F.Taylor
GOVT 251
Dr. Brack Brown
From: St. Francis Univ. Business School
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Mary Ellen Papesh
Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management, was born on March 20, 1865, into an upper class liberal Philadelphia family. His father, a Princeton graduate and lawyer, made enough money from mortgages and did not have to keep a regular job. His mother was a spirited abolitionist and feminist who was said to have run an underground railroad station for runaway slaves. Both parents were Quakers and believed in high thinking and plain living. Parental authority was not questioned and children were seen and not heard in the Taylor family. Family members referred to each other as "thee" and "thou". At an early age Taylor learned self-control and his Quaker upbringing helped him to avoid conflicts with his peers and to resolve disagreements among them. Taylor was a compulsive adolescent and was always counting and measuring things to figure a better way of doing something. At age twelve, he invented a harness for himself to keep from sleeping on his back, hoping to avoid the nightmares he was having. At age twenty-five, Taylor earned an engineering degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey while holding a full time job. To date, no one has broken that record. Another of his achievements was his winning of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association doubles championship where he used a patented spoon-shaped racket that he himself designed. Even though he excelled in math and sports and had a degree from an exclusive college, Frederick chose to work as a machinist and pattern maker in Philadelphia at the Enterprise Hydraulic Works (Weisford 1987). After his apprenticeship at the hydraulic works plant, he became a common laborer at the Midvale Steel Company. He started as shop clerk and quickly progressed to machinist, foreman, maintenance foreman, and chief draftsman. Within six years he advanced to research director, then chief
Dr. Brack Brown
From: St. Francis Univ. Business School
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Mary Ellen Papesh
Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management, was born on March 20, 1865, into an upper class liberal Philadelphia family. His father, a Princeton graduate and lawyer, made enough money from mortgages and did not have to keep a regular job. His mother was a spirited abolitionist and feminist who was said to have run an underground railroad station for runaway slaves. Both parents were Quakers and believed in high thinking and plain living. Parental authority was not questioned and children were seen and not heard in the Taylor family. Family members referred to each other as "thee" and "thou". At an early age Taylor learned self-control and his Quaker upbringing helped him to avoid conflicts with his peers and to resolve disagreements among them. Taylor was a compulsive adolescent and was always counting and measuring things to figure a better way of doing something. At age twelve, he invented a harness for himself to keep from sleeping on his back, hoping to avoid the nightmares he was having. At age twenty-five, Taylor earned an engineering degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey while holding a full time job. To date, no one has broken that record. Another of his achievements was his winning of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association doubles championship where he used a patented spoon-shaped racket that he himself designed. Even though he excelled in math and sports and had a degree from an exclusive college, Frederick chose to work as a machinist and pattern maker in Philadelphia at the Enterprise Hydraulic Works (Weisford 1987). After his apprenticeship at the hydraulic works plant, he became a common laborer at the Midvale Steel Company. He started as shop clerk and quickly progressed to machinist, foreman, maintenance foreman, and chief draftsman. Within six years he advanced to research director, then chief
References: Freedman, David H. "Is Management Still a Science?" Harvard Business Review NovemberDecember 1992: 26-38. Kanigel, Robert. "Frederick Taylor 's Apprencticeship." The Wilson Quarterly Summer 1996: 44 Nelson, D. Frederick Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980. Weisbord, Marvin R. Productive Workplaces. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 1987. Wrege, Charles D. and Greenwood, Ronald G. "Organization Theory and Frederick Taylor." Public Administration Review May/June 1993: 270-272. This page was written and created by a student enrolled in a business course at the University of St. Francis. The content of this page is the work and opinion of the author, not the faculty or staff of the University of St. Francis. Neither the University nor its employees are responsible for the content of this web page