Efficiency Movement

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The Efficiency Movement was a major dimension of the Progressive Era in the United States. It flourished 1890-1932. Adherents argued that all aspects of the economy, society and government were riddled with waste and inefficiency. Everything would be better if experts identified the problems and fixed them. The result was strong support for building research universities and schools of business and engineering, municipal research agencies, as well as reform of hospitals and medical schools. Perhaps the best known leader was engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who proclaimed there was always "one best way" to fix a problem. In politics the most prominent figure was Herbert Hoover, a trained engineer. Democrats blamed the Great Depression on him and helped to somewhat discredit the movement, though the demand for efficiency and elimination of waste remains an important component of American values. John D. Rockefeller was also an avid supporter of the efficiency movement. In his many philanthropic pursuits, Rockefeller believed in supporting efficiency. He once said, "To help an inefficient, ill-located, unnecessary school is a waste...it is highly probable that enough money has been squandered on unwise educational projects to have built up a national system of higher education adequate to our needs, if the money had been properly directed to that end."Rockefeller, John D.; Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (1933)

References

Brian R. Fry; Mastering Public Administration: From Max Weber to Dwight Waldo (1989)
Haber, Samuel. Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920. University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Jensen, Richard. "Democracy, Republicanism and Efficiency: The Values of American Politics, 1885-1930," in Byron Shafer and anthony Badger, eds, Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775-2000 (U of Kansas Press, 2001) pp 149-180; [online version]
Kanigel, Robert. The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. Penguin, 1997.
Knoedler; Janet T. "Veblen and Technical Efficiency" in Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 31, 1997
Jordan, John. Machine-Age Ideology University of north Carolina Press, 1994.
Lamoreaux, Naomi and Daniel M. G. Raft eds. Coordination and Information: Historical Perspectives on the Organization of Enterprise University of Chicago Press, 1995
Nelson, Daniel. Frederick W. Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management The University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.
Nelson, Daniel. Managers and Workers: Origins of the Twentieth-Century Factory System in the United States, 1880-1920 2d ed. University of Wisconsin Press, 1995b.
Noble, David F. America by Design Oxford University Press, 1979.
Rockefeller, John D.; Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (1933)
Taylor, Frederick Winslow, Scientific Management, edited by H.S. Person. (1947).

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