Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972)
To help celebrate Purdue University’s 150th anniversary in 2019, the Purdue University Retirees Association (PURA) recruited some of its members to portray historic characters from Purdue’s past.
The reenactors researched their characters, developed costumes and personas, then appeared at a number of public events sharing the stories of these important Purdue figures with the public.
Carolyn Jones, portraying Lillian Gilbreth. [Photo taken at the Purdue Women’s Club’s (PWC) 200th anniversary luncheon in 2022.]
Photo courtesy of PURA member Karen Weatherwax and PWC.
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Lillian Gilbreth. Risk Taker—Ground Breaker—Innovator—Glass-ceiling Breaker—BOILERMAKER!
Lillian Moller Gilbreth clearly checked all these boxes. She grew up in an era when women desiring to be professionals had basically three choices—be a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary. Of the three, Lillian chose to become a teacher. To accomplish this meant she’d need to go to college. Clearly the desire was there, but her father presented an obstacle. Like many men near the turn of the century, he unequivocally believed the woman’s place was in the home. Even though the University of California Berkeley was less than ten miles up the road from the Moller home in Oakland, he remained adamant. His answer was, “NO.” Try as hard as she did, Lillian was unable to change his mindset. Finally, she came up with a compromise. If she could go to U. Cal., she would agree to live at home. She posed this to her father. He wanted to talk it over with her mother. Two weeks later, he finally told her they had decided if she lived up to her word to live at home and commute by trolley to college, she could go. Obviously, she was elated. Not only was she going to be able to pursue her dream, but she had outwitted her father. What he didn’t know at that time, but she did, was all four dorms on the Berkeley campus were for men. Girls attending U. Cal. HAD to live at home.
Because Lillian liked to read, she chose British Literature as her major. The four years went quickly. She became highly involved in campus life, and in several areas was the leader. She also was named class valedictorian. The tradition at U. Cal. was the top student in each graduating class became the class speaker. Lillian was the first woman in U. Cal’s history to be accorded this honor. Her parents came to hear her. Afterward, her father let her know he was one of the proudest dads in the crowd!
After completing her bachelor’s degree, Lillian went back and earned her master’s degree. That, too, was in British Literature. Immediately after graduating, she and three classmates celebrated their accomplishments by going first to Boston for a couple of weeks then on to Europe for three more. While in Boston, she met Frank Gilbreth. Two years later they were married.
By that time, Frank a former bricklayer, construction manager, and contractor, had started his own consulting firm, Gilbreth Inc., which specialized in helping companies increase efficiency and productivity. He developed a process he called Time and Motion Studies that involved visiting factories and taking movies of the employees interacting with machines. Then he would bring these movies home and analyze them. Lillian would often observe the latter. Eventually, she began to notice he was spending much more time analyzing the efficiency of the machines than the physical and working conditions of the employees and the impact these had on their efficiency. Quietly she pointed this out, and he listened!
During this time, the Gilbreths moved to Providence, Rhode Island. Becoming increasingly intrigued with the human side of Frank’s Time and Motion Studies, Lillian contacted Brown University about enrolling in a Ph.D. program in psychology. While they had nothing that matched what she sought, the faculty agreed to put a special program together for her they’d call Applied Psychology. They did. She completed it and received, as promised, a Ph.D. for her work. At the time it was the only doctoral program of its kind in the nation. Thus, Lillian became the first of the pioneers in the field of industrial management to have a Ph.D. However, as the Gilbreths’ fame grew, more universities began offering similar doctoral programs under the title Industrial Psychology.
Throughout her time at Brown, Lillian used what she was learning to study and analyze worker effectiveness. After graduating, she became the first American to blend principles of psychology with the prevailing organizational leadership theme of the day, Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management, and apply the combination to the field of engineering. Soon thereafter, the Gilbreths became known as the Father and Mother of Modern Management, and they spent the rest of their professional lives together developing and promoting interdisciplinary research-based recommendations and management practices to help companies identify and implement “The One Best Way To Do Work.” Their extensive research on worker fatigue became the forerunner to present day work in the field of ergonomics.
Tragically, Frank died suddenly of a heart attack in 1924. Lillian took over Gilbreth, Inc. and as Frank had done, she traveled both nationally and internationally speaking, teaching, and consulting. In addition, she took over the eight years remaining on his ten-year contract as a visiting lecturer at Purdue University. In the latter role, she came to the campus at least twice a year to lecture and to help the faculty incorporate the results of Frank’s latest research as well as hers in human factors into the Engineering curriculum.
During this time, Lillian also turned more of her attention toward the kitchen—not to cooking, for she was not a very good cook—but to kitchen layout and equipment design. She developed an optimal work triangle placing the sink at the apex in the middle with the icebox/refrigerator a few feet away on one side and the stove/oven a few feet away on the other. She also promoted adapting the height of counters to the height of the worker. Because she felt the kitchen frequently served as the housewife’s office, she also recommended placing a planning desk there that included a shelf for cook books and recipes as well as two drawers—one for storing paid and unpaid bills and the other for storing “housewife tools.” In addition, she designed a service table with wheels to minimize walking while setting a table and transporting food to the dining room. Forever looking to increase efficiency, she also designed pull-out shelves in refrigerators as well as special places in the door to store butter and eggs. Adding a foot pedal to open a closed waste container was another of her ideas, as was putting a switch on a wall to turn lights on and off, eliminating the need to walk to the middle of a room to pull a string hanging from a light fixture for this purpose.
In the mid 1930’s, Purdue President Edward Elliott brought several prominent professional women to campus to be role models and help female students expand their horizons, consider the possibilities, and aspire to professional careers which at that time were male-dominated domains. Lillian Gilbreth and Amelia Earhart were among those invited to participate in this program. Lillian was hired as an Associate Professor of Engineering and given part-time appointments in engineering, psychology, home economics, and the Dean of Women’s Office, the latter as a career counselor for women. Amelia Earhart served as a visiting professor and consultant in Aeronautical Engineering as well as a career counselor in the Office of the Dean of Women. Because neither planned to establish permanent homes in West Lafayette, Dean Dorothy Stratton made special arrangements with Helen Schleman, Director of Women’s Residences for each of the two visitors to have apartments in the Windsor Halls complex. Consequently, Lillian and Amelia spent considerable time together eating with students and in the evening, talking with each other. As a result, they became close friends. When Lillian first discovered the two would be working together, she exclaimed, “I’m so glad because I’m one of her ardent admirers!” Afterward, Amelia noted, “The most rewarding part of my time at the University was my association with Lillian Gilbreth.”
Lillian was promoted to Professor of Engineering at Purdue and remained here until her retirement in 1948. Amelia left in 1936 to prepare for what became her life-ending attempt to fly around the world. Even today, the indelible marks each made on the campus remain alive at Purdue.
Lillian Gilbreth was not only a very productive ground-breaker and creative innovator, she also was an amazing woman. Her list of accomplishments, honors, and accolades is both wide-ranging and numerous. A sampling of these includes the following:
---Served as advisor to five U.S. Presidents: Hoover, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
---Served on innumerable federal agency committees and advisory boards
---Became the first woman Professor of Engineering not only at Purdue but nationally
---Became the first woman to be inducted into the prestigious National Academy of Engineering
---Received 23 honorary doctoral degrees--one of which was from Purdue
---Became both an honorary member and a full member of the American Society of Industrial Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (second woman in both)
---Selected as an honorary member of the British Women’s Engineering Society
---Received the Association of Management and Industrial Engineers of the Philippines Award
---Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame
---Has her portrait hung in the National Portrait Gallery
---Had a US. Postal Services stamp issued in her honor
---Inducted into membership in Phi Beta Kappa—University of California-Berkley
---Selected as an honorary member of Mortar Board by Purdue students
---Selected as an honorary member of the Society of Women Engineers by Purdue students
While all of the above is awe-inspiring, that’s not all—there’s more!
Lillian Gilbreth also was the birth mother of 12 children (no twins) born just 16 years apart. Perhaps you’ve read the book or seen the movie “Cheaper by the Dozen”. It’s a true story about the Gilbreth family written by son Frank Jr. and daughter Ernestine. Yes, Lillian’s the mother of that lively clan!
Frank and Lillian began married life in New York City, but a few years later needing more space to accommodate their growing family, they moved to Providence, Rhode Island. From there, it was on to a big, old Victorian mansion in Montclair, New Jersey just across the state line from New York City. This became the final home for this family which then numbered fourteen.
Once the school year was over, it was time for the family to pack up the car and head to Nantucket to an old abandoned lighthouse they bought and turned into a carefree summer home for their children. Appropriately, it was called The Shoe in honor of their favorite nursery rhyme. Frank and Lillian along with any guests who appeared stayed in the former caretaker’s place on the property which also housed the kitchen and dining room. Imagine how much fun it must have been for the Gilbreth clan—regardless of age—to go barefoot all summer, run in the sand, play in the water, and sleep—some in hammocks inside a lighthouse with the wind whistling and the waves slapping against the outer walls. That was Nantucket, and all the Gilbreths loved it!
Major decisions in the Gilbreth household were made by the Family Council. Each resident had one vote. When Frank unexpectedly passed away, he had been scheduled to embark five days later on a six-week European business trip to speak at several prestigious international engineering conferences and make numerous contacts with prospective Gilbreth, Inc. clients. The day before his funeral, Lillian convened the Family Council. She explained the family’s potential future financial situation noting that to remain together, she would have to leave for Europe in two days to fulfill all of their father’s obligations. Staying home might result in the family needing to break up, move to California, and live with various cousins. She asked her children to think about these options overnight. The Family Council would reconvene the next day to continue their discussions.
Following Frank’s funeral, the family got together. Before Lillian could say anything, Anne, the oldest, announced she and all her siblings unequivocally wanted to remain living together. To accomplish this they developed a plan. The four oldest would take care of the four youngest and the four in the middle agreed to take care of themselves. She had twelve votes supporting their plan, she noted. Then she asked her mother, “What’s yours?” With a lump in her throat and a heart overflowing with gratitude, Lillian said, “Make it thirteen!” A day later, she left for Europe and was away from home for about six weeks.
During her return trip across the ocean, Lillian thought about the number of contracts that had been signed and prospective clients she’d met. Based on these results, she was optimistic that financially she would be able to keep her family together. Upon returning home, however, she discovered all twelve of her children had chicken pox while she was away. “Mercy Maude,” she exclaimed. “How did you manage to survive?” After hearing the doctor stopped every other day to see them and the neighbors kept them supplied with what little food they wanted, she settled down and began to think. Given she felt she could support her family financially and they had already proven they could manage a major health crisis in her absence, could this be an omen that her family would be able to continue to stay together? Twelve hearty “Yes” votes followed. With confidence, Lillian once again added, “Make that thirteen!” For the Gilbreths, remaining together as a family was meant to be!
Lillian was proud, very proud, of her family which she loved so dearly. She also was very grateful she could generate the financial resources needed to hire permanent live-in help so her family could stay together even when she was traveling and had to be away for long periods of time. Lillian also was able to put all twelve children through college. Each graduated (one from Purdue) and much to her delight, all became gainfully employed in their respective fields of choice.
Internationally Renowned Engineer—National Legend—Boilermaker Icon—Beloved Wife and Mother—Purdue Mom. Lillian checked all these boxes, too. She truly was one of a kind!
What an honor it has been for me to portray her as part of the Purdue University Retirees Association’s contribution to Purdue’s 150th Anniversary Celebration.
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Author:
Carolyn Jones
Associate Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Emerita
Purdue University Retirees Association
July 2022
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