Lillian Gilbreth pioneered time and motion efficiency in workplaces and revolutionized kitchen design
This is the story of how one woman changed the design of American kitchens. But it’s actually more than that: Lillian Gilbreth was a pioneering scientist and business woman who was forced to reinvent herself after her husband and business partner died in 1924 Lillian cleverly shifted her focus to what was considered the domain of women: the home.
Johanna Mayer: Okay, Katie, so to start, I just want to play this a video for you. It is a movie trailer from 1950. Katie Hafner: Oh my gosh, Cheaper by the Dozen! Johanna Mayer: Alright, so in case not everyone has had the pleasure of starring in the musical, Cheaper by the Dozen was inspired by the true story of a mother, a father, and their 12 children: the Gilbreths. And in the movie, there’s this very quirky father, Frank Gilbreth and he is obsessed with efficiency. He’s got a system for everything—even just his kids’ nightly bath, he has it down to a science.
Jane Lancaster: But her parents basically wanted her to stay home and keep an eye on all the younger brothers and sisters. Jane Lancaster first came across Lillian when she was working on a project about women who work in science and technology. Johanna Mayer: So Lillian and Frank kept in touch, and they got married just over a year later. And then they moved from California to the East Coast.
But this is sort of like in vogue at the time that Lillian and Frank got together. And Frank was pretty keyed into this – remember, he was running his own construction business. Johanna Mayer: So Frank got really, really into this. And he began slowly to move away from running his construction company and to move more towards this new field, scientific management.
Jane Lancaster: So this was to do with eliminating wastefulness in the classroom – by the teacher or the students, and getting things done more efficiently by engaging the students and the teacher, getting them there to cooperate rather than just saying you've got to do this. She’d find out what what did they think was a good way of doing that, which is a much more subtle approach, as you will agree.
Jane Lancaster: They talk to the employees. And get a suggestions box so that they can make ideas. They even set up a branch of the Providence Public Library. But the idea being that the people could read what they like. They were encouraging ambition in the production workers really. Which is all very good psychological stuff, really. Katie Hafner: So did he- do we have any idea whether it was his idea that she join him in the work or did she just want to ..
Katie Hafner: Okay, so I guess my question is, why were these two people so interested in efficiency? What was it that made them so passionate about that? Speaker Kid: Dad's even taught us how to take a whole bath in the time it takes to play just one record. Speaker Frank: A simple matter of coordination, madam. First, you take the soap in your right hand, apply it to the left shoulder, run it down the top of the left arm, up the inside of the left arm to the armpit. Then the ears, both of them, of course…[fades]
Johanna Mayer: Well, there's really no way to know for certain, but a lot of people believe that it has to do with the line of thinking that was very popular at the turn of the century: eugenics. Or the fraught belief that you could perfect the genetics of human beings by controlling who reproduces and who doesn’t.
Frank and Lillian made a career out of workplace efficiency. And they worked together for the next decade, experimenting with all kinds of different things. For example, they used films and new technology. They would put lights on people's hands and fingers to really analyze the motion. They would film them against a grid to measure movements. A big part of their work during this period was designing accommodations for disabled people in the wake of World War I.
Katie Hafner: Okay, let's recap here. So Frank dies suddenly, and Lillian’s left with her 11 children. She’s lost her husband, who’s her business partner, and on top of it, she’s a woman in 1924. So what does she do? Jane Lancaster: It’s better paid, less hard work. So the women who might have gone out to be a domestic servant, not so many of them did. So it meant middle class women had to do things for themselves.
Katie Hafner: Oh my gosh, I know that desk, I mean, that desk, well, the idea of that desk endures to this day because I don't know, have you seen, you know, people's kitchens. The woman of the house or the more domestic worker of the two partners, let's put it that way – and it's usually the woman – has a desk in the kitchen, and it looks often a lot like that, with little slots for the bills.
Johanna Mayer: So, like, the wool would unravel as the kid went around baking this cake to measure how far they had to travel. Johanna Mayer: I wouldn’t put it past them. But I love that. So she called it the Kitchen Practical, which I love. And then I have to tell you this little story. To test the efficiency of the new kitchen, she designed a very similar kitchen for the Herald Tribune Magazine, which is based out of New York City.
Johanna Mayer: Minor detail. But Lillian just kept working. I mean her solo career spanned more than 30 years. And she did so much in that time, even beyond the kitchen redesign. She worked on designing kitchens for disabled women; she served on five US presidents’ committees…She just an incredibly productive and fruitful life until the day she died at age 93.
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