Frank

and Lillian Gilbreth

and the Manufacture

and Marketing of Motion Study, 1908-1924
Brian Price

The Evergreen State College

Evenaslarge-scale enterprises increasingly integrated manufacture the and marketing mass-produced of goodsin the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientific managers elaborated and popularized their efficiency methods and strategies an attemptto carveout a distinctive in scientificprofessional withinthechanging niche industrial world.No oneworked more assiduously thiseffort thanFrank and Lillian Gilbreth,and no one was in moreconscious theintimate of relationship between manufacture the the and marketing an innovative of product. Indeed, central my argument thattheGilbreths' is fameandreputation is duelessto theinherent quality theirmotionstudy of techniques, to their or achievementspractical in motion study scientific and management installation, thanto theirprolificefforts publicize to boththemselves humane as scientists and their principles and techniques conducive greaterefficiency as to and workplace harmony. In fact, in a periodcharacterized rapidlychanging by business dynamics and troubledlabor-management relations, the Gilbreths found that their motion studymethods, thoughsoundin theory,at best produced partialandtemporary only efficiencies practice, moreoften in and than not exacerbated tensions, onlybetweenthe workersand managers not they were supposed reconcile,but also among scientificmanagers to themselves. Ultimately, the Gilbreths simply were less successful as manufacturers asmarketers theirmotionstudy than of strategies. That their strategies techniques and survived prospered testimony to their and is less intrinsic worthastheypracticed themthanto the image theirworthwhich of the Gilbreths carefully cultivated. Prior to hiscelebrated meeting withFrederick Taylorin December W. 1907, Frank Gilbreth had