Lillian Moller Gilbreth: Americas First Lady of Engineering
Lillian Gilbreth, born May 24, 1978 in Oakland California, was a trailblazer in Industrial Engineering, Psychology, and Industrial Management. She began her journey as Americas First Lady of Engineering after she obtained her bachelors in English from Berkley, a Master degree in psychology, and becoming Frank Gilbreth’s, her fiancé at the time, apprentice in engineering.
Frank had Lillian join his work as an apprentice in 1904. They worked on and developed a Time and Motion study in order to understand how they could get their workers to be more efficient which is an approach to factory work known as Scientific Management. They used cameras to take long exposure pictures of actions made by the workers which would show trails of light that outlined the motions being made. They could use this data to design around the actions so that the workers movements were more efficient. Frank was very time focused and oriented his thinking around, “how can we make things faster” whereas Lillian focused her thinking on, “how can we make them happier with the work they do?” With Lillians approach solutions would look like, adding breaks for the workers, installing larger windows for more light, or suggestions boxes for workers to have a voice. This kind of thinking was the innovation of the Scientific Management field. Lillian says, “Scientific Management is built on the recognition of the individual with all the idiosyncrasies that distinguish a person.” She believed the workers are the key to running a perfect establishment. Lilian essentially conducted one of the first qualitative research studies, a type of user study that is commonly used to this day by interaction designers and design researchers.
Even after Frank’s death In 1924, Lillian continued the work they had started while simultaneously raising their 12 children on her own. She eventually moved to work on projects she felt she could get recognition for as a woman and invented many things including the foot pedal trash can, refrigerator shelving, and the L-shaped kitchen. Gilbreth made these inventions for “Women who want to save time for other things outside her home.” This contribution emphasizes her outlook towards gender-roles which she spent all her life defying. For women now but especially women of her time, she was considered a role-model from her success in her fields as well as her ability to do it all while raising an extra-large family on her own.
Her sympathy towards other people gave her an advantage. By understanding the needs of people she was able to find solutions that were innovative but more importantly, that worked. What’s unfortunate about Lillian Gilbreth is how she went unrecognized for many years. She often co-wrote books with her husband Frank but received no credit. Lillian would eventually get her papers published under the name, L.M. Gilbreth so that nobody reading would know she was a woman. A movie adaptation of one of the books her children wrote would also go on to portray Lillian as a docile house wife. Lillian Gilbreth didn’t let these things stop her from reaching her goals. She continued to make a difference during a time when women couldn’t even vote. However she still released “The Psychology of Management” in 1914 which became one of the most influential textbooks on industrial relations and became the first female professor at Perdue Universities School of Engineering in 1935.
She redefined the industrial engineering field by integrating psychology into the concepts of industrial management, and became a role-model for a lot of women. Her contributions helped all of us in the future from having to work faster to show progress and she changed how design could be used to obtain efficiency and good quality of life.
Sources
“Biography of Lilian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth.” Https://Www.apadivisions.org, The Feminist Psychologist, 2010, www.apadivisions.org/division-35/about/heritage/lilian-gilbreth-biography.
“Lillian Moller Gilbreth.” EngineerGirl, www.engineergirl.org/123474/Lillian-Moller-Gilbreth.
“Lillian Gilbreth: Pioneering Inventor.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 29 Apr. 2020, www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/pioneering-inventor-lillian-gilbreth-e8ylkg/13862/.
Your article made me feel the power from women. Lilian was a great mother, wife and engineer. Her experience made me understand the injustice of the society to women at that time, and how great a person would be if she stick to her ideals.