1901), 346; Ludwig G uttm ann, “O ur Antiquated Patent System,” Electrical World, December 26, 1908; “The Need of a New Building for the U.S. Patent Office,” Railroad Gazette, April 13, 1900. H arry Kursh, Inside the U .S Patent O ffice (New York: W. W. N orton and Company, 1939), pp. 32, 147. Prindle, “Patents as a Factor” ; Fish, “ Patent System.” The Story o f the U .S Patent O ffice (W ashington: Government Printing Office, n.d.), p. 20. 34. Fish, “Patent System,” pp. 326-7. 33. Story o f the U .S Patent Office, pp. 21, 23. 36. L. H. Baekeland, “The U.S. Patent System, Its Uses and Abuses," Indus­ trial and Engineering Chemistry, December 1909, p. 204. 37. Ibid., p. 204. See also Baekeland’s “Presidential Address” in Journal o f Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, V (1913), 31. 38. See Story o f the U .S Patent Office, pp. 21, 23; Vaughan, U .S Patent System , p. 19; Revision and Codification o f the Patent Statutes, Hearings Before the House Committee on Patents on House Resolution 23417, Parts I-X X V II, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session (Oldfield Hearings of 1912); Williams Haynes, The Am erican Chem ical Industry—A H istory (New York: D. Van N ostrand Co., 1934) III, 410-13. 39. Fish testimony, quoted in Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress, p. 238.

Notes for Pages 106-111

60.

61. 62.

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

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341

Edison testimony, quoted in ib id , p. 2S8. Baekeland, “Presidential Address,“ p. 51. Moffett, “Big Handicap to Industry,“ p. 558. See also M etallurgical and Chem ical Engineering, X (1912), 276, 326. Ewing, quoted by Moffett, “Big Handicap to Industry,“ p. 558. See H arry K ursh, Inside the U .S Patent Office, p. 33; L. H. Baekeland, “Report of the Economy and Efficiency Commission on the Patent Office," Electrical W orld May 10, 1913; Howard R. B artlett, 'T h e Development of Industrial Research in the United States,“ Section II of Research—A N ational Resource (N ational Resources Plan­ ning Board, 1941), p. 36. Story o f the U .S Patent Office, p. 21. Report o f the Patent Com m ittee o f the NRC, R eprint and Circular Series No. 1 (1919), p. 1. On patent legislation, see Edwin Prindle, “The Patent Situation,“ Chem ical and M etallurgical Engineering, XXV (August 31, 1921), 418. See also “The Patent Situation in the U.S.,“ M echanical Engineering, XLI (February 1919), 147-9. Prindle, “Patent Situation," p. 418. On the Stanley Bill, see Journal o f Engineering Chemistry, XIV (1922), 573. See also Glenn B. H arris, “Needed Improvements in O ur Patent Office and System," Am erican M achinist, LII (April 18, 1920), 798-803. Folk, Patents and Industrial Pivgress, p. 259; Story o f the U .S Patent Office, p. 23. “Herbert Hoover and the Patent Office," Scientific Am erican, CXXXII (June 1925), 373. Story o f the U .S Patent Office, p. 22. Robert S. Lynd, “You C an't Skin a Live Tiger,” Am erican Scholar, XVII (1949), 109. Conway Coe, “Statement o f the Commission o f Patents," quoted in Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress, p. 143. Economic Power and Political Pressure, Temporary National Economic Committee Monograph No. 26, pp. 22-3, quoted by Lynd, “You C an't Skin a Live Tiger," p. 109. Lynd, “You C an't Skin a Live Tiger," pp. 109-10.

Chapter 7 1. Elihu Root, “The Need for Organization in Scientific Research,” N a­ tional Research Council B ulletin, I (October 1919), 8. 2. Howard R. Bartlett, “The Development of Industrial Research in the United States," Section II of Research— A N ational Resource (N ational Resources Planning Board, 1941), pp. 25-8. 3. Dexter S. Kimball, “Changes in New and Old Industries," in Recent Economic Changes (New York: M cGraw-Hill Book Co., 1929), I, 107. For further information on the emergence of organized industrial re­ search, see Editors of Fortune, The M ighty Force o f Research (New York: M cGraw-Hill Book Co., 1953), p. 13; Kendall A. Birr, “Science in

342 /

4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

Notes for Pages 112-118

American Industry,” in David Van Tassel and Michael G . H all, cds., Science and Society in the United States (Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press, 1966), pp. 35-80; and Birr’s Introduction to his Pioneering in Industrial Research (W ashington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1957). J. J. Carty, “The Relation of Pure Science to Industrial Research" (Presi­ dential Address, American Institute of Electrical Engineers), Science, New Series XLIV (October 13. 1916), 7. Henry Ford, Edison as I Knew Him, quoted in Gilman M. O strander, American Civilization in the First Machine Age (New York: H arper ft Row, 1970), p. 217. Norbert Wiener, quoted in O strander, American Civilization, p. 218. Elihu Thomson, quoted in W. R upert M cLaurin, Invention and Inno­ vation in the Radio Industry (New York: MacMillan Co., 1949), p. 164. G E Annual Report, quoted in B artlett, "Development of Industrial Research," pp. 51-2. Willis W hitney, quoted in B artlett, "Development o f Industrial Re­ search," p. 52. W illis W hitney, quoted in M cLaurin, Invention and Innovation, pp. 153, 164. Birr, "Science in American Industry," p. 69. Lillian Hartm ann Hoddeson, “The Beginnings of Solid State Physics at the Bell Telephone Labo­ ratories, 1900-1947,” Technology Studies Colloquium, December 3, 1975, M IT, Cambridge, Mass.; Bartlett, “Development o f Industrial Research,” pp. 49-50. J. J. Carty, "Science and Business" (address to the Chamber of Com­ merce of the U.S., Cleveland, May 8, 1924), NRC Reprint No 55, p. 4. Frank B. Jewett, testimony before the Temporary National Economic Committee, quoted in George E. Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress:

A Summary Analysis and Evaluation o f the Record o f Patents o f the Temporary National Economic Committee (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1942), p. 153. 11. Ibid, p. 153. 12. B artlett, “Development of Industrial Research," p. 49; M cLaurin, Inven­ tion and Innovation, p. 156. See also John Mills, “The Line and the Laboratory," Bell Telephone Quarterly, Vol. XIX (January 1940), and W. S. Gifford, "The Place of the Bell Telephone Laboratories in the Bell System," Bell Telephone Quarterly, Vol. IV (A pril 1925). M cLaurin, Invention and Innovation, pp. 156-8. 13. "D u Pont—How to Win at Research,” Fortune, X LII (October 1950), 115-34; Bartlett, "Development of Industrial Research," p. 34; Birr, "Science in American Industry," pp. 57-8. 14. B artlett, "Development of Industrial Research," pp. 35-50. Editors of Fortune, Mighty Force o f Research; Birr, Pioneering in Industrial Re­ search, p. 21. 15. Birr, “Science in American Industry," pp. 58-65,73; Birr, Pioneering in Industrial Research, pp. 22-4; M aurice Holland, Industrial Explorers (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1928). 16. Jewett, testimony before TNEC, in Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress, p. 153.

Notes for Pages 118-125

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

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343

Philip Alger, The Human Side o f Engineering (Schenectady: Mohawk Development Service, 1972), p. 7. Jewett, testimony before TNEC, in Folk, Patentsand Industrial Progress, p. 153. Joseph Schumpeter, quoted by M cLaurin, Invention and Innovation, p. 154. E. B. Craft, Bell Educational Conference, 1925 (New York: Bell System, 1925), pp. 25, 40. Ibid., pp. 43-4. Ibid, p. 47. Jewett, quoted in M cLaurin, Invention and Innovation, p. 156.

23. Craft, Bell Conference, 1925, p. 47. 24. Technology in Our Economy, TNEC Investigation of the Concentration

25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36. 37.

o f Economic Power, pp. 211-12. William D. Coolidge, testimony before TNEC, quoted in Folk, Patents and Industrial Progress, p. 152. Frank B. Jewett, “Motive and Obligation: Engineering, Industrial Research, Research W ithout U tilitarian Objective and the Interdepen­ dence of the Fields to Which They Pertain,“ NRC Reprint No. 68, pp. 9, 10. “John B. Crouse,“ National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, X X X III, 564; Holland, Industrial Explorers: Birr, Pioneering in Indus­ trial Research, p. 24; B artlett, “Development o f Industrial Research.“ “Robert Kennedy D uncan,“ National Cyclopaedia o f American Biogra­ phy, XXI, 331. Robert Kennedy Duncan, “On Industrial Fellowships,“ Journal o f In­ dustrial and Engineering Chemistry, August 1919, p. 600. Ibid. pp. 601-2. Bartlett, “Development of Industrial Research,“ pp. 71-2; Birr, Pioneer­ ing in Industrial Research, p. 24; W illiams Haynes, The American Chem­ ical Industry—A History (New York: D. Van N ostrand Co., 1954), III, 600-3. Haynes, American Chemical Industry, III, 393. “A rthur Dehon Little,“ National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, XV, 64. A rthur D. Little, “Chemical Engineering Research,“ in Sidney D. K irk­ patrick, ed., Twenty-Five Years o f Chemical Engineering Progress (New York: D. Van N ostrand and Co., 1933). Holland, Industrial Explorers, p. 149. A rthur D. Little, “The Handwriting on the W all“ (Cambridge: A. D. Little, 1925); see also A rthur D. Little, The Earning Power o f Chemistry, A Public Lecture to Businessmen (Boston, 1911). A. H unter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge: H ar­ vard University Press, 1957), p. 283; see also Samuel P. Hays, Conserva­ tion and the Gospel o f Efficiency (Cambridge: H arvard University Press, 1959). Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 285. Ibid, p. 287. Ibid, p. 325.

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Notes for Pages 126-132

38. Ibid., p. 339; Research—A National Resource (N ational Resources Plan* ning Board, 1941), Section I, pp. 8, 91. 39. “Robert S. Woodward” (president of the Carnegie Institution), National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography. X III, 108. See also Ronald C. Tobey, The American Ideology o f National Science. 1919-1930 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), p. 5. 40. Raymond B. Fosdick, The Story o f the Rockefeller Foundation (New York: H arper and Brothers, 1952), pp. ix, 146. 41. “Relations Between the Engineering Foundation and the National Re­ search Council,” unpublished compilation of excerpts from NRC and Engineering Foundation Files, compiled November 1936. NRC A r­ chives, National Academy of Science, W ashington, D.C. 42. Haynes, American Chemical Industry. Ill, 409, 271; W illiams Haynes and Edward L. Gordy, eds., Chemical Industry's Contribution to the Nation. 1635-1935, Supplement to Chemical Industries. 1935. See also Carroll Pursell, “The Farm Chemurgic Council and the U.S. D epart­ ment of Agriculture, 1935-1939,” Isis, LX, 308; Bartlett, “Development o f Industrial Research,” p. 36. 43. William E. Wickenden, “The Place o f the Engineer in Modem America,” unpublished speech, M arch 20, 1936, Wickenden Papers, Case Western Reserve University Archives, Cleveland, Ohio. Dugald C. Jackson, quoted in Consolidated Report upon the Activities o f the National Research Council, 1919-1932 (mimeographed), April 1932, p. 129, NRC Archives. 44. Frank B. Jewett, “ Industrial Research,” paper read before the Royal Canadian Institute, February 8, 1919, NRC Reprint No. 4, pp. 6-7. Dugald C. Jackson, ‘T ypes of Practices, Processes and Products That Flow into American Industry Directly from University Research,” ad­ vance copy of lecture to be delivered in Kyoto, October 1935, Jackson Papers, Electrical Engineering D epartm ent, M IT Archives. See also “Cooperation Between the Technical Industries and Technical Educa­ tion in America,” advance copy of lecture to be delivered in Tokyo, Jackson Papers (both papers courtesy o f Professor Karl L. Wildes). 45. Carty, “Science and Business,” p. 1. 46. Ibid. p. 2. 47. Ibid, p. 4. 48. Jewett, “Motive and Obligation,” pp. 9-10. 49. Ibid, pp. 9-10. See also Herbert Hoover, “The Vital Need for G reater Financial Support of Pure Science Research,” NRC Reprint No. 65; James R. Angell, “The Development of Research in the United States,”

NRC Reprint No. 6. 50. Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence o f the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 158, 166, 171. 51. Veysey, Emergence o f the American University, pp. 133-4, 179; Tobey, American Ideology o f National Science, p. 5. 52. James Creese, The Extension o f University Teaching (New York: Ameri­ can Association for A dult Education, 1941), p. 5053. 53. Charles Russ Richards, “The University and the Development of the Technological Sciences,” in The University and the Commonwealth: Ad-

Notes for Pages 132-138

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345

dresses at the Inauguration o f Lotus Delta Coffman as Fifth President o f the University o f Minnesota (M inneapolis: University of M innesota Press, 1921), p. 129. 34. Ibid., p. 133. 35. Ellery B. Paine, “The Engineering Experiment Station at the University of Illinois," Proceedings o f the American Institute o f Electrical Engineers, 1913, p. 2421. A. A. Potter, "Engineering Experiment Stations,” Society fo r the Pro­ motion o f Engineering Education Bulletin, VI (1916), 619. John R. M or­ ton, University Extension in the United States (Birmingham: University o f Alabama Press, 1953), p. 23. 36. Creese, Extension o f University Teaching p. 98. "Charles Van Hise,” National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, XIX , 19; "Louis E. Reber," Ibid, XXXVII, 402. 57. Potter, "Engineering Experiment Stations," p. 617, and interview with author, October 1973, Purdue University. For a biography of Potter, see Robert Eckles, The Dean (W est Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1973). 58. Potter, "Engineering Experiment Stations," p. 619. 59. A. A. Potter, Experiment Stations in Connection with State Colleges, Memorandum Relative to S 4874, Senate Document No. 353, 64th Congress, 1st Session (W ashington, 1916) (Courtesy A. A. Potter). 60. W illis R. W hitney, Industrial Research Stations: Letter o f Dr. W. R.

Whitney, Chairman o f the Committee on Chemistry and Physics o f the U.S Naval Consulting Board, transmitting a copy o f a circular letter sent by Dr. Whitney to various scientists; also extracts from replies received thereto, together with certain other matters relative to the bill (S 4874) proposing to establish Industrial Research Stations in connection with the Land-Grant colleges in several states, Senate Document No. 446, 64th

61. 62. 63. 64.

65.

Congress, 1st Session (W ashington, 1916), pp. 3, 4, 5, 7. For further discussion of this bill, see Daniel J. Kevles, “Federal Legislation for Engineering Experiment Stations: The Episode of W orld W ar O ne," Technology and Culture, X II, 182-90. Raymond M. Hughes, "Research in American Universities and Col­ leges,” in Research—A National Resource, Section I, p. 190. K arl L. Wildes, “Electrical Engineering at M IT," unpublished manu­ script; “Report of the Visiting and Advisory Committee of the Electrical Engineering Department, 1925,” Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Henry Pritchett, quoted in Wildes, "Electrical Engineering at M IT., pp. 4— 6. Edwin Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers (Cleveland: Case W estern Re­ serve University Press, 1971), p. 161. Vannevar Bush, Pieces o f the Action (New York: William M orrow and Company, 1970), p. 243. Dugald Jackson, letter to Francis R. H art, May 20,1908, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. "R eport of the Advisory Committee of the Electrical Engineering De­ partm ent to the President of the Corporation, 1922," Presidential Papers, M IT Archives.

346 /

Notes for Pages 139-144

66. Dugald Jackson, letter to Louis A. Ferguson, February 13,1910, Presi­ dential Papers, M IT Archives. Jackson, “Advanced Instruction and Research in the Electrical Engi­ neering Sciences at the M IT," Pamphlet, 1910, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 67. "R eport of the Advisory Committee," 1912. 68. Ib id , 1914. 69. Dugald Jackson, letter to Theodore N. Vail, October 3, 1913, Presiden­ tial Papers, M IT Archives. 70. Ib id 71. Dugald Jackson, "M emorandum on Electrical Engineering Staff at Tech­ nology, for G erard Swope,” January 7, 1923, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 72. "R eport of the Advisory Committee," 1922. Frank B. Jewett, letter to Dugald Jackson, April 6, 1923, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Jackson, "M emorandum on G ift o f General Electric," June 1923, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Jackson, letter to Samuel W. Stratton, December 1,1924, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 73. "W illiam H. W alker," National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, Vol. A, 167. 74. William H. W alker, "Chemical Research and Industrial Progress," Sci­ entific American Supplement 72 (July 1, 1911), p. 14. 73. Jewett, testimony before the TNEC, quoted in Folk, Patents and Indus­ trial Progress, p. 133. 76. Wildes, "Electrical Engineering at M IT,” pp. 4-14, 4-33. Samuel C. Prescott, When A i.L T Was "Boston Tech” (Cambridge: M IT Press, 1934). M aclaurin quoted in Samuel P. Capen, “Survey of Higher Education, 1916-18," U.S Bureau o f Education Bulletin Na 22 (1919), p. 21. 77. M aclaurin, quoted in editorial, Tech Engineering News, February 1920, p. 2. 78. Dugald Jackson, letter to F. A. M olitor, American Institute of Consult­ ing Engineers, January 8, 1920, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 79. William H. Walker, "Division of Industrial Cooperation and Research of the M .I.T.," Journal o f Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X II (April 1920), 394. 80. Dugald Jackson, letter to F. A. M olitor. William H. W alker, “The Technology Plan," Chemical and Metallur­ gical Engineering X X II (M arch 10, 1920), 464. 81. “The Technology Plan," National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, VII (1920), p. 2. 82. “The University in Industry,” Scientific American (M arch 27, 1920), p. 328. 83. Samuel Stratton, letter to Everett Morss, January 18,1924, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 84. K arl Compton, quoted in "New Administrative O rganization," Technol­ ogy Review, April 1932.

Notes for Pages 144-151

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347

85. M artin J. Sklar, “On the Proletarian Revolution and the End of PoliticalEconomic Society,” Radical America, Vol. Ill, No. 3, p. 20; Recent

Social Trends in the United States, Report o f the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (New York: M cGraw-Hill Book Co., 1933), 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

94. 95.

96.

97.

98.

99. 100. 101.

p. xlvii; Henry G. Badger, “Historical Summary of Higher Education: 1889-90 to 1949-50,” Higher Education, IX (December 15, 1952), 88. M orton, University Extension, pp. 6-7. Nicholas M urray Butler, quoted in National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, III (December 1916), 5. “A rthur H. Fleming,” National Cyclopaedia o f American Biography, XXX, 400. William E. Wickenden, Memorandum on Case-W estern Reserve Coor­ dination, 1924-1932, p. 3, Wickenden Papers, Case W estern Reserve University Archives. William E Wickenden, letter to G R. Saben, Cleveland Engineering Society, M arch 29, 1932, Wickenden Papers. Thomas H. Wickenden, letter to W illiam Wickenden, June 27, 1939; W ickenden Papers. Samuel P. Capen, “Inaugural Address,” October 28, 1922, Capen Pa­ pers, State University of New York at Buffalo Archives. Vernon Kellogg. “The University and Research,” Science, New Series LIV (July 8, 1921), 19. Basic Research, A National Resource (W ashington: National Science Foundation, 1957), p. 29. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 305. Thomas A. Edison, interview in The New York Times Magazine, May 30. 1915, p. 6. Daniels, quoted in Lloyd N. Scott, Naval Consulting Board o f the United States (W ashington: Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 10. Scott, Naval Consulting Board, p. 220. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 306-7. Robert Cuff, “The Cooperative Impulse and W ar: The Origins o f the Council of National Defense and the Advisory Commission,” in Jerry Israel, ed., Building the Organizational Society, (New York: Free Press, 1972), pp. 235-6. Hollis Godfrey, Testimony, Expenditures in War Department Select Committee Hearings Before Subcommittee 2, Military Camps, S. Con­ gress, H. R. 66th Congress, 1st Session (October 20,1919), Serial 3, Part 15, p. 880. First Annual Report o f the Council o f National Defense (W ashington: Government Printing Office, 1917)» P- 97. “ M inutes of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National De­ fense,” December 6,1916, and A pril 17, 1917; Record G roup 6 2 ,1-B1, Box 25, National Archives, Suitland, M aryland. Tobey, American Ideology o f National Science, pp. 21-30, 35. Helen W right, Explorer o f the Universe (New York: E P. D utton, 1966), pp. 287—8. N athan Reingold, “W orld W ar I, The Case of the Disappearing Labora­ tory,” paper delivered at the annual convention of the Organization of

348 /

Notes for Pages 152-159

American Historians, A pril 197S, Boston, M assachusetts. See also Dan­ iel J. Kevles, “George Ellery Hale, The First W orld W ar and the Ad­ vancement of Science in America,“ Isis LIX (W inter 1968), 427-37. 102. W right, Explorer o f the Universe, p. 287. 103. Ibid., p. 288. 104. Robert A. M illikan, Autobiography (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1930), pp. 132-3. 103. Tobey, American Ideology o f National Science, pp. 36-8; Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 309, 312; Proceedings o f the National Academy o f Sciences, II (1916), 31. 106. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 312; M illikan, Autobiog­ raphy. pp. 137-46; “M inutes of the Advisory Commission of the Council o f National Defense,” A pril 17, 1917. 107. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 313-13, 323. 108. Proceedings o f the National Academy o f Sciences, II, (1916), 308. 109. George E. Hale, “Origin and Purpose of the National Research Coun­ cil,” unpublished memorandum, quoted by Tobey, American Ideology o f National Science, p. 32. For further discussion of the extrademocratic and extrapolitical nature of these and sim ilar developments, see David W. Eakins, 'T h e Origins of Corporate Liberal Policy Research, 19161922: The Political-Economic Expert and the Decline of Public Debate,” in Jerry Israel, ed., Building the Organisational Society, (New York: Free Press, 1972), pp. 163-79. 110. Vincent letter, quoted in M illikan, Autobiography, p. 180. 111. Tobey, American Ideology o f National Science, pp. 53-8; Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 326-9; Reingold, “W orld W ar I, The Case of the Disappearing Laboratory." See also Myron J. Rand, “The National Research Fellowships,” Scientific Monthly, LX X III (August 1951), 71-80. Millikan, Autobiography, p. 184. 112. Tobey, American Ideology o f National Science, p. 56; Dupree, Schnee in the Federal Government, pp. 311-12. 113. George E. Hale, mimeographed letter, A pril 20,1918, Division of Engi­ neering Files, NRC Archives. 114. George E. Hale, “Memorandum o f D inner Given by D r. George Hale,” May 29, 1918, Division of Industrial Relations Files, NRC Archives. 115. W hitney, Root, Hale, Pritchett, M aclaurin, and Swasey quoted in ibid 116. Root, “Need for Organization in Scientific Research,” pp. 8, 10. 117. Jewett, “Industrial Research,” p. 3. 118. Henry Pritchett, “The Function of Scientific Research in a M odern State,” NRC Bulletin, I, 11. 119. Theodore N. Vail, “Relations o f Science to Industry,” NRC Bulletin, I, 13. 120. Pritchett, “Function o f Scientific Research,” p. 11. 121. Wilson’s executive order establishing the permanent NRC, published in

Consolidated Report, p. 8. 122. Vernon Kellogg, “ Isolation or Cooperation in Research,” NRC Reprint No. 67 (1925), pp. 1, 5. 123. Comfort A. Adams, “Report of Division o f Engineering of the NRC,

Notes for Pages 160-169

124. 125. 126. 127. 128.

129.

130. 131.

132. 133. 134. 135.

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349

A pril 26,1921,” cited in “ Relations of the Engineering Foundation and the National Research Council,“ NRC Archives. “Division of Anthropology and Psychology” and “Division of Educa­ tional Relations,” Consolidated Report, pp. 237-46; 66-7. Charles L. Reese, “Inform ational Needs in Science and Technology,” NRC Reprint No. 33, p. 7. George E. Hale, National Academy o f Sciences, Annual Report for 1918, pp. 41-50, quoted in Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 313. “ Research Inform ation Services,” Consolidated Report, pp. 255-63. See also Gordon S. Fulcher, “Scientific A bstracting,” Science, LIV (1921), 291-5. “Report o f the NRC to the Council o f National Defense” (1919), quoted in A lbert L. Barrows, “The Relationship of the NRC to Industrial Re­ search,” in Research—A National Resource (N ational Resources Plan­ ning Board, 1941), Section II, p. 367; Gano Dunn, letter to A. L. Barrows, June 12, 1922, Division o f the Advisory Committee, NRC Archives. Theodore N. Vail, letter to John Johnston, December 17, 1918, N RC Archives; M inutes of the Division o f Research Extension May 1920, NRC Archives; “Division o f Research Extension,” in Consolidated Re­ port, pp. 77-81. See “ Relations of the Engineering Foundation and the National Re­ search Council,” NRC Archives. W illis W hitney, letter to Howe, A pril 25,1920, Division of Engineering Files, NRC Archives. Mees, quoted by Howe in letter to Johnston, August 26, 1919, NRC Archives. Comfort A. Adams, quoted in “Relations of the Engineering Foundation and the National Research Council," NRC Archives. M inutes of the Division of Engineering, A pril 1919-December 1921, NRC Archives. Consolidated Report, pp. 109-37. M inutes of the Division of Engineering, February 20, 1923, January 14, 1924, NRC Archives. “Division of Engineering" in Consolidated Report, pp. 109-37; M inutes of the Division of Engineering, October 13, 1925; September 17, 1930; February 1931, NRC Archives; Barrows, “Relationship of the NRC to Industrial Research,” p. 368.

Chapter 8 1. William E. Wickenden, “ Industry and Education Approach Each O ther,” General M otors Institute Commencement Address, August 23, 1946, Wickenden Papers, Case W estern Reserve University Archives. 2. New York Times editorial, quoted in the National Association o f Corpora­ tion Schools Bulletin, V II (1920), 437.

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Notes for Pages 170-179

3. Frank B. Jewett, “ D inner Address,“ B elt System Educational Conference, 1924, p. 192. 4. Proceedings o f the First A nnual Convention, National Association o f Corporation Schools, 1913. See also Berenice Fisher, Industrial Educa­ tion: American Ideals and Institutions (M adison: University of Wiscon­ sin Press, 1967), p. 110. 3. Charles Steinmetz, N ational Association o f Corporation Schools Proceed­ ings, I, 156. 6. Steinmetz, “M inutes o f the Organizing Convention of the NACS,“ Na­ tional Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings, I, 406. Charles M. Ripley, L ife in a Large M anufacturing Plant (Schenectady: General Electric Company Publication Bureau, 1919), pp. 141, 143. 7. Ibid., pp. 16, 147, 137. 8. Magnus W. Alexander, “The New M ethod o f Training Engineers,“ Transactions o f the Am erican In stitu te o f Electrical Engineers, XXVII (1908), 1462-4. 9. Ib id 10. Ripley, L ife in a Large M anufacturing Plant, pp. 152, 161. 11. Ib id 12. Charles F. Scott, “The Engineering College and the Electric M anufactur­ ing Company,“ Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Pro­ ceedings, XV (1907), 465, 468. 13. Ibid., p. 468. “ Discussion of Scott Paper,“ Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XV (1907), 485. 14. Scott, “Engineering College,“ p. 468. 15. Charles F. Scott and Channing R. Dooley, “Adapting Technical G radu­ ates to the Industries,“ Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Educa­ tion Bulletin, II (1911), 140. 16. Charles F. Scott, “Professional Engineering Education for the Indus­ tries,” Canadian Engineer, X LII (1922), 44. A. A. Potter, interview with author, September 1973, Purdue Univer­ sity; A. A. Potter, “Personnel W ork as Applied to a College of Engineer­ ing,” Proceedings o f the Thirty-Seventh A nnual Convention o f the Association o f Land-G rant Colleges, November 1923, pp. 398-412. Channing R. Dooley, “Adapting the Technical G raduate to Industry,” N ational Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings, I, 163. 17. Albert C. Vinal, N ational Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings, III (1915), 417. J. W alter Dietz, N ational Association o f Corporation Schools Proceed­ ings. I (1913), 168, 169. 18. J. W. Dietz, “The G raduate Apprentice Course o f the W estern Electric Company,” Society fo r the Promotion ofE ngineering Education B ulletin, II (1911), 426, 427. Frank B. Jewett, “D inner Address,” B ell System Educational Confer­ ence. 1924, pp. 193-5. 19. F. C. Henderschott, “The National Association o f Corporation Schools,” Transactions o f the Am erican In stitu te o f Electrical Engineers, 1913, p. 1413. Henry C. Metcalf, “The National Association of Corporation Schools," Am erican Economic Review, June 1913, p. 538; “M inutes o f

Notes for Pages 179-188

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37.

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351

the Meeting for Organization of the NACS,” National Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings, I» 409. E. St. Elmo Lewis, National Association o f Corporation Schools Proceed­ ings, I, 42. E. A. Deeds, ibid, p. 38. A rthur Williams, ibid, p. 416. F. C. Henderschott, ibid, p. 74. C. D. Brackett, ibid, p. 39. Metcalf, “NACS,” p. 538. Lee Galloway, “M inutes of the Meeting for Organization of the NACS,” National Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings I, 343, 350-1. National Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings Vols. I-IV . Galloway, “M inutes o f the Organization M eeting,” p. 353. Ibid, p. 343. M. S. Sloan, Corporation Training, M arch 1922, p. 15. H enderschott, “NACS," p. 1416. E J. M ehren, “Report of the Proposed Activities o f the NACS for Its First Year,” National Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings I, 357. W ilfred Lewis, 'T h e Place o f the College in Collecting and Consulting the D ata of Scientific M anagement,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engi­ neering Education Bulletin, III (1912), 182. Frederick L. Bishop, “The Cooperative System o f Engineering Educa­ tion at the University of Pittsburgh,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engi­ neering Education Bulletin, 11(1911), 141. K ail L. Wildes, “Cooperative Courses—Their Development and O perat­ ing Principles,” Transactions o f the American Institute o f Electrical Engi­ neers 1930, pp. 1086-7. Herman Schneider, “The Cooperative Course in Engineering at the Uni­ versity of Cincinnati,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Educa­ tion Proceedings XV (1907), 391-8. Ibid, pp. 391-8. Charles S. Gingrich, “The Cooperative Engineering Course at the Uni­ versity of Cincinnati from the M anufacturer's Standpoint,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XV (1907), 399411. Wildes, “Cooperative Courses,” p. 1090. Herman Schneider, “Selecting Young Men for Particular Jobs,” National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, September 1914, pp. 9, 11, 18. Herman Schneider, “Fitting the Individual to His Life's W ork,” National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, IV (1917), 20. M agnus Alexander, letter to Henry Pritchett, June 10,1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Elihu Thompson, letter to Henry Pritchett, June 10,1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. W illis W hitney, letter to A. A. Noyes, November 10,1907, Presiden­ tial Papers, M IT Archives.

352 /

Notes for Pages 189-194

38. Alexander, “New M ethod of Training Engineers,” pp. 1463,1467,1468, 1470. 39. Ibid., pp. 1470, 1493, 1493. Magnus Alexander to Frederick P. Fish, December 22, 1907, Presi­ dential Papers, M IT Archives. 40. S. M. Basford to Everett M orss, November 21,1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 41. Albert W. Smith to Dugald Jackson, December 14, 1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 42. Charles F. Scott to Dugald Jackson, December 18, 1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 43. Dugald Jackson, “Cooperative Course—Summary of Views Expressed” (typescript), May 1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Ario Bates to Jackson, November 11,1907, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Jackson to A. A. Noyes, May 13, 1908, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 44. M agnus Alexander, “Proposed Cooperative Course” (typescript), May 4, 1917, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 43. E W. Rice to Richard M aclaurin, May 16,1917; M aclaurin to Rice, June 3,1917; M aclaurin to W. C. Fish, June 13,1917; Fish to M aclaurin, June 18, 1917; Dugald Jackson to M aclaurin, June 13, 1917, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. 46. Dugald Jackson to Administration Committee, April 6,1920, Presiden­ tial Papers, M IT Archives. 47. William H. Timbie, “Cooperative Course in Electrical Engineering at the M .I.T.," Journal o f the Am erican Institute ofE lectrical Engineers, 1923, pp. 613-13,617. See also M agnus Alexander and Dugald Jackson, “Re­ quirements of the Engineering Industries and the Education of Engi­ neers,” M echanical Engineering X LIII (1921), 391-3. 48. K arl L. Wildes, “Electrical Engineering at M .I.T.,” unpublished manu­ script, pp. 4-123,4-112,4-26; Dugald Jackson to G érant Swope, M arch 22, 1927; Jackson to Samuel Stratton, May 19,1927; Jackson to Everett Moras, January 5, 1923; Jackson to Samuel Stratton, July 6,1929, Presi­ dential Papers, M IT Archives. 49. Alfred H. White, “Chemical Engineering Education in the U.S.,” Trans­ actions o f the American In stitu te o f Chem ical Engineers, XXI (1928), 33. 30. Burgess cited in Harrison Hale, “Chemical Education,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X LIII, 1036. J. H. James, “Chemical Education for the Industries,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education B ulletin, II (1911), 79. Alfred H. White, “Chemical Engineering Education,” in Sidney D. K irkpatrick, ed., Twenty-Five Years o f Chem ical Engineering Progress. (American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1933), pp. 330-60. 31. A rthur D. Little, “Report of the A IChE Committee on Chemical Engi­ neering Education (1922),” quoted by W hite, “Chemical Engineering Education in the U.S.” p. 36. See also W illiam H. W alker, “Chemical Engineering Education,” Chem ical Engineers, II (1903), 1; R. T. Has-

Notes for Pages 194-199

52. 53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58. 59.

60. 61.

62.

63.

64.

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353

lam, 'T h e School o f Chemical Engineering Practice at M .I.T.,” Journal o f Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, X III (1921), 465-8. Haslam, "School of Chemical Engineering Practice at M .I.T.”; W hite, "Chemical Engineering Education in the U.S." Charles M. A. Stine, "Chemical Engineering in M odern Industry," Transactions o f the American Institute o f Chemical Engineers, XXI (1928), 45. Dugald Jackson to G erard Swope, M arch 22,1927; Jackson to Samuel Stratton, July 6,1929, Presidential Papers, M IT Archives. Wildes, "Elec­ trical Engineering at M .I.T.," pp. 4-26, 4-112, 4-123. E. A. Holbrook, "Frederick Lendall Bishop, An A ppreciation," deliv­ ered at the Memorial Service, November 13, 1947, University o f Pitts­ burgh Archives, Pittsburgh. Bishop, "The Cooperative System,” p. 141. See also "The Cooperative Plan of Engineering Education in the Pittsburgh Industries," School o f Engineering Brochure, 1924-5, University of Pittsburgh Archives. William J. Boaton to John Hallock, July 29, 1916, reprinted in "The Cooperative Plan of Engineering Education," School of Engineering Brochure, 1916, University of Pittsburgh Archives. Channing R. Dooley to Frederick L. Bishop, August 17,1916, reprinted in "The Cooperative Plan,” 1916. S. M. K intner, quoted by Bishop, "The Cooperative System," p. 144. W illiam Wickenden et a l, “Cooperation with Collegiate Institutions in Pittsburgh,” NationalAssociation o f Corporation Training Bulletin, April 1922, p. 10; William M. Davidson, "Industry and Public School Rela­ tions," National Association o f Corporation Training Bulletin, April 1922, pp. 7-8. "Chancellor McCormick Defines Educational Needs," National Associa­ tion o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, III (September 1916), 19. "U tilizing the Municipal Universities to Stimulate Industrial W elfare," National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, 1919, pp. 486-7; see also C. W. Park, “The Cooperative System of Education," U.S Bureau o f Education Bulletin, No. 37, 1916; Nathaniel Peffer, Education Experiments in Industry (New York: The MacM illan Co., 1932), pp. 173-6. Dugald Jackson, "Correlations o f Industry and Education" (typescript), Jackson Papers, Electrical Engineering D epartm ent, M IT Archives (courtesy K arl L. Wildes). W alter S. Ford, "Faculty Committee on Employment," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Bulletin, II (1911), 478; “Training Students for Their Life Careers," Personnel Administration, January 1923, p. 10. A. A. Potter, "Personnel W ork as Applied to a College o f Engineering,"

Proceedings o f the Twenty-Seventh Annual Convention o f the Association o f Land-Grant Colleges, November 1923, pp. 398-412. 65. Ibid. 66. Bell System Educational Conference, 1926, p. 250.

354 /

Notes for Piges 200-206

67. Frank Vanderlip, Business and Education (New York: Duffidd and Company, 1907), p. 29. 68. “ Education Plan o f the National City Bank“ (1916), Suzzalo Papers, University of W ashington Archives, Seattle, W ashington. W. S. Kies to Henry Suzzalo, September 9, 1916, Suzzalo Papers. 69. A rthur E. M organ, “The Antioch Plan,“ Engineering News-Record, LXXXVI (January 1921), 108-11. 70. Ib id 71. C. R. Young, “Antioch Plan Omits Public Service Training,“ Engineer­ ing News-Record, LXXXVI, 480; A rthur E. M organ, “Letter to the Editor,“ Engineering News-Record, LXXXVI, 480. 72. A. A. Potter to M atthew Zaret, April 20, 1966, cited in M atthew Elias Zaret, “An Historical Study of the Development of the American Society for Engineering Education,“ unpublished Ph.D . dissertation, New York University, 1967, p. 69. 73. See Zaret, “An Historical Study“ ; Loyal! Osborne, “Proper Qualifies* tions of the Electrical Engineering School G raduates from the Manufac­ turer’s Standpoint,“ Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, 1903, p. 290. 74. Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XV (1907), 17; Zaret, “An H istorical Study,“ p. 85. 75. Charles R. Mann to Henry P ratt Judson, May 28,1906; M ann to William Rainey H arper, February 21, 1902, Presidential Papers, University o f Chicago Archives. Charles R. M ann, “A New Movement Among Physics Teachers,“ School Review, XIV (June 1906), 660; Charles R. M ann, “Science in Civilization and Science in Education,” School Review, XIV (June 1906), 664. See also Mann’s The Teaching o f Physics— Purposes o f General Education (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1917). 76. Charles R. M ann, “Address,” N ational Association o f Corporation Schools Proceedings, 1915, pp. 431-4. 77. “Report of the Joint Committee,” Society fo r the Promotion ofE ngineer­ ing Education Proceedings, X X III (1915), 70; Charles R. M ann, A Study o f Engineering Education, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement o f Teaching Bulletin No. 11 (Boston: M errymount Press, 1918); Frederick L. Bishop, “Engineering Education," U. S Bureau o f Education B ulletin N um ber 19 (1919), p. 7. 78. “Report of the Committee to Evaluate the Report of the Joint Committee on Investigation of Engineering Education,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XXVII (1919), 103; H arry P. Ham­ mond, “Promotion of Engineering Education in the Past Forty Years,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XLI (1933), 60; Frederick L. Bishop, “Society for the Promotion of Engineer­ ing Education: Aims and Purposes of the Society," November 1923, University of Pittsburgh Archives; “Editorial," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education B ulletin, III (1912), 354. 79. Frederick L. Bishop, “A Unique O pportunity,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education B ulletin, IX, 2. 80. W illiam Appleman W illiams, “A Profile o f the Corporate Elite,” in

Notes for Pages 207-213

81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

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355

Ronald Radosh and M urray N. Rothbard, eds., A New H istory o f Levia­ than (New York: E. P. D utton A Co., 1972), p. S. Charles R. Mann, “The Effect of the W ar on Engineering Education," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Bulletin, V III (Feb­ ruary 1918), 231-2. “M inutes of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National De­ fense," December 6 and 7,1916, National Archives. William McClellan to Henry Suzzalo, February 17, 1917, Suzzalo Papers, University of W ashington Archives; Robert M. Yerkes, “Report of the Psychology Committee of the National Research Council," Psychological Review, XXVI (M arch 1919), 83-149. The Personnel System o f the Arm y (W ashington, D.C.: Committee on Classification of Personnel in the Army, 1919), I, 2-2S; II, 7, 33-40, C hapter 41; Records of the CCP on the Army, National Archives. See Loren Baritz, The Servants o f Power (M iddletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1960) for a closer look at the early work of Scott and his associates. See also Daniel Kevles, “Testing the A rm y's Intelligence: Psychologists and the M ilitary in W orld W ar One,” Journal o f Am erican H istory, LV (December 1968), 563-81. W alter Dill Scott, “Memorandum on Plan for Organizing a Committee on Classification of Personnel in the A rm y," August 14, 1917, W ar Departm ent Records, Office of the Chief of Staff, National Archives. W alter Dill Scott to Newton D. Baker, August 3,1917, W ar Departm ent Records, Office of the C hief of Staff, National Archives. Personnel System o f the Arm y, p. 7. “M inutes of the Advisory Commission o f the Council of National De­ fense,” April 23, 1917; October 1, 1917; November 5, 1917; December 3, 1917, National Archives. See also First A nnual Report o f the Council o f N ational Defense (W ashington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1917), pp. 72-4; and Second A nnual Report o f the Council o f N ational Defense (1918), p. 83. Park Kolbe, The Colleges in War Tim e and A fter (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1919), pp. 26, 47. “M inutes of the Advisory Commission," May 21, 1917; Hollis Godfrey to Henry Suzzalo, May 19, 1917, including a copy of “Report of a Conference Held at W ashington, May 3,1917, U nder the Auspices of the Committee on Engineering, Education, and Scientific Research of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense," Suzzalo Papers, University of W ashington Archives. Samuel P. Capen, “Autobiographical Sketch" (typescript), submitted to the trustees of the University of Buffalo, 1922, Capen Papers. Capen to Mrs. Capen, October 19, 1910; Capen to College Presidents, October 8, 1910, Capen Papers. G. C. Anthony to Samuel P. Capen, June 13, 1912; Samuel Earle to Capen, January 24, 1912, Capen Papers. Samuel P. Capen to M rs. Capen, February 22, 1914; April 10, 1914; February 13, 1917, Capen Papers. Capen to M rs. Capen, A pril 10,1914; June 26,1914; September 2,1917; July 10, 1917, Capen Papers.

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Notes for Pages 213-218

92. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 6, 1917. 93. “M inutes o f the Educational Section of the Committee on Science and Research, Including Engineering and Education of the Advisory Com­ mission of the Council of National Defense,’*May 6,1917; May 16,1917; May 26, 1917; July 2, 3 ,4 , 1917; September 11, 1917. The only existing records of Godfrey’s education committee are located in the Suzzalo Papers at the University of W ashington Archives. Suzzalo, a member o f the committee, was unable to attend the W ashington, D.C., meetings and therefore had Godfrey send him the minutes. Samuel P. Capen to Suz­ zalo, August 6, 1917; Hollis Godfrey to Suzzalo, September 24, 1917; September 13,1918, Suzzalo Papers. See also Samuel P. Capen, “Survey o f Higher Education, 1916-1918," U.S. Bureau o f Education B ulletin No. 22 (1919), pp. 49-52. 94. “ M inutes of the Educational Section,” May 26, 1917, Suzzalo Papers. M inutes of the Advisory Commission, January 8, 1917, National A r­ chives. 95. Hollis Godfrey to Henry Suzzalo, September 13, 1918, Suzzalo Papers. Capen, “Survey of Higher Education, 1916-1918," pp. 49-52. 96. Charles R. M ann, “The Committee on Education and Special Training," February 1918, Records of the W ar Departm ent Committee on Educa­ tion and Special Training (CEST Records), National Archives. 97. Newton D. Baker, Appointment of the Committee on Education and Special Training, February 10,1918, CEST Records, National Archives. 98. Records of the Vocational Division, Committee on Education and Spe­ cial Training Records, National Archives. Kolbe, Colleges in War Time, pp. 89, 62; Yerkes, “Report of the Psychology Committee” ; Personnel System o f the Army, C hapter 41; A. A. Potter, “Notes on the H istory of the Vocational Training in Connection with the Student Army T rain­ ing Corps," CEST Records, National Archives. 99. “M inutes of Committee on Coordination and Needs," CEST Records, National Archives. J. E. Smith to C. R. Dooley, January 14, 1919, CEST Records, N a­ tional Archives. Dooley, quoted in William T. Bawden, “Conference of Specialists in Industrial Education Formerly Connected with the Student Army Train­ ing Corps," March 25, 1919, CEST Records, National Archives. 100. Kolbe, Colleges in War Time, pp. 70-4. Richard M aclaurin to Henry Suzzalo, August 3, 1918 (draft of SATC re g u la tio n s ), Suzzalo Papers, University of Washington Archives. 101. Samuel P. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 5, 6, 13, 1918; A pril 17, 1919, Capen Papers, SUNY Buffalo Archives. 102. Am erican Council on Education, Leadership and Chronology, 1918-1968 (W ashington, D.C.: ACE, 1968), p. 104. “ M inutes of the Organizing Committee o f the Emergency Council on Education," ACE Archives, W ashington, D.C. Samuel P. Capen to M rs. Capen, July 17, 1918, Capen Papers. 103. Carol G ruber, “Mars and Minerva: W orld W ar One and the American Academic M an," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia'University, 1968, p. 381 (courtesy Eugene D. Genovese).

Notes for Pages 219-229

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357

104. Samuel P. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 13, 1918; July 18, 1918. Capen Papers. 105. Capen to Mrs. Capen, August 14, 1918; July 13, 1918; September 11, 1918, Capen Papers. 106. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 6, 1918, Capen Papers. 107. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 20, 1918, Capen Papers. 108. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 3, 1918; August 24, 1918, Capen Papers. 109. Richard M aclaurin to Henry Suzzalo, August 3, 1918, Suzzalo Papers. Kolbe, Colleges in War Time, pp. 60-80. 110. Ibid, pp. xix, 194. W alter Dill Scott, quoted by Samuel P. Capen, letter to Mrs. Capen, September 1, 1918, Capen Papers. 111. Bishop, “A Unique O pportunity,” p. 2. 112. Robert I. Rees to Henry Suzzalo, September 20,1918 (mimeo), “Obser­ vance of October 1, 1918—Official Establishment of the Student Army Training Corps,” Suzzalo Papers. Kolbe, Colleges in War Time, p. 75. 113. Ibid, pp. 70-5; Yerkes, “Report of the Psychology Committee.” 114. “ Final Report of the Committee on Education and Special Training to the Presidents of Institutions,” December 11,1918, CEST Records, W ar Departm ent, National Archives. See also War Department Annual Re­ port, Vol. I (1919), Part I, pp. 320-1.

Chapter 9 1. Henry Suzzalo, “The Effective American University System,” Educa­ tional Record, IV, 157-61. 2. Charles R. M ann, “The American Spirit in Education,” U.S Bureau o f Education Bulletin No. JO (1919), p. 57. Samuel P. Capen, “Survey of Higher Education, 1916-18,” U.S. Bu­ reau o f Education Bulletin No. 22 (1919), p. 623. 3. Charles R. M ann, “Education in the Army, 1919-1925," Educational Record, Supplement No. 1 (A pril 1926), p. 8. “Final Report to Presidents of Institutions,” CEST Records. “ Report of the Chief o f Staff," War Department Annual Report, I (1919), 322. 4. M ann, “Education in the Army,” pp. 8, 10, 18-19, 23, 25, 38-9. 5. Charles R. M ann, “National Standard Terminology for Occupations,” November 1922 (typescript), Records o f the Anthropology and Psy­ chology Division, National Research Council Archives. 6. Charles R. M ann, “The Effect of the W ar on Education,” U.S Bureau o f Education Bulletin No. 58 (1919), p. 91. See also Charles R. M ann, “The Effect of the W ar on Engineering Education,” Society fo r the Pro­ motion o f Engineering Education Bulletin, V III (February 1918), 230-5. 7. Robert M. Yerkes, “R eport of the Psychology Committee o f the N a­ tional Research Council,” Psychological Review, XXVI (M arch 1919), 92, 94, 149.

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Notes for Pages 229-236

8. Alfred Flinn to John M erriam, May 29,1919, and June 9,13, 16, 1919, Records of the Executive Committee, NRC Archives. 9. “Problems of Industrial Personnel; tentative draft of proposed research,” August 20, 1919, Executive Committee, NRC Archives. 10. Max Farrand (Commonwealth Fund) to Alfred Flinn, A pril 9, 1920; Flinn, “Memorandum on Conferences,“ August 22,1919; M ark Jones to Charles F. Rand, A pril 16, 1920, NRC Executive Committee, N R C Archives. 11. Samuel P. Capen, Alfred Flinn, Beardsley Ruml, memorandum, May 1, 1920, minutes of meeting, Committee on Present Status o f Personnel Research, November 12, 1920, NRC Executive Committee, NRC A r­ chives. 12. M ann, “National Standard Terminology for Occupations.“ 13. John W. Weeks to Vernon Kellogg. November 23, 1922. “Report on the Conference on Standardization of Vocational Terminology,” January 6, 1923, Anthropology and Psychology Committee, NRC Archives. 14. M ann, “National Standard Terminology for Occupations.” 15. Records of the Anthropology and Psychology Division of the N RC; “Report on Conference on Vocational Guidance with Special Reference to Personnel Service for College Students," Executive Committee, M ay 1924, NRC Archives. See also L. L. Thurstone and Charles R. M ann, “Vocational Guidance for College Students," Journal o f Personnel R e­ search. I ll (April 1925), 421-48. 16. “M inutes of Executive Committee o f the Division of Educational Rela­ tions," May 7, 1921; April 10, 1923; January 14, 1924; November 4, 1925; November 25, 1929; and April 3, 1936, NRC Archives. 17. P. F. W alker, ’Tendencies in Engineering Education: New Influences as Indirect Result of W ar May Bring Changes," Industrial M anagem ent and Engineering Magazine, LV III (1919), 447. 18. M ann, “Effect of the W ar on Engineering Education," pp. 232-3, 235. 19. R. E. A. Anderson, “Broad Training in the Fundam entals Should Be a Part o f the Engineer’s Education," Am erican M achinist, LIV (June 30, 1921), 1108. 20. Hollis Godfrey, “The Teaching of Scientific M anagement in Engineering Schools," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education B ulletin. I ll (1912), 22-34; M cDonald and Hinton, D rexel Institute o f Technology, 1891-1941 (Philadelphia: Drexel Institute, 1942), pp. 68, 69. “First Report of the Special Committee on Cooperation with the Industries,” ACE Archives; Samuel P. Capen, “A Plan for Cooperation Between the Colleges and Industry," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engi­ neering Education Proceedings, 1920, pp. 52-8. 21. Hollis Godfrey, “The Council for M anagement Education," Textile World, LIX (1921), 864, 884. See also Godfrey’s articles in: Am erican M achinist, L III (October 7,1920), 698; Gas Age, X LIII (July 11,1921), 323; his pamphlet A Practical Plan fo r Educating M anagem ent M en (CM E Pamphlet, August 14, 1920), H arvard University, Education Li­ brary; and New York Times, December 27, 1920, p. 22. Samuel P. Capen to John A. Cousens, July 23,1920; John A. Cousens to Capen, July 9, 1920, Capen Papers.

Notes for Pages 237-242

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359

22. Alexander quoted in Gyde L. Rogers, Let There Be Light—The Confer­ ence Board History, 1916-1967 (New York: Conference Board, 1967), p. 7. 23. Rogers, Let There Be Light, p. 11. See also 'T he Intolerable Burden and Cost of Needless and Senseless Labor Strikes," Industrial Management, The Engineering Magazine, LII (January 1917), 433; W. J. Arnold, "Famous Firsts: Shangri-la of the Tycoon Era," Business Week, October 3, 1964, p. 142, and "A New National Industrial Organization," Iron Age, XCVIII (1916), 1118. 24. Rogers, Let There Be Light, pp. 15—25. New York Times. May 17, 1916, editorial. 25. See “The Need for Executives," New York Times. November 30, 1923, p. 2. 26. L. L. Thurstone, "Vocational Guidance Service," Anthropology and Psychology Division, NRC Archives. Arthur M. Greene, Jr., “Presidential Address," Societyfo r the Promo­ tion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, 1920, pp. 28-39; Roy D. Chapin, “Cooperation Between Education and Industry from the View­ point of the Manufacturer," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, 1920, pp. 41-51; William E. Wickenden, “The Engineer as a Leader in Business," Societyfo r the Promotion o f Engineer­ ing Education Proceedings, 1920, p. 477. 27. Charles F. Scott, “Report of the Chairman of the Board of Investigation and Coordination," in Report o f the Investigation o f Engineering Educa­ tion (Pittsburgh: Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, 1930), I, 1-16. See Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XXX (1922), 10. 28. Magnus Alexander, telegram to the Society for the Promotion of Engi­ neering Education, Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, 1923, p. 34. See also “Minutes of Meeting of the Division of Deans and Administrative Officers," Journal o f Engineering Educa­ tion, XV (1925), 459-79; Magnus Alexander, “The Objective in Engi­ neering Education," Transactions o f the American Society o f Civil Engineers, LXXXVI (1923), 1256-9; and Magnus Alexander, Eighth Annual Report o f the N.I.C.B. (1924), pp. 30-1. 29. Charles F. Scott, “Professional Engineering Education for the Indus­ tries," Canadian Engineer, XLII (January 3, 1922), 44. 30. Scott, “Report of the Chairman of the Board of Investigation and Coor­ dination," pp. 1-16; Charles F. Scott, letter to Elmer Lindset, 1929, Wickenden Papers, Case Western Reserve University Archives. 31. Report o f the Investigation. See also Matthew Elias Zaret, “An Historical Study of the Development of the American Society for Engineering Education," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1967, pp. 125-40; and Ian Braley, “The Evolution of Humanistic-Social Courses for Undergraduate Engineers," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University School of Education, 1961, pp. 123-32. 32. See, for example, A. C. Jewett, “The Engineering Graduate in Industry," Societyfo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XXXII

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33.

34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

Notes for Pages 242-248

(1924) , 424; and Magnus Alexander, “The Problem of Engineering E du­ cation from the Standpoint of American Industry," Society for the Pro­ motion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XXXIV (1926), 586. On NELA, see Carl D. Thompson, Confessions o f the Power Trust (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1932), pp. 330, 392, and Survey o f th e Instruction in Public Utilities in Colleges and Universities, o f the Indus­ try's Interest in College Graduates, and the Willingness and Ability o f Utilities to Cooperate with Higher Educational Institutions, Report of the Educational Members of the Cooperation with Educational Institutions Committee, NELA, 1929, pamphlet, Massachusetts Historical Society. On Bell, see the Series of Bell System Educational Conferences: Electrical Engineering and Communications (1924), Mechanical Engineering (1925) , and Economics and Business (1926). On instruction in industrial relations, see The Teaching o f Labor Relations in Engineering Schools' A n Informal Conference o f Engineering Educators at the Home o f Sam A. Lewisohn (privately printed, 1928), Dewey Library (Sloan School), MIT. Robert I. Rees, “TTie Professional Development of the Engineer," Elec­ trical Engineering, LII (February and December 1933), 129,932; Robert I. Rees, ‘The Cooperation of the Society for the Promotion of Engineer­ ing Education with Other Engineering Societies," Journal o f Engineering Education, XXIII (September 1932), 36-42; "The Engineers Council for Professional Development," Transactions o f the American Society ofM e­ chanical Engineers LIV (1932), R-l-6. "Cooperation Between Industry and the Schools," National Association o f Corporation Training Bulletin, 1921, pp. 447-9. Charles R. Mann, “American Council on Education Director’s Re­ port, 1927" (typescript), ACE Archives. Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1918), pp. 220, 222, 224. Mann, "American Spirit in Education,” pp. 59. Ibid, pp. 59-63. Ibid. p. 63. "Report of the Organization of the Emergency Council on Education" (typescript), ACE Archives. Samuel P. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 22, 1918. "Minutes of the Meeting of the Emergency Council on Education, March 26-27, 1918," ACE Archives. Charles G. Dobbins, American Council on Education, Leadership and Chronology, 1918-1968 (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Edu­ cation, 1968), pp. 7-9. Samuel P. Capen to Mrs. Capen, July 21, 1919. Capen, quoted in Dobbins, American Council on Education, pp. 7-8. Capen to P. P. Claxton, October 8, 1919; Capen to Cousens, July 23, 1920, Capen to J. W. Dietz, July 21, 1919, Capen Papers. Dobbins, American Council on Education; see also A B riefStatement o f the History and Activities o f the American Council on Education, 19181953, ACE pamphlet, 1953, ACE Archives. Samuel P. Capen, Director’s Report, 1922, quoted in Dobbins, American Council on Education, p. 9.

Notes for Pages 248-259

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361

47. Charles R. Mann, 'T he American Council on Education,” Educational Record, I (1920), 134. 48. Dobbins, American Council on Education, p. 8. Samuel P. Capen, quoted in ibid, p. 7. Capen to J. H. MacCracken, April 7, 1921, Capen Papers; Dobbins, American Council on Education, p. 7. 49 Charles R. Mann to Henry Suzzalo, April 7, 1927, Suzzalo Papers, University of Washington Archives. 50. Charles R. Mann, Director's Report, American Council on Education, 1929, quoted in Dobbins, American Council on Education, p. 17. 51. Minutes of the Executive Council, American Council on Education, March 13, 1926; January 8, 1927; September 4, 1927; March 16, 1928, ACE Archives. 52. Mann, Director's Report, 1926, ACE Archives. Charles R. Mann to Henry Suzzalo, April 7, 1927, Suzzalo Papers. 53. Gildersleeve, quoted in Dobbins, American Council on Education, p. 14. 54. Ibid, p. 11. 54. C. J. Tilden, 'T he American Council on Education,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XJOCII (1924), 53940. 55. Samuel P. Capen, "Director's Report,” Educational Record I (1920), 33; Samuel P. Capen, "Educational Standardization,” School and Soci­ ety, XIII (February 19, 1921), 223. 56. Dobbins, American Council on Education, pp. 7, 10, 12, 15, 18. 57. Charles R. Mann, "Director's Report, 1927,” ACE Archives. Samuel P. Capen to George Zook, March 16, 1920, ACE Archives; Capen, quoted in Colleague, University of Buffalo, V, 7; Capen Papers. 58. Mann, "Director's Report, 1927,” ACE. 59. Suzzalo, “Effective American University System,” pp. 157-61. 60. Charles R. Mann, "Job Specifications,” Educational Record, Supple­ ment No. 5 (October 1927). 61. Capen, “Educational Standardization,” p. 224. 62. Mann, quoted in Dobbins, American Council on Education, p. 14. 63. Ibid, pp. 9-18; Minutes of the Executive Council of the American Council of Education, January 15, 1926. 64. Minutes of the Executive Council, American Council of Education, Sep­ tember 25, 1926. 65. Thompson, Confessions o f the Power Trust, p. 392.

Chapter 10 1. Thomas Edison, quoted in an editorial, Industrial Management and Engineering Magazine, October 1920, p. 4. 2. Dexter Kimball, “The Relation of Engineering to Industrial Manage­ m ent,” Journal o f the American Society ofMechanical Engineers, Febru­ ary 1918, pp. 559, 563. 3. Charles Babbage, quoted by Leon P. Alford, “The Present State o f the

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4. 3. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 13.

16. 17.

18.

Notes for Pages 261-274

Art of Industrial Management,'* American Society o f Mechanical Engi­ neers Transactions. XXXIV (1912). 1135. Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History o f Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1962), p. 37. Ibid, p. 23. Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies ofManage­ ment in the Course o f Industrialization (New York: Wiley, 1936), p. 266. The Review, October 1910, p. 33, cited in ibid, p. 271. Harlow S. Person, "Basic Principles of Administration and Manage* ment: The Management Movement," in Henry Metcalf, Scientific Foun­ dations o f Business Administration (New York: Williams ft Wilkins Co., 1926), p. 201. Henry Towne, "The Engineer as an Economist," American Society o f Mechanical Engineers Transactions, VII, 428. The five-phased scheme used here to describe scientific management is a combination and modification of two schemes, one offered by Leon Alford and Alexander H. Church in “The Principles of Management," American Machinist, XXXVI, 837, and another by Harlow S. Person in Graphical Analysis o f Scientific Management (New York, 1944) and in his “Basic Principles of Administration and Management," p. 202. The following history of the scientific management movement is based upon: Hugh G. J. Aitken, Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal (Cambridge: Har­ vard University Press, 1960); Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); Milton Nadwomy, Scien­ tific Management and the Unions, 1900-1932 (Cambridge: Harvard Uni­ versity Press, 1933); Lyndall Urwick, The Making o f Scientific Management (London: Management Publication Trust, 1943). Frederick W. Taylor, “Why Manufacturers Dislike College Students," Society for the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XVIII (1909), 87. Quoted in Nadwomy, Scientific Management and the Unions, p. 9. Nadwomy, Scientific Management and the Unions, p. 10. Urwick, Making o f Scientific Management, I, 170. Monte Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910 (Balti­ more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), pp. 233-43. See, for example, the provocative unpublished studies by David Mont­ gomery, “The ‘New Unionism* and the Transformation of Workers* Consciousness in America, 1909-1922," and “Immigrant Workers and Scientific Management." Montgomery is at the University of Pittsburgh. See Taylor’s testimony before the Special House Committee in Frederick W. Taylor, Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), pp. 79-85. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Committee, quoted in Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve Univer­ sity, 1971), p. 141. Layton has a good discussion of the engineers’ view of Taylorism. Gantt, quoted in Lyndall Urwick, “Management’s Debt to Engineers,” Advanced Management, December 1952, p. 8. For more biographical information on scientific management leaders,

Notes for Pages 275-286

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32.

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363

see Lyndall Urwick, The Golden Book o f Management (London: New­ man Neame, 1956). Urwick, “Management’s Debt to Engineers,” p. 11. See, for example, Lillian M. Gilbreth, The Psychology o f Management (New York, 1914); Lillian M. and Frank B. Gilbreth, “The Three Posi­ tion Plan of Promotion,” Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science, 1916; and Lillian M. and Frank B. Gilbreth, “Discus­ sion,” American Society o f Mechanical Engineers Transactions, XLIV (1922), 1286. Nadwomy, Scientific Management and the Unions, p. 111. See also Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry, p. 285. See Leon P. Alford, “Ten Years’ Progress in Management,” American Society o f Mechanical Engineers Transactions, 1922. Haber, Efficiency and Uplift, p. 163. Wesley Mitchell, “A Review,” Recent Economic Changes (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1929), II, 864. For further discussion of the corporate liberal world-view, see James Weinstein, The Corporate Idea! in the Libera! State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), and William Appleman Williams, The Contours o f American History (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1961), Part III, “The Age of Corporation Capital­ ism.” Charles M. Ripley, Life in a Large Manufacturing Plant (Schenectady: General Electric Company Publication Bureau, 1919), pp. 97-100. See David Loth, Swope o f GE (New York: Simon ft Schuster, 1958), and Chandler, Strategy and Structure, pp. 46, 365, 368. Ernest Dale and Charles Meloy, “Hamilton M. Barksdale and the Du Pont Contribution to Systematic Management," Business History Review, XXXVI (1962), 127-52. Chandler, Strategy and Structure, Chapter 2. Chandler, Strategy and Structure. Chapter 3. See also Alfred P. Sloan, Adventures o f a White-Collar Man (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1941) and My Years with General Motors (New York: Doubleday ft Co., 1964). Chandler, Strategy and Structure, pp. 314-20. Harlow Person, “Principles and Practice of Scientific Management,” quoted in “Ten Years* Progress in Management,” 1932, American Society o f Mechanical Engineers Transactions, p. MAN-1-9. David W. Eakins, “The Origins of Corporate Liberal Policy Research, 1916-1922: The Political-Economic Expert and the Decline of Public Debate,” in Jerry Israel, ed., Building the Organizational Society (New York: Free Press, 1972), pp. 166-7, 176, 179. Morris L. Cooke, “Public Engineering and Human Progress,” Journal o f the Cleveland Engineering Society. IX (January 1917), 252. Quoted in Layton, Revolt o f the Engineers, p. 179. Charles R. Mann, “Director’s Report, 1927," ACE Archives. For more on Hoover, see Murray M. Rothbard, “Herbert Hoover and the Myth of Laissez-Faire,” in Ronald Radosh and Murray N. Rothbard, eds., A New History o f Leviathan (New York: E. P. Dutton ft Co., 1972), pp. 111-45; William A. Williams, “Some Presidents," New York Review

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Notes for Pages 287-295

o f Books, November 5, 1970; Ellis W. Hawley, ’‘Herbert Hoover: The Commerce Secretariat, and the Vision of an 'Associative State,* 1921— 1928," Journal o f American History, LXI (June 1974), 116-40. 33. Quoted in Henry Eilbert, "The Development of Personnel Management in the United States," Business History Review, XXXIII (1959), 351. 34. Quoted in Paul H. Douglas, “Plant Administration of Labor,” Journal o f Political Economy, XXVII (1919), 545. See also Louise C. Odencrantz, “Personnel Work in America,” Personnel Administration, 1922, pp. 5 15; Haber, Efficiency and Uplift, p. 64; and “Welfare Work for Em­ ployees in Industrial Establishments in the U.S.," U.S Bureau o f Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 250 (1919). 35. Leon P. Alford, “The Status of Industrial Relations,” American Society o f Mechanical Engineers Transactions, 1912, p. 164. Thorstein Veblen, The Theory o f Business Enterprise, quoted by Loren Baritz, The Servants o f Power (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1960), p. 1 Ford Times, July 1916, p. 549. Quoted in Samuel M. Levin, “Ford Profit-Sharing, 1914-1920,” Personnel Journal, VI (1927), 82. Ripley, Life in a Large Manufacturing Plant, p. 45. 36. See Proceedings o f the Third National Conference on Industrial Accidents, and Workmen's Compensation, Chicago, 1910, p. 5; “Workmen’s Com­ pensation Laws in the United States and Foreign Countries,” U.S Bu­ reau o f Labor Statistics Bulletin, No. 126 (1914), p. 12. Alford, “Status of Industrial Relations," pp. 170-1. Proceedings o f the Second Industrial Safety Congress o f New York State, 1917, p. 3; Proceedings o f the First Cooperative Safety Congress, Milwaukee, 1912, p. 205-8. 37. Ibid, p. 227. 38. Alford, “Status of Industrial Relations,” p. 174. 39. Proceedings o f the First Cooperative Safety Congress, p. 227. 40. Malcolm Rorty, quoted by Mitchell, “A Review," p. 864. 41. Mitchell, “A Review,” p. 865. 42. E. H. Fish, “Human Engineering,” Journal o f Applied Psychology, I (1917), 174. 43. Ted Cox, “Fitting the Right Man to the Right Job,” American Business, XX (February 1950), 44. 44. Henry D. Hammond, “Americanization as a Problem in Human Engi­ neering," Engineering News-Record. 1918, p. 1116. 45. Henry S. Dennison, “Management,” Recent Economic Changes (McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1929), I, 518. “The Personnel Content of Management," American Management Review, April 1923, p. 5. 46. Alford, “Status of Industrial Relations,” p. 172. David Montgomery, “ ‘New Unionism,’ ” p. 8; Leon C. Marshall, “The War Labor Program and Its Administration," Journal o f Political Economy, XXVI (May 1918), 429, cited in Montgomery, “New Union­ ism,” p. 8. 47. H. F. J. Porter, cited in Alford, “Status of Industrial Relations," p. 172. Magnus W. Alexander, “Hiring and Firing," American Industries,

Notes for Pages 295-301

48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

53.

54.

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365

August 1915. (Also found in Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science, May 1916.) Boyd Fisher, “How to Reduce the Labor Turnover,“ Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science, LXXI (May 1917), 10, 14-16, 19. See also Douglas, “Plant Administration of Labor,“ p. 545. N. D. Hubbell, “The Organization and Scope of the Employment Department,“ U.S Department o f Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 227 (1917), pp. 97-111; see also “Proceedings of the Employment Managers’ Conference, Philadelphia,” U.S Bureau o f Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 227 (October 1917), p. 30. Alford, “Status of Industrial Relations,“ p. 515; Eilbert, “Development of Personnel Management,” pp. 351-4; Douglas, “Plant Administration of Labor," pp. 545, 547-8. Joseph H. Willits, “Development of Employment Managers’ Associa* tions,” Monthly Review o f the Bureau o f Labor Statistics, V (September 1917), 497-9. “Proceedings of the Employment Managers’ Conference, Philadel­ phia.” Hugo Munsterberg, quoted in Baritz, Servants o f Power, pp. 26-7. Ibid., pp. 35-41. Baritz, Servants o f Power, pp. 35-41. Walter Dill Scott, “Vocational Selection at the Carnegie Institute of Technology,” U.S Bureau o f Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 227 (1917), pp. 115-19. Alford, “Status of Industrial Relations,” p. 172. Clarkson, Industrial America in the World War (Boston: Houghton, 1924), p. 130. “Proceedings of the Employment Managers’ Conference, Rochester, New York, May, 1918,” U.S Bureau o f Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 247 (1919), pp. 6-8. Ibid. See also Report o f the President, 1917-1918, University of Roch­ ester Archives, Rochester, New York; The Campus, April 18, 1918, University of Rochester Archives; The Democrat and Chronicle, Roches­ ter, New York, May 9, 1918. See Personnel Administration, May 1922, pp. 1-21; “Mental Science the Basis for Individual Efficiency,” National Association o f Corporation Training Bulletin, VIII (January 1921), 1-5; “The Personnel Content of Management,” American Management Review, April 1923, pp. 1-5. For more on the history of industrial education, see Charles A. Prosser, “The New Apprenticeship as a Factor in Reducing Labor Turnover,” U.S Bureau o f Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 196 (1916), pp. 45-52; Berenice Fisher, Industrial Education: American Ideals and Institutions (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967); Arthur G. Wirth, Edu­ cation in the Technological Society: The Vocational-Liberal Studies Con­ troversy in the Early Twentieth Century (Scranton: International Textbook Co., 1972); Melvin F. Barlow, History o f Industrial Education in the United States (Peoria: Charles A. Bennett Co., 1967); Charles A. Bennett, History o f Manual and Industrial Education, 1870-1917 (Peo-

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Notes for Pages 301-304

ria: Manual Arts Press, 1917); Abraham Flexner et a l, The Gary Public Schools (New York: General Education Board, 1918), 2 vols. See also Joel Spring, Education and the Rise o f the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973). 33. Henry S. Pritchett, ‘The Place of Industrial and Technical Training in Popular Education,“ Educational Review, XXIII (March 1902), 282. Milton P. H i^ins, “Address," Bulletin No. 1 of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (January 1906), p. 13. 36. Pritchett, “Place of Industrial and Technical Training," pp. 292, 294. Dugald C. Jackson, “The Availability of Correspondence Schools as Trade Schools,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings (1901), pp. 97-111; James Mapes Dodge, “The Money Value of Technical Training," Transactions o f the American Society o f Mechanical Engineers, XXV, 40-8; Charles R. Richards, “The Problem of Industrial Education,” Manual Training Magazine, VIII (April 1907), 125-32; Frank Vanderlip, “The Urgent Need of Trade Schools," World's Work, XII (June 1906), 761-824; Frank Vanderlip, “The Economic Importance of Trade Schools," National Education Association Proceed­ ings, 1905, pp. 141-5; Magnus W. Alexander, “Plans to Provide Skilled Workmen," Transactions o f the American Society o f Mechanical Engi­ neers. XXVI (November 1906), 487-302; Magnus W. Alexander, “The Needs of Industrial Education from the Standpoint of the Manufac­ turer," Social Education Quarterly, I (June 1907), 196-201. Frederick P. Fish, “The Vocational and Industrial School," National Education Association Proceedings, 1910, pp. 367-78. John Dewey, “Industrial Education—A Wrong Kind," New Republic, II (February 20, 1913), 72. 57. Magnus W. Alexander, “The Apprenticeship System of the General Electric Company," Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science, XXXIII (January 1909), 141-30. 58. See Bennett, History o f Manual and Industrial Education, Chapter 13. 59. William C. Redfield, letter to National Association of Corporation Schools, June 8,1914, National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulle­ tin. II (1914), 686. Charles Steinmetz, “Address," National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin. I, 425. Channing R. Dooley, “Education and Americanization," Industrial Management, October 1917, p. 30. 60. W. W. Kincaid, “Education and Training as a Management Process," American Management Review, May 1923, pp. 3-4. See also John Van Liew Morris, Employee Training: A Study o f Educational Training De­ partments in Various Corporations (New York: McGraw, 1921), and Nathaniel Peffer, Educational Experiments in Industry (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1932). 61. Charles R. Mann, “Principles Underlying Effective Training of Em­ ployees," Corporation Training March 1922, pp. 3-5. 62. Charles R. Mann, “Personnel Methods and Training,” PersonnelAdmin­ istration, September 1922, p. 3.

Notes for Pages 305-309

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367

63. Henry H. Tukey, “Educational Engineers,“ National Association o f Cor­ poration Training Bulletin. 1921, p. 386. 64. Channing R. Dooley, “Employment on Merit,” American Management Review, December 1923, p. 3. 65. Hammond, “Americanization as a Problem,“ p. 1116. See also “Making Americans out of Aliens,” National Association fo r Corporation Schools Bulletin, V (1918), 348; “A Survey of Our Association’s Activities,” National Association fo r Corporation Schools Bulletin, IV (March 1917), 8; Kimball, “Relation of Engineering to Industrial Management,” p. 562; Frederick L. Bishop, “Editorial,” Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineer­ ing Education Bulletin, VII (January 1917), 511-12. 66. Prosser, “New Apprenticeship,” pp. 45, 51. 67. Scott Nearing, “Who’s Who on Our Boards of Education,” School and Society, V (January 1917), 89-90. See also George S. Counts, The Social Composition o f Boards o f Education: A Study in the Social Control o f Public Education, Supplementary Monograph No. 33, July 1927 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927). 68. Bennett, History o f Manual ami Industrial Education, pp. 539-41; “Re­ port of the Massachusetts Committee on Industrial and Technical Edu­ cation,” School Review, XIV (June 1906), 438-48. 69. See, for example, George S. Counts, School and Society in Chicago (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1928); Wayne J. Urban, “Teachers, Politics, and Progressivism: The Early Years of the Atlanta Public School Teachers* Association, 1905-1919,” unpublished paper presented to the Mid-West History of Education Society, Chicago, 1973 (courtesy of Wayne Urban); Ernest Lindler, “The Universities and the People,” School and Society, XXII (December 1925), 700. On public school re­ form, see also Marvin Lazerson, Origins o f the Urban School: Public Education in Massachusetts, 1870-1915 (Cambridge: Harvard Univer­ sity Press, 1971); Joel Spring, Education and the Rise o f the Corporate State (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973); Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult o f Efficiency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); David B. Tyack, “City Schools: Centralization of Control at the Turn of the Century,” in Jerry Israel, ed., Building the Organizational Society (New York: Free Press, 1972), Chapter 4; David B. Tyack, One Best System: A History o f American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); David B. Tyack, ed., Turning Points in American Educational History (New York: Wiley, 1967); Clarence J. Karier, ed., Shaping the American Educational State, 1900 to the Present (New York: Free Press, 1975); and Clarence J. Karier and Paul C. Violas, eds., Roots o f Crisis: Essays in Twentieth Century Education (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973). 70. Roman, quoted in National Association o f Corporation Schools Bulletin, II (October 1915), 23. 71. Young, quoted in ibid. p. 24. 72. Counts, School and Society, Chapter 8. 73. “Proceedings of the Organizational Meetings,” National Society fo r the Promotion o f Industrial Education Bulletin, No. 1 (1907), pp. 1-3, 15; “List of Members,” National Society fo r the Promotion o f Industrial

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74.

73. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80.

81. 82.

83. 84. 85. 86.

Notes for P ag » 309-316

Education Bulletin, No. 7 (1908), p. 2. James Parton Haney, ‘T he National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education,” Manual Training Magazine, XI (1910), 27-33. Henry S. Pritchett, "The Arms of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education,” National Societyfo r the Promotion o f Industrial Education Bulletin No. 3 (1908), p. 22. “National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education Constitu­ tion,” National Societyfo r the Promotion o f Industrial Education Bulletin No. 1, p. 10. Wirth, Education in the Technological Society, pp. 160,163. Grant Venn, Man, Education, and Work (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1964), p. 112. William E Wickenden, “Discipline or Discipleship?”, Steinmetz Lec­ tures, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, March 7,1930, Wick­ enden Papers. Cheeseman Herrick, “Commercial Education: Training of Business Men as a Branch of Technical Instruction,” Fifth Yearbook o f the National Herbart Society, 1899, p. 119. O. H. Cheney, discussion in The Teaching o f Labor Relations in Engi­ neering Schools: An Informal Conference o f Engineering Educators at the Home o fSam A. Lewisohn (privately printed, 1926), Harvard University Library. Wickenden, “Discipline or Discipleship?” Leon Alford, “Report of the Conference on Industrial Engineering, Sche­ nectady, June 1923,” Journal o f Engineering Education, XVI (1923-6), 237. Charles R. Mann, quoted by Fred H. Rindge, Jr., ‘Teaching Human Engineering in the College Curriculum,” American Machinist, XLVIII (April 23, 1918), 714; Charles R. Mann, “Present-Day Conditions are Forcing the Engineer to Assume New Responsibilities,” Engineering News-Record, LXXX (January 1918), 208. Charles F. Scott, discussion in Teaching o f Labor Relations, 1926. Sam A. Lewisohn, New Leadership in Industry (New York: E P. Dutton A. Co., 1926), p. 93. H. P. Hammond, discussion in Teaching o f Labor Relations, 1926. Leon P. Alford, 'T en Years’ Progress in Management”; C. W. Beese, “Extension of Education in Engineering Management to Fields Other Than Factory Production,” Journal o f Engineering Education, XVI (1925-6), 240-52. Erwin Schell, “Quiz,” January 8, 1921, and “The Trend of Manage­ ment,” one of a series of lectures entitled “The Technique of Executive Control,” Course Record in Business Management, 1920, MIT Archives. Erwin Schell, “The Workmen—Their Impulses and Desires,” Course Record in Business Management, 1920, MIT Archives. Erwin Schell, “Executive Traits Which May Be Developed,” Course Record in Business Management, 1920, MIT Archives. Alford, “Report of the Conference on Industrial Engineering, 1925,” pp. 239,244. Lionel S. Marks, “The Five-Year Program in Engineering and Business Administration at Harvard University,” Societyfo r the Promo­

Notes for Pages 316-319

87.

88.

89. 90. 91. 92.

93. 94.

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369

tion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XXXI (1923), 166-69.0 . N. Leland, “Discussion," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Educa­ tion Proceedings, XXXI (1923), 170. See also John B. Rae, "Engineering Education as Preparation for Management: A Study of MIT Alumni," Business History Review, XXIX (1933), 64-79; and Erwin H. Schell, “Trends in the Teaching of Management at MIT.," Journal o f Engineer­ ing Education, XXVII (1938), 433-9. William Wickenden, quoted by Ian Braley, *1116 Evolution of Humanis­ tic-Social Courses for Undergraduate Engineers," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University School of Education, 1961, p. 113. For more on the evolution of the humanities-social stem of engineering edu­ cation, see H. P. Hammond, “A Study of Evolutionary Trends in Engi­ neering Curriculum," Journal o f Engineering Education, XVIII (1927), 37-84; H. P. Hammond, “Report on the Humanistic-Social Studies in Engineering Education," Journal o f Engineering Education, XXXVI (1946), 338-31; William Wickenden, “The Humanistic Band in the Engi­ neering Curriculum (1939); “Memorandum of Humanistic and Cultural Interests in Technological Institutions" (1944); and “Memorandum on Background of Movements to Broaden Curricula on the Humanistic Side" (1946)—all in the Wickenden Papers, Case Western Reserve Uni­ versity Archives. See also Wickenden’s “The Social Sciences and Engi­ neering Education," Mechanical Engineering February 1938, pp. 147-30. For a comprehensive bibliography on the subject, see Edwin S. Burdell et aL, The Humanistic Social Stem o f Engineering Education (New York: Cooper Union, 1933). Robert I. Rees, discussion in Teaching o f Labor Relations in Engineering Schools, 1926. See also the extensive surveys of practicing engineers in the Wickenden Investigation. When asked to indicate what subjects they felt should be included, or enlarged, in the curriculum, a significant majority cited training in management or the social sciences in general. Don D. Lescohier, “The Place of the Social Sciences in the Training of Engineers," Journal o f Engineering Education, XXIV (1933-4), 417. Samuel Stratton, quoted in Henry C. Link, Education and Industry (New York: MacMillan Co., 1923), p. 168. Willard E. Hotchkiss, “Social Sciences in Engineering Schools," Journal o f Engineering Education, XXVI (1933), 94. William E. Wickenden, “The Social Sciences and Engineering Educa­ tion,” address of the retiring chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Engineering Section, December 29, 1937, Wickenden Papers; “Humanistic Band in the Engineering Curriculum," n.d., Wickenden Papers. “Report of Committee No. 14, Business Train­ ing for Engineers," Society fo r the Promotion o f Engineering Education Proceedings, XXXI (1923), 113. See also “The Engineer as a Leader in Business," SPEE Proceedings, XXXI (1923), 109. Minutes of the Division of Engineering, January 14, 1924, NRC Ar­ chives. Dugald C. Jackson, “Lighting in Industry,** Journal o f the Franklin Institute, CCV (March 1928), 289-302. See also his reports to the presi­ dent on the activities of the Electrical Engineering Department, Report

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95. 96. 97. 98.

Notes for Pages 319-322

o f the President, 1925-1930, MIT Archives, and his “Reports of Work in Progress,” Engineering Division Files, NRC Archives. Baritz, Servants o f Power, Chapters 5 and 6. Jackson, “Lighting in Industry,” p. 302. See, for example, Wickenden’s Professional Guide fo r Junior Engineers. For a more recent example, see ‘The Crown Princes of Business,” For­ tune, XLVIII (October 1953), 152. William Wickenden, “Final Report of the Director of Investigations,” Report o f the Investigation o f Engineering Education, II, 1056, 1059, 1060. Ibid., II. 1059.

Epilogue 1. See Peter F. Drucker, “The First Technological Revolution," Technology and Culture, VII (1966). 143. 2. “The Crown Princes of Business,” Fortune, XLVIII (October 1953), 264, 270. 3. A. A. Potter, Letter to President Roosevelt, New York Times, October 25, 1936, p. 1. 4. On the proletarianization of engineers, see André Gorz, 'Technical Intel­ ligence and the Capitalist Division of Labor,” Les Temps Modernes, Summer 1971 (also in Telos, Vol. XII); “Technicians and the Capitalist Division of Labor,” Socialist Revolution, Vol. II, No. 3 (May-June 1972); and Britta Fischer and Mary Lesser, “An Examination of Some Myths and Contradictions Concerning Engineers,” Science fo r the Peo­ ple, II, 16-19. See also Fischer’s Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Washington University, 1976 (forthcoming).

Index

accidents, industrial, 289-90; see also in­ dustrial safety ACE, see American Council on Educa­ tion ACS, see American Chemical Society Adams, Comfort A , 78, 80, 1S9, 163, 164, 230 tu adaptation, individual, to corporate life, 170, 175, 176, 188, 196 Addams, Jane, 308, 309 Advisory Committee on Engineering (Council of National Defense), 209,

210 AFL, see American Federation of Labor Agassiz, Louis, 150 AIChE, see American Institute of Chem­ ical Engineers AIEE, see American Institute of Elec­ trical Engineers Akron, University of, 187, 200 Alexander, Magnus, 52-4, 64, 82, 161, 172-3, 188-90, 203 Alexanderson, E F. W., 84,87-8,98,99,

101 Alford, Leon, 82,276,288,289,293,298, 311 alkali industry, 13-15 Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation, 18 American Academy for the Advance­ ment of Science (AAAS), 135 and tu, 152 American Association of College Regis­ trars, 233

371

American Association of Engineers, 62, 63 American Bar Association, 102 American Chemical Society (ACS), 38 and tu, 72, 78, 135 tu, 163 il American Council on Education (ACE), 170, 233, 236, 245-56 American Cyanamid, 117 American Engineering Council, 162-3, 311 American Engineering Standards Com­ mittee (A ESQ , 80 American Federation of Labor (AFL), 230, 237, 272, 276 American Institute of Chemical Engi­ neers (AIChE), 32 and tu, 72, 78, 80, 193 American Institute of Electrical Engi­ neers (AIEE), 36, 72, 78, 80.106,127, 182, 203 il, 211 Americanization of immigrants, 58, 306 American Management Association (AMA), 178, 250, 285, 293, 299 American Patent Law Association, 102 American Petroleum Institute, 165 American Society of Civil Engineers, 35 American Society of Mechanical Engi­ neers (ASME), 36, 37, 71, 77 tu, 242 and tu. 270, 273, 289 American Standard, the, 76 American Standards Association, 80 American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), 7, 12, 78 tu, 171,

372 /

Index

American Telephone and Telegraph Company (corn ) 176, 192, 199, 215, 228, 231, 277, 296» 297; M IT and, 139,140; patent monop­ oly and, 91-3 and it, 96-7; radio patent-pooling agreements and, 93,94, 97; research at, 96-7, 112-14 Angel!, James, 225, 230 il. 233 Antioch College, 200-2 antitrust laws, 88, 89, 109 applied science, see practical applications of science; science-based industry; technology apprenticeship system, 168, 171, 189, 300-1; corporation schools, 302-5 Army, U.S., 126,213,215,219, 224,228, 231, 245, 248, 298; Committee on the Classification of Personnel (CCP), 207-9, 215, 248, 253, 297 A rthur D. Little, Inc., 124 AT AT, see American Telephone and Telegraph Company automotive engineers, standardization and, 79 automotive industry, 6, 19, 79 Aydelotte, Frank, 160, 182,195,215 and it. 233

Babbage, Charles, 259-60 Baekeland, L. H., 103-7, 148 it Baker, Newton D., 149 it, 150,208,210, 213, 215, 299 Baran, Paul, 47 Barksdale, Hamilton, 280-2 Barr, William, 237 Barth, Carl, 269, 270 Basford, A. M., 189 Bates, Arlo, 190 Bates, Onward, 44 Behrend, B. A., 98 Bell, Alexander Graham, 10-11 BeU Laboratories, 100-1, 115-16, U S 19, 192 Bell System, 118, 242; corporation schools of, 176-8; patent control and, 11-12,91-2; research and, 121; see also American Telephone and Telegraph Company; Bell Laboratories Bendix, Reinhard, 262 Bethlehem Iron Company, 268,269,271 Bigelow, Jacob, 3-4, 21, 23 Bingham, W alter, 230 it, 297

Bishop, Frederick L.. 184, 195-6, 205. 206,209 it, 213, 214 and it, 218,220, 221, 235, 239, 243 it, 246, 250 Boston Elevated Railway Co., 192, 297 Bower, John, 230, 296 Brackett, C. D., 179-80 Brandeis, Louis, 99, 271 Braverman, Harry, 6 Brown, F. Donaldson, 281-3 Brush, Charles F., 7 Bureau of Education, 210,212,216,218, 219 Bureau of Industrial Research, 230 Bureau of Mines, 125, 165 Bureau of Standards, 74-5, 81,125,132, 162, 165 Burgess, G F., 124, 193 Burr. William, 27-8, 31 Burton, William M., 117 Bush, Vannevar, 137-8, 140, 166 business schools, graduate, 315-16 business leadership, 40-1; see also m an­ agement training Butler, Nicholas M urray, 144-5

California Institute of Technology, 145 Calvert, Monte, 27, 77 it Capen, Samuel P., 146-7,209 it, 210-14, 246-52, 254 capitalism, 3, 5; engineers and, 33-4, 64, 322-3; technology and, 33-4, 39 it, 258, 260 il capitalist mode of production, modern management and, 259-63, 267 Carnegie, Andrew, 126 Carnegie Corporation, 155, 241 it Carnegie Foundation, 126, 153, 203, 212 Carnegie Institute of Technology, 145, 208, 226, 231, 297, 314 it Carty, J. J., 96,112,114-15,129,130,156 Case Institute, 145-6 centralization of educational authority, 245-51 CEST, see Committee on Education and Special Training Chamber of Commerce, U.S., 230, 250, 306 it Chandler, Alfred D., 261 chemical-engineering education, 26-7; cooperative programs in, 192-5 chemical engineers, 6, 19, 36-40, 42-3, 77; see also American Institute erf1 Chemical Engineers

Index Chemical Foundation, 16, 106 it, 127-8 chemical industry: Chemical Foundation and, 127-8; emergence of, 5-6, 12-19; patent monopoly in, 105, 106 it; re­ search in, 15,16,18, 19, 111-12, 11618, 121, 124-5; standardization and, 71-2, 78-9 Cheney, O. H., 310-11 Chipman, Minor, 272, 274 Church, Alexander Hamilton, 269 Cincinnati, University of, Cooperative Course of, 185-8, 195, 200 civil engineers, 26, 27, 35, 40 Clark, Major Grenville, 208, 214 Clark University, 131, 211 class and class consciousness, 39 it, 49, 210 it; see also immigrant workers Claxton, P. P., 210-13, 218, 219 Clayton A ntitrust Act, 88 Cleveland radicals, 62, 63 coal-tar dyestuff industry, 6,12,13,15-16 Coe, Conway, 109 Coffin, Howard E . 79, 81, 148 it, 149, 150, 160, 239, 277 Cogswell, William, 14 Coler, Carl S„ 181, 197 college graduates: evaluation and selec­ tion of, 171, 174, 176, 177, 187-8, 198-9,201,205, see also personnel and placement systems and tests; in-house training of, see corporation schools; re­ cruitment of, 169-71, 174 colleges and universities: accreditation of, 252; business schools, 315-16; centrali­ zation of authority over, ACE and, 245-51; land-grant, 132-6; liberal arts (classical), 20-7, 29-30, 199-201; re­ search at, 118, 144-7; SATC program in (W orld W ar I), 217-23, 245; “science of education” and, 248,252-4; standardization of, 251-2; technical ed­ ucation and, 19th century, 20-7, 2930; see also engineering education; engineering schools; industry-school cooperation in education; industryschool cooperation in research Commission on Industrial Education, 307 Commission on Industrial Relations, 56 Committee of One Hundred (AAAS), 135 il, 152 Committee on Education and Special Training (CEST), 214-25, 228, 248, 253, 297, 304

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373

Committee on Public School Relations, 196-7 Committee on Telegraphs and Tele­ phones (Council of National Defense), 213-14 communications industries, see electrical communications industry; radio indus­ try; telephone industry competition, 7-8, 10-14, 19, 54; patent monopoly and, see patent control and monopoly; between products, 69-70, 82 Compton, Karl, 144, 243 it Conference Board, see National Indus­ trial Conference Board consolidations, corporate, 17, 18, 260-1 consultants, independent, 124 contracting, private research, 124-5,128 Cooke, M orris, 62 and it, 137,276, 277, 286, 296, 298 Coolidge, William D., 114, 121, 137 cooperation between industry and educa­ tion, see industry-school cooperation in education; industry-school cooper­ ation in research cooperative course (or system), 181,185— 97, 245 Cornell University, 29, 132; Sibley Col­ lege at, 198, 276 corporate educators: engineering ap­ proach to education among, 304-5; im­ migrant labor in view of, 305-6 corporate liberalism, 61 and il, 63, 181, 237 corporate liberal management reform, 265, 275, 277-8,286-7; see also indus­ trial relations; personnel management corporate management, see management corporate reformers, 50-5,69; standardi­ zation and, 70, 76; see also corporate liberal management reform; educa­ tional reform corporations: expansion and consolida­ tion of, 17, 18, 260-1, 291; habituation to life in, 170, 175, 176, 188, 196 corporation schools, 29, 170-83, 195-7, 205,295; for apprentices, 302-5; of Bell System, 176-8; engineering approach to education in, 304-5; NACS and, 178-83; Test Course at G E 171-5, 321; at Westinghouse, 174-6 Council for Management Education (CME), 235-6, 250 Council of National Defense (CND), 148,

374 /

Index

Council of National Defense (c o n t) 150, 153, 154, 207, 209, 210, 213-14, 218 Counts, George, 308 Craft, E B . 118-20, 165 Crampton, Henry, 150, 210 “culture studies” (humanities courses), in technical schools, 26, 29-32 curricula, see engineering curricula Daniels, Josephus, 148 Dartm outh College, 198, 315 Davisson, C. J., 116 Davy, Sir Humphry, 7, 8 Deeds, E A., 179 Defense Act of 1916, 225 Defense Act of 1920, 226, 227 DeForest, Lee, 91, 98 Dennison, Henry, 201,250,276,293,296 Dewey, John, 300, 302 Diemer, Hugo, 264, 276, 312 Dietz, J. W alter, 177, 178, 181, 198 a . 214, 215, 216 a . 230, 250, 295 discipline, military training and, 224-7, 247, 253 diversification, product, 279-81 Division of Industrial Cooperation and Research (MIT). 142, 144, 194 Division of Simplified Practices (Bureau of Standards), 81-2 Division of Sponsored Research (M IT), 144 Dodge, James Mapes, 270, 273 Dooley, Channing R., 174-6, 181, 196, 198 a , 199, 203 a . 215, 216 and a . 238 a . 252, 295, 304, 305, 306 a Douglass* Commission Report on Indus­ trial Education, 204, 307, 309 Dow, Herbert H., 14, 183 a Dow Chemical Company, 14,15,116-17 Drexel Institute, 209, 214 a dual system of education, 302, 307-8 Duncan, Robert Kennedy, 122—3 Dunn, Gano, 127, 152, 306 a Du Pont, Pierre S., 280, 282, 283 Du Pont, T. Coleman, 251, 280 Du Pont Company, 15, 17, 18,116, 121, 123, 183 a , 277, 280-2 dyestuff industry, 6, 12, 13, 15-16 dynamos (in electrical industry), 7, 8 Eastman, George, 142, 194 Eastman Kodak, 117, 145, 183

a,

197

a

Eaton, Amos, 21-2, 29 Eddy, Henry, 30 Edison, Thomas Alva, 8-9,98,106,112, 113, 136, 148, 149, 257, 319 Edison Club (General Electric), 173,176 Edison Electric Light Company, 8-9 education: as corporate-management function, 178-81, 304; “science” of, 248, 252-4; standardization of, 251-2; see also colleges and universities; Com­ m ittee on Education and Special Train­ ing; “culture studies”; engineering education; humanities; industrial edu­ cation; liberal arts colleges; manage­ ment training; public education; tech­ nical education Education, Bureau of, 210,212,216,218, 219 Education, Department of, 249 educational institutions, see colleges and universities; corporation schools; engi­ neering schools; industry-school coop­ eration in education; industry-school cooperation in research; public educa­ tion; and specific institutions educational reform; engineers* role in, 45-7, 167-70, in vocational or indus­ trial education, 300-10; W orld W ar I and, 224-5, 234; see also industryschool cooperation in education Education and Research Branch (EAR Branch, W ar Plans Division), 225-8 Education Section (CND Advisory Com­ mittee on Engineering), 210, 213-14 educators, see corporate educators; engi­ neering educators efficiency, industrial, 178-81, 266 electrical communications industry, emer­ gence of, 10-12; see also radio industry; telephone industry electrical-engineering education, 26-7, 46,202-3; corporation schools and, 29, 170-8 electrical engineers and engineering, 6, 19, 36-40, 42-3, 164 a ; standardiza­ tion and, 72, 77 a ; see also American Institute of Electrical Engineers electrical industry, 37-8; corporation schools in, 29,170-8; emergence of, 5 10, 18, 19; patent control and monop­ oly in, 7-10,91-5; research in, 111-16, 118,121-2; standardization and, 71-2, 77-8; see also electrical communica­ tions industry

Index Ely Institute for Research in Land Eco­ nomics and Public Utilities (N orth­ western University), 255, 256 Emergency Training Courses for Em­ ployment Managers, 299 employees, see industrial relations; per­ sonnel and placement systems; person­ nel management; workers; and entries starting with labor employment departments, 293, 295 employment-management movement, 293-6, 298 employment-management training cours­ es, 298-9 Engineering Administration (Course XV at M ip , 313-15 Engineering and Industrial Research, Di­ vision of (NRC), 165-6 engineering curricula, 26-8,48,238; “cul­ ture studies’* in, 26, 29-32; expansion of, 48, 311-18; humanities and social sciences in, 31, 316-18; management subjects in, 311-16, 318 engineering education, 45-7, 168, 265; chemical-, 26-7; chemical-, cooper­ ative programs in, 192-5; electrical-, 26-7, 46, 202-3; electrical-, corpora­ tion schools and, 29, 170-8; federal government role in, during W orld W ar I, 207-10, 213-18; habituation to cor­ porate life as aim of, 170,175,176,188, 196; “human factor” in, 311, 314, 316, 319; Mann report on, 46, 126, 203-6, 212, 234; Wickenden study of, 27, 41, 44,58 n., 240-3,311 it, 316,318,320; W orld W ar I and, 207-10,213-18,234; see also colleges and universities; cor­ poration schools; educational reform; engineering experiment stations; indus­ try-school cooperation in education; Society for the Promotion of Engineer­ ing Education; technical education engineering educators, 25-6,28,30-2,45, 178-9, 196; see also corporate educa­ tors engineering experiment stations, 132-6 Engineering Foundation, 127, 155, 1623, 165 engineering schools, 25,26,28,44-6; cur­ ricula of, see engineering curricula; gap between industry and, 183-5; landgrant, 132-6; see also engineering edu­ cation; technical education engineers and engineering: automotive,

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375

79; capitalism and, 33-4, 64, 322-3; chemical, 6, 19, 36-40, 42-3, 77; civil, 26, 27, 35, 40; corporate reform and, 50-4; corporations and position of, 35-7, 40, 43-4, 48-9, 63; educational reform and, 45-7,167-70; electrical, 6, 19,36-40,42-3,72,77 n., 164«.; expe­ rience-trained, 27-8; as generalists, 321-2; individualism of, 41-2, 48, 49; in managerial positions, 310-12; me­ chanical, 23, 26, 27, 36-7, 40; mining, 36, 40; modem management and, 263; personnel management and, 291-2; power of, 62; professional, emergence of, 33-49; professionalism of, 36-40, 42-4,48, 168, 243; radical, 62, 63; sci­ entific management and, 265-6,273-4; social background of, 39, 58 it; social reform and, 61-5; standardization and, 70,76; see also college graduates; engi­ neering education; human engineering; shop culture; social engineering Engineers Council for Professional De­ velopment (ECPD), 242-3 and n. Europe, 184, 251 evaluation and selection process, see col­ lege graduates; personnel and place­ ment systems; recruitment of college graduates; tests Ewing, Thomas, 106, 107

Federal Board for Vocational Education, 214, 310 Federal Council of Citizenship Training, 226 federal government: business control over science and, 109; centralization of edu­ cational authority and, 245-51; engi­ neering education and role of, 207-10, 213-18; research and, 125-6, 128; see also specific agencies and bureaus Federal Trade Commission, 255-6 Federated American Engineering Soci­ eties, 62, 63 Filene, Edward A., 249, 250 Fish, Frederick P., 9, 12, 87, 89, 101-3, 105, 107, 136 and n., 191, 211, 237, 239, 302, 307, 309 Fisher, Boyd, 294, 296, 299 Flanders, Ralph, 272 Fleming, A rthur, 145 Flying Squadron Training Program (Goodyear), 183

376 /

Index

Ford, Henry, 113, 283 it, 294 Ford M otor Company, 183 a . 288 foundations, research and, 126-8; see also specific foundations

Franklin, Benjamin, 3 ,4 , 20 Gage, Lyman, 69, 74-5 Galloway, Lee, 180-2 G antt, Henry, 63, 269, 270, 274, 276 Garvan, Francis P., 16, 127 Gay, Edward F., 201 General Electric Company, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 58, 78, 100, 145, 165, 171-2, 174, 277-80; apprenticeship training at, 302-3; cooperative plan at, 191; Ed-ison O ub at, 173,176; MIT, appropria­ tion for, 140; modern management techniques at, 278-80; M utual Benefit Association of, 288; patent monopoly and, 88, 91-5; radio patent-pooling agreements and, 93,94,99; research at, 112-14, 121; Test Course, 171-5, 321, 331 it General Electric Company Laboratory, 112-14 General M otors Corporation, 117,183 it, 282, 283 Geological Survey, 125 Germany, 73,184; chemical firms, 15-16 GE Test Course, 171-5, 321, 331 it GE-Westinghouse Board of Patent Con­ trol, 92 Gifford, W alter S., ISO, 207 Gilbreth, Frank, 269, 271, 274-7 Gilbreth, Lillian, 275, 276 Gildersleeve, Virginia, 251 Gilman, Daniel Coit, 126, 131 Glasgow University, 184 Godfrey, Hollis, 62 and it, 81, 149-50, 153 it, 160, 209 and it. 210,212,213, 214 it. 217, 218, 220, 235, 236 and it. 247, 250 Gompers, Samuel, 218, 230 Goodyear Rubber Company, 183 it, 283 government, see federal government graduate-training programs of corpora­ tions, see corporation schools Gutm an, Herbert, 58, 59 il habituation to corporate life, 170, 175, 176, 188, 196 Hale, George Ellery, 145, 151-2, 154, 156, 161 Hammond, Harry P., 206, 312

Harvard University, 22, 141-2, 299, 315 and il Hawthorne Effect, 319 Hawthorne studies, 166, 318-20 Henderschott, F. C., 179, 183, 230 Higgins, Milton P., 301, 302, 307, 309 Holland, Maurice, 125, 165 Holley, Alexander, 37 Hoover, Herbert, 81-2,108,125,285,286 Hotchkiss, W illard, 317 Houston, E J., 7 Howard, Clarence H., 296 Howard, Frank A., 283 Howe, Henry M., 163 Hubbard, Gardiner G., 11 human engineering, 264-6,277,287,288, 291, 292; see also personnel manage­ ment "human factor” : corporate liberal man­ agement reform and, 286-8, 290, 292, 297; in engineering education, 311,314, 316, 319; in scientific management, 274-5; see also "man problem” humanities, 32,170,316; see also “culture studies" human relations, see industrial relations

immigrant workers, 57-9, 305-6 incandescent lighting, 8-10, 92, 93 incentive pay systems, 269, 274 individualism (of engineers), 41-2 industrial-betterm ent movement, 287, 289 industrial education, 168, 169; publicly supported, proposals for, 306-10; re­ form of, 300-10; see also corporation schools; technical education; voca­ tional training industrial efficiency, 178-81, 266 Industrial Extension Division (NRC), 161-2 Industrial Fellowship system, 122-4 Industrial Preparedness Committee (Na­ val Consulting Board), 149 industrial psychology, 275, 296-8 industrial relations, 242, 265, 276, 277, 280, 286-90; historical background of, 287-9; safety movement and, 289-90, see also corporate liberal management reform; human engineering; personnel management Industrial Relations Association of America, 229, 230

Index industrial safety, 289-90, 305 industrial standardization, 69-83; auto­ motive industry and, 79; chemical in­ dustry and, 71-2, 78-9; electrical industry and, 71-2, 77-8; mechanical engineers and, 76-7; scientific manage­ ment and, 82-3 industry-school cooperation in education, 29,182-97,234-56; American Council on Education and, 245-56; cooperative courses, 181; engineers’ role in, 167-9; gap between industry and engineering schools and, 183—5; NACS and, 182—3; SPEE and, 202-6; after World W ar I, 234-49 industry-school cooperation in research, 110, 122, 128-47, 157, 162 engi­ neering experiment stations and, 132-6; M IT and, 136-44; universityfacility expansion and, 144-7; see also Industrial Fellowship system; research in-house training programs, see corpora­ tion schools intelligence tests, 215, 222, 234 Intercollegiate Intelligence Bureau, 207, 251 International Workers of the W orld (IWW), 60 invention, 5,8,85,86,99-100; see also en­ tries starting with Patent Act inventors, patent system and, 84-8, 90, 97-102, 104, 105, 108-9, 119-20

Jackson, Dugald G , 46, 71, 77 it, 82-3, 128, 129, 136-40, 143, 165, 166, 18892,197-8,203 and it. 239,243 it. 302, 318, 319 Jewett, Frank B., 96, 100-1, 113, 115116, 118, 119, 121,127, 128, 130, 140, 141, 152 it. 156, 157, 165, 166, 170, 177, 195, 230 it, 318 job descriptions and specifications, 205, 227, 231-2, 234-5, 254, 304 Joint Committee on Engineering Educa­ tion (SPEE), 203 and it, 205 Jones, M ark M., 230, 295 Junior Year Abroad Program, 251

Keppel, Frederick, 213, 221, 225, 238 it, 240

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377

Kimball, Dexter S., 83.242 it. 257,264, 276-8, 312 Kolbe, Parke, 197, 209, 212, 221, 222

labor, see workers labor conflicts, 56-7, 60 labor-management relations, see indus­ trial relations labor movement, 56, 58, 59 labor turnover, 262, 293, 294 labor unions, 40-2, 61, 237; scientific management and, 264, 265, 267 it, 271-3, 276 Lampert Patent Office Bill (1922), 107, 108 land-grant colleges, 132-6 Lasch, Christopher, 51 Layton, Edwin, 43, 332 it Lewis, W arren K., 193, 194 it Lewisohn, Sam A., 236, 242, 276, 312 liberal-arts colleges, 199-201; develop­ ment of technical education and, 20-7, 29-30 liberalism, corporate, 61 and it, 63,181, 237 Link-Belt Company, 270, 271 Litchfield. Paul, 117, 183 it, 283 Little, A rthur D.. 78,79,117,124-5,127, 135, 136, 140-1, 156, 193-4, 264 Lynd, Robert, 109

M aclaurin, Richard G , 141-2, 156, 191, 215, 217, 221, 225 it management, 32, 160; control over pro­ duction by, 259-61, 264, 267; educa­ tion as function of, 178-81, 304; of employment, 293-6; engineering pro­ fessionalism and, 40-1; as engineer­ ing-school subject, 311-16, 318; socialization for, 175-6; see also man­ agement training; managers; modern management; personnel management; research management; scientific man­ agement management education, see management training management movement, 263; see also modern management; scientific man­ agement management reform, corporate liberal, 265,275,277-8,286-7; see also indus­ trial relations; personnel management

378 /

Index

management training, 22, 173, 177, 179, 189, 190, 203, 234, 242, 276; cooper­ ative courses for, 199-202; M IT course on, 313-13 managers, 47; engineers’ role as, 310-12; see also management training Mann, Charles R.. 46. 126, 160, 203-7, 209 il. 212-14, 217-19, 221, 224-7, 231-6,238 a . 244-3,248-34,286.304, 312, 316 Mann. Horace, 193, 200 Mann Report, 46. 203-6, 212, 234, 239 “man problem,” 262, 286, 290, 291 Marx, Karl. 3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M IT), 22-3,27, 29, 51, 153,171, 185, 188,193,276; chemical engineering de­ partm ent of, 136,140-1,193; Chemical Engineering Practice course, 192; Co­ operative Plan at, 188-95; Course XV at, 313-15; electrical engineering de­ partm ent at, 136-40; management training at, 313-15; research at, 136— 44; School of Chemical Engineering Practice at, 141, 193-4; School of Industrial Management at (Sloan School), 313 and il, 314 il; Technol­ ogy Plan of. 142-4 Mayo, Elton, 48. 319, 320 McKay, Gordon, 141 McKay endowment, 141-2 measurement, standardization of, see in­ dustrial standardization mechanical engineers and engineering, 23, 26, 27, 36-7, 40; standardization and, 76-7; see also American Society of Mechanical Engineers Mees, G E. K., 117, 163-4 Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, 122, 123 M crriman, Mansfield, 24, 31 metric system, 77 and il Michelson, A. A., 72, 115, 140, 133, 195 military discipline and training, 224-7, 247, 253 Millikan, Robert, 151-3, 155, 195 mining engineers, 36, 40 Minnesota, University of, 199, 313—16 M IT, see Massachusetts Institute of Technology M itchell, Wesley, 278, 285, 289 modem management (systematic man­ agement), 278-85, 310; decentralized administration, 281, 283; at Du Pont,

280-2; emergence of, 259-64; engineers in executive positions and, 263; at Gen­ eral Electric, 278-80; at General Mo­ tors, 282-3; see also corporate liberal management reform; scientific manage­ ment monopoly: patent, see patent control and monopoly; over science, industrial, 6, 43 Morgan, A rthur R , 62 il, 200-2 Morgan. J. P., 9, 12, 96 M orrill Act (1862), 24, 30,132, 225, 234 motivation of workers, 262,281; scientific management and, 266, 269, 274, 275 Munsterberg, Hugo, 275, 296-7

National Academy of Sciences, 73,150-2, 154 National Association of Corporation Schools (NACS), 170, 178-83, 202, 206, 208, 230, 246, 292 il, 296, 299, 303 National Association of Corporation Training (NACT), 169, 181, 196-7, 243 National Association of Employment Managers, 229, 230 National Association of M anufacturers, 182, 237, 307 National Bell Telephone Company,

11-12 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 230-1, 285 National City Bank of New York, 199-

200 National Electric Light Association, 182, 242, 255-6 National Employment Managers Associ­ ation, 292 il, 299 National Industrial Conference Board (NICB), 52, 161, 230, 231, 236, 237 and il, 239-42 National Personnel Association, 299 National Research Council (NRC), 107, 112, 126, 127, 130, 147, 170, 207, 215, 216, 224, 227-9, 230 il. 231-3; An­ thropology and Psychology Division of, 158-60, 232; Committee on Indus­ trial Personnel Research, 229; creation of, 148, 152-3; divisions of, 158-9; early years of, 154-9; Educational Re­ lations Division, 158-60, 233; Engi­ neering Division, 160,161-6* 277,318;

Index Fellowship program of, 127, 154—5; In­ dustrial Relations Division of, 156-8, 160, 162; Psychology Committee of, 207-9, 228, 297; Research Extension Division of, 158, 160, 165; Research Information Service of, 158-61 National Safety Council, 289-90, 292 it National Science Foundation, 147 National Society for the Promotion of In­ dustrial Education, 182, 246, 292 it, 308 National University Extension Associa­ tion, 133 Naval Consulting Board (NCB), 148-51, 153, 207 Navy, U. S., 126, 298 Nearing, Scott, 307 Nela Park, 121-2 Newlands, Francis G., 134 Newlands Bill (1916), 134-6 New York Edison Company, 178, 179 NICB, see National Industrial Confer­ ence Board Noyes, A. A., 135, 137, 151, 152 Noyes, William A., 72, 75, 161 NRC, see National Research Council

occupational specifications, see job de­ scriptions and specifications Office of Weights and Measures, 73, 74 Oldfield Bills (1912), 105-6 Osborne, Loyall, 203 it, 237, 238 Otterson, J. E., 94-5, 97 overproduction, 54, 55

Palmer, A. Mitchell, 16 Parsons, Frank, 295 it Patent Act (1836), 87 Patent Board of the W ar and Navy De­ partm ents, 106-7 patent control and monopoly, 6, 19, 8591,106,108,109,110; corporate inven­ tor and, 100-1; in electrical com­ munications industry, 10-12; in elec­ trical industry, 7-10, 91-5; indepen­ dent inventor and, 87, 90, 97-9, 101, 102; research and, 95-7; in telephone industry, 11-12, 92, 94, 96-7; see also patent pools; “product patents'* patent law, see patent system Patent U w (1790), 87

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379

Patent Office, 87, 89, 102, 103, 107, 108 Patent Office Society, 107 patent pools (pooling agreements), 10,87, 99, 106 and it; radio, 92-4, 97, 99 patents: auxiliary, 90; compulsory work­ ing of, 105-8; foreign and foreignowned U.S., 107-8; formalism in handling, 108-9; independent inventor and, 98; life of a, 11,86 it; "product," 15-16,105 and it, 106; suppression of, 99, 105, 106 patent system (patent law), 84-90,92,97, 102; inventor and, 84, 86-8, 100, 101, 104; reform of, 102-9 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 73 Penn State University, 276, 312 Pennsylvania, University of, 296 Person, Harlow S., 266, 276, 277, 284 personnel and placement systems, 198— 201; EAR Branch-sponsored research on, 226-8; research on, early 1920s, 226-31; W orld W ar I and, 207-9,216, 222; see also college graduates personnel departments, see employment departments personnel management, 286,290-3,298300; "science of education” and, 2524; see also employment-management movement; human engineering; indus­ trial relations Personnel Research Foundation, 228,230 and it, 233, 297 personnel training, see training Petroleum Division (Bureau of Mines), 125 petroleum industry, 117 pharmaceutical industry, 118 Physical Chemistry Research Laboratory (M IT), 137 physical fitness, 225, 226 Physikalische-Technische Reichsanstalt (German national physical laboratory), 73, 74 Pickering, Edward G , 155 Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), 196-7 Pittsburgh, University of, 299; cooper­ ative plan at, 195-7; Special Appren­ tice Course at, 189 "Pittsburgh Idea," 196-7 "planning department,” 271, 274, 284 Porter, H. F. J., 45, 289, 294 postgraduate training programs, see cor­ poration schools

380 /

Index

Potter, Audrey A., 34, 64, 133,133, 176, 198, 199, 202, 203 a . 212, 213, 233, 243 a . 232, 273 practical applications of science, 4 ,24-6, 112, 114-13. 140-1, 147, 131, 132 Pratt, John Lee, 281-3 preparedness campaign (before W orld W ar I), 148-32 Prindle, Edwin J., 89-91,101-3,107,108 Pritchett, Henry S., 72-3,126,136-8 and a . 133-8, 203, 212, 233, 240, 246, 301-2, 309 product diversification, 279-81 production (as process), 30, 70; manage­ rial control over, 239-61, 264, 267; rationalization of, industrial standardi­ zation and, 82; simplification of, 81—2; see also overproduction; scientific man­ agement productivity, 33, 34; Hawthorne studies on, 166, 318-20 “product patents," 13-16, 103 and a , 106 product "simplification," drive for, 81-2 professional engineer, emergence of, 3349; see also engineers professionalism (professional identity), 36-40, 42-4, 48, 168, 243 profit and profitability, 4, 3, 8, 62, 112 progressive engineers, 62-3 progressive reform movement, 39-61 Prosser, Charles, 306, 307, 309, 310 psychological tests, 228-9, 234, 238,233; in W orld W ar I, 207, 216, 222 psychology, industrial (applied), 273, 296-8 Public Academy (Philadelphia), 20-1 public education (public school system), 196-7; “dual system” of industrial schools and, 302, 307-8; vocational ed­ ucation movement and, 307-10 public service, engineers and, 62 Pupin, Michael, 131, 132 Purdue University, 198-9, 313 a

radical engineers, 62, 63 Radio Corporation of America (RCA), 94 radio industry: AT&T research expansion and, 96-7; patent monopoly in, 91, 92 radio-patent pool agreements, 92-4, 97, 99 Rautenstrauch, W alter, 63

Reber, Louis E , 133, 309 recruitment of college graduates, 169-71, 174; see also college graduates Redfield, William. 303 Rees, Col. R. L, 199, 214, 213, 218, 222, 223,230 a , 233,242,243 a . 246,230, 316 Reese, Charles L., 116, 160, 161 reform: corporate, 30-3, 69, 70, 76; cor­ porate liberal management, 263, 273, 277-8, 286-7, see also industrial rela­ tions and personnel management; edu­ cational, see educational reform; o f patent system, 102-9; social, 39-60; so­ cial, corporate engineers and, 61-3 reform movement, progressive, 39-61 Reingold, Nathan, 131, 132 a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 22 Repauno Chemical Company, 280 research, 3,110-66; in chemical industry, 13, 16, 18. 19, 111-12, 116-18, 121, 124-3; “collectivization” of (team re­ search), 99-100,118,119,139; colleges and, see industry-school cooperation in research; in electrical industry, 111-16, 118, 121-2; in engineering schools, 26, 28; federal government and, 123-6, 128, see also specific agencies and de­ partm ents; foundations and, 126-8, see also specific foundations; independent, 120- 1; Industrial Fellowship system and, 122-4; national coordination of, 147-8, see also Council of National De­ fense, National Research Council, and Naval Consulting Board; organization of, 110, 112-13, 118, 121, 137, 139; patent monopoly and, 93-7; personnel (early 1920s), 226-31; private contract­ ing and, 124-3, 128; research institutes and, 121, 122, 128; in telephony, 114— 16; trade-association laboratories and, 121- 2,128; universities and, see indus­ try-school cooperation in research; W orld W ar I and, 148-34, 136-7 researchers, 118-20, 139 Research Fellowship program (National Research Council), 164 research institutes, 121, 122, 128 Research Laboratory of Applied Chemis­ try (M IT), 140 research management, 119, 120, 166 Reserve Officers Training Corps (R O T Q , 223-6 Rice, Calvin, 137, 161

Index Rice, E. W ilbur, 113-14,127,191,237-8, 278 Richards, C. Russ, 131-2 Richards, Charles R., 302, 309 Ricketts, Palmer, 25 Rochester, University of, 299 Rochester Mechanics Institute, 197 ru Rockefeller, John D., 126 Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 254 Rockefeller Foundation, 126-7, 153, 155, 164, 212, 233, 255 Roe, J. W., 239, 277 Roman, Frederick, 308 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 64, 272 Root, Elihu, 110, 126, 151-3, 155-7 Rorty, Malcolm, 284-5, 291 ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps), 225-6 rubber industry, 117 Rumford, Count, 21

Sadtler, Samuel P., 38 SAE (Society of Automobile Engineers), 79 safety, industrial, 289-90, 305 SATC (Student Army Training Corps), 217-23, 245 Schell, Erwin, 288 a., 294 il, 298 il, 302 il, 313-15 Schneider, Herman, 183,185-9,212,214, 215, 239, 302 School of Chemical Engineering Practice (MIT), 141, 193-4 schools, see colleges and universities; cor­ poration schools; engineering educa­ tion; engineering schools; technical education Schumpeter, Joseph, 118 science: applied, 4, 24-6, 112, 114-15, 140-1,147,151,152; capitalism and, 3; engineering and, integration of, 159; in­ dustrial monopolization and control of, 6, 43, 109, 110, 114, 118; pure, 112, 141, 151, 152; social, 170, 242, 274, 275, 322, 323; social, in engineering curriculum, 31, 316-18; useful arts and, union of, 3-4, 24; see also profes­ sional engineer; science-based industry; technical education; technology science-based industry: definition of, 5; rise of, 3-19, 33; see also specific indus­ tries

Science Service, 128 and

il

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381

scientific discovery and investigation, cor­ porate control of, 110, 114, 118 scientific management (Taylorism), 40, 209, 264-78, 314; corporate liberal management reform and, 277-8; engi­ neers and, 265-6, 273-4; government investigation of, 272; “human factor“ in, 274-5; industrial psychology and, 297; industrial standardization and, 82-3; labor unions and, 264, 265, 267 il, 271-3, 276; motivation of workers and, 266,269,274,275; opposition and resistance to, 271-3; pluses of, 267-8; revisionist movement within, 264, 265, 275-7; scientific pretensions of, 273-5; Taylor’s contributions to, 268-71 Scott, Charles F., 46-8, 174-6, 189, 203 il. 238, 243 il. 312 Scott, Howard, 63 Scott, W alter Dill, 160, 183, 207-8, 215, 221, 230 il, 239, 254, 275, 296-8 Seashore, Dean, 160, 233 selection and evaluation of college gradu­ ates, 171, 174, 176, 177, 187-8, 198-9, 201, 205; see also personnel and place­ ment systems; recruitment of college graduates; tests Sellers, William, 76, 82 il Sherman Act, 88 shop culture, 27, 40, 76, 77 il shop management, see scientific manage­ ment shop movement, 185 shop work in technical schools, 26, 28 Sibley College (Cornell University), 198, 276 simplification of production, 81-2 Skill, W. M , 181 skilled workers, demand for, 300-3 Skinner, Charles E., 78, 156 Sloan, Alfred P., 137, 282, 283, 313 Sloan. M. S., 182 Slosson, E. E., 127-8 and il Smith, Oberlin, 266 Smith-Hughes Act, 214, 310 Smithsonian Institution, 125 Smith-Towner Bill, 249 social engineering, 264, 265 socialism (socialist movement), 42 il, 60-1 Socialist Party, 58, 60 socialization for management, 175-6 social production, see production

382 /

Index

social reform and reformers, 59-60, cor­ porate engineers and, 61-5 social sciences, 170, 242, 274, 275, 322, 323; in engineering curriculum, 31, 316-18 social welfare movement, see welfare work Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education (SPEE), 44-5,170,182,193, 202, 203 and it. 205-6, 211, 221-2, 224,233, 236 and it, 238-40,242, 316 Society for the Promotion of Scientific Management, 277 Society of Industrial Engineers, 277 Solvay ammonia-soda alkali process, 14 Southard, James H., 74, 77 it Special Service Schools, 227 SPEE, see Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education Spruance, William, 281-2 Squier, George, 153 stabilization, corporate, 284, 286 standardization: of education, 251-2; in­ dustrial, see industrial standardization; of terminology, 231-2 Standard Oil of New Jersey, 183 it, 283 Stanley, William, 10 Stanley Bills, 107-8 Steinmetz, Charles, 37-8, 42 and it, 46, 113, 171, 182, 303, 307, 322 Stern, Bernhard J., 101 Stine, Charles M., 116, 194-5 Stoll, C. G., 318 Stone, Katherine, 258 it, 267 it Stratton, Samuel, 74, 75, 81, 136, 144, 160, 316-17 strikes, labor, 56-7 Student Army Training Corps (SA TQ , 217-23. 245 Student Officers Reserve Corps, 213 Study o f Engineering Education (Mann Report), 46. 203-6, 212, 234, 239 Subcommittee on Relation of the Engi­ neering Schools to the Government (Council of National Defense), 213-14 sulfuric acid production, 13 surplus capital, science-based industry and, 5, 55 Suzzalo, Henry, 212, 214 it, 215, 224, 249 it, 253 Swasey, Ambrose, 127 and it, 146, 152, 156-7, 162-3 Sweezy, Paul, 47 Swope, Gerard, 136, 137, 195, 279-80

systematic management, see modern management

Tabor M anufacturing Company, 184, 270, 271 Taft, Robert, 272 “task and bonus” system, 274 Taylor, Frederick, 82,203 it. 264,267 il , 268-71, 273-7, 281, 283 and it. 297, 298 Taylorism, see scientific management Taylor Society, 230 and it, 277 teachers, see engineering educators Technical Alliance, 63 technical education (technical schools): colleges and development of, 2 0 -7 ,2 9 30; “culture studies” and, 26, 29-32; development of, 20-33; two-year, 241; see also corporation schools; engineer­ ing education; engineering schools; in­ dustrial education; vocational training technocracy, 63, 322-3 technological development, 62, 257-8, 260 il technology: capitalism and, 33-4, 39 it, 258, 260 il; corporate control of, 44; development of modern, 4-5, 19, see also science-based industry; introduc­ tion of term, 3-4; as male domain, 39 it; rationalization of, 55 Technology Plan (M IT), 142-4 telephone industry: patent monopoly in, 11-12,91-4,96-7; research in, 114-16; standardization in, 78 it Temporary National Economic Commit­ tee, 120-1 terminology, standardization of, 231-2 Tesla, Nikola, 98 Test Course, GE, 171-5, 321, 331 it tests, 204-5, 297, 304; EAR Branch’s work on, 227-8; intelligence, 215,222, 234; psychological, 228-9, 234, 238, 255; psychological, in W orld W ar I, 207,216,222; vocational-guidance, 238 Thompson, Sanford E , 274, 276 Thomson, Elihu, 7, 112, 113, 136, 138, 188 Thomson-Houston Electric Company, 7 10, 278 Thorndike, E L., 208, 238 it, 297 Throop College, 145, 151, 153 Thurston, Robert, 30 Thurstone, L. L., 215,232,238,254,297

Index Tilden. C J.. 251 Timbie, William H.. 191. 192. 215. 216, 227 time-and-motion studies, 272, 274 timekeeping, 122 Towne, Henry, 34. 266, 267, 270, 273 trade-association laboratories, 121-2,128 trade associations, 178 trade education, see industrial education; vocational training trade unions, see labor unions training: management, see management training; military, 224-7, 247, 253; vo­ cational, see industrial education; vo­ cational training training programs, in-house, see corpora­ tion schools Training W ithin Industry (TW I), 216 a Tukey, Henry H., 304-5 Turner, J. B., 21 turnover, labor, 262, 293, 294 Twentieth Century Fund, 250 “tycoon,” transformation of, 47 Tyler, Harry W., 160, 233, 246

Union Carbide, 17, 117 Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, 17 unions, see labor unions United Motors Company, 283 “unit operations” (in chemical engineer­ ing), 79, 194 and a universities, see colleges and universities University Extension movement, 131,133 Urwick, Lyndall, 270, 275 useful arts, union of science and the, 3-4, 24; see also professional engineer, emergence of; science-based industry; technical education utilities industry, 255-6 utility of science, see practical applica­ tions of science

Vail, Theodore N., 11, 12, 91, 157, 162 and a Vail collection (Dering Library), 139 Vanderlip, Frank, 74, 136, 143 il, 199201, 214 a , 237, 302, 309 Van Hise, Charles R., 133, 309 Vaughan, Floyd L., 92, 97-8, 100 Veblen, Thorstein, 63, 244, 288 and a vertical integration, 14-15

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383

Vinal, Albert G . 176, 181, 215, 216, 295 Vincent, George, 154-5 Vocational Bureau of Boston, 295 and it vocational education, 214, 307-10 vocational guidance, 233, 238, 250 vocational terminology, standardization of, 231-2 vocational training, 226; in W orld W ar I, 213-16; see also apprenticeship system; corporation schools; industrial educa­ tion; technical education

W alker, Francis Amasa, 25, 30-1 W alker, William. 124, 136, 140-3, 193, 194 and a . 234 W ar Department, 213, 215, 217, 218, 221-2, 231, 253; see also Committee on Education and Special Training (CEST) W ar Industries Board, 149, 154, 286 W ar Plans Division (EAR Branch), 225-8 W aste in Industry report, 81, 286 W atertown Arsenal, 271, 272, 274 Weiner, Norbert, 113 W einstein, James, 60 welfare work, 265, 287-8 W estern Electric, 12, 114, 115, 171,177, 192, 215, 277, 297, 303; Hawthorne plant of, 318—20 Westinghouse, George, 9-10 Westinghouse Corporation, 7, 9, 10, 12, 78. 145, 171, 192, 199, 215, 289, 304; apprentice-training schools at, 174, 303; corporation schools of, 174-6; ra­ dio patent-pooling agreements and, 94; research at, 113 W hitaker, M. G , 117, 193 W hite, Alfred H.. 46. 192-3 W hitney, Willis R., 113-14, 130, 134-7, 148 a , 155, 156, 163 and a , 165, 188 Wickenden, William R , 47-9, 128, 140, 145-6,167,182,191,196,197 a . 215, 238, 262, 298 a , 310, study on engi­ neering education by, 27,41,44, 58 a , 240-3, 311 a . 316, 318, 320 W illiams, William Appleman, 206 Wilson, Charles E., 282 Wilson, Woodrow, 94,152,155,156» 213, 217, 224 Wisconsin, University of, 133, 171 Wood, DeVolson, 25, 44-5 W orcester Trade School, 185, 302

384 /

Index

worker psychology, see industrial psy­ chology workers, 59 it, 186; immigrant, 57-9, 305-6; industrial education of, see in­ dustrial education; instincts of, in Schell’s view, 314-15; motivation of, see motivation of workers; psychology of, see industrial psychology; resistance to modern management among, 262; scientific management and, see scien­ tific management; shortage of techni­ cally trained, after World W ar I, 235, 237-8,262; skilled, demand for, 300-3; welfare, 265, 287-8; see also industrial relations; personnel management; and entries starting with labor workmen’s compensation, 236-7, 289 W orld W ar I: chemical industry and, 16; educational reform and, 224-5, 234;

engineering education and, 207-10, 213-18, 234; industrial research and, 148-54, 156-7; industry control over engineering education and, 206-9; per­ sonnel and placement systems and, 207-9, 216, 222; personnel manage­ ment and, 298-9; preparedness cam­ paign prior to, 148-52; Student Army Training Corps program during, 217— 23, 245 W right, Carroll D.. 211, 309

Yale University, 23 Yama Conferences on Industrial Effi­ ciency, 237 Yerkes, Robert M., 160, 207, 227, 229, 230 it. 233

A Note About the Author

A native of New York City, David F. Noble received his B.A. from the University o f Florida, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Rochester. He was formerly a research associate and technician in biochem­ istry at Tufts Medical School, the University of Rochester, and Purdue University, and is currently Mellon Fellow in Humanities and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A Note on the Type

The text of this book was set, via computer-driven cathode ray tube, in a face called Times Roman, designed by Stanley Morison for The Tim es (London) and first introduced by that newspaper in 1932. Among typographers and designers of the twentieth century, Stanley Morison has been a strong forming influence, as a typographical adviser to the English Monotype Corporation, as a director of two distinguished English publishing homes and as a writer of sensibility, erudition, and keen practical sense. Composed by D atagraphks, Phoenix, Arizona. Printed and bound by The American Book-Stratford Press, Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Typography by Karolina Harris.