Frederick Winslow Taylor

Born in 1856 to a wealthy Quaker family in Philadelphia, Frederick Winslow Taylor is remembered for his pioneering theory of “scientific management.” His sometimes controversial views on efficiency and optimization in the workplace would go on to have a profound impact on the rapid growth of industry in the early 20th-century, influencing everything from Henry Ford’s assembly line to modern fast-food chains like McDonald’s.

Taylor began his career in 1878 as a young shop clerk at the Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia. While working full-time, Taylor earned his mechanical engineering degree in 1883 from Stevens Institute of Technology through a special arrangement with the university’s first president, Dr. Henry Morton. Taylor quickly advanced through the ranks of Midvale and was eventually promoted to chief engineer. But soon after, Taylor became frustrated by what he saw as widespread inefficiency and waste throughout the company, particularly on the factory floor. Determined to find a solution, Taylor began timing workers on the factory floor with a stopwatch, breaking down each task into its simplest components. Though common in today’s workplace, these time and motion studies were seen as a radical break with the former method of using “rules of thumb” for measurements. Instead, Taylor tracked every movement, every tool, and every method used by workers to create a new system of labor optimization—what he called “the one best way”. To his supporters, Taylor’s ideas promised increased output for businesses and higher wages for workers, with incentives for those who exceeded expectations. To his critics, however, this relentless pursuit of efficiency risked reducing workers to little more than extensions of the very machines they operated.

In partnership with fellow Stevens graduate Henry L. Gantt and other associates, Taylor would go on to work as an efficiency consultant for several organizations throughout the country like the Bethlehem Steel Company and the United States Navy. Taylor spent the rest of his career promoting his ideas through lectures and published essays, culminating in the influential bestseller The Principles of Scientific Management, published in 1911 with translations in over eight languages.