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LESSON: Progressivism in the Factory
TEXT: Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1910, excerpts
Library of Congress
Frederick Winslow Taylor
The Principles of
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
1910
Ch. 2: “The Principles of Scientific Management”
EXCERPTS
*
In the primary source collection The Gilded and the Gritty: America, 1870-1912
from the National Humanities Center.
Under the old type of management success depends almost
Frederick Winslow Taylor, 1911
entirely upon getting the “initiative” of the workmen, and it is
indeed a rare case in which this initiative is really attained.
Under scientific management the “initiative” of the workmen (that is, their hard work, their good will, and
their ingenuity) is obtained with absolute uniformity and to a greater extent than is possible under the old
system; and in addition to this improvement on the part of the men, the managers assume new burdens,
new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the past. The managers assume, for instance, the
burden of gathering together all of the traditional knowledge which in the past has been possessed by the
workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, and formulæ
which are immensely helpful to the workmen in doing their daily work. In addition to developing a
science in this way, the management take on three other types of duties which involve new and heavy
burdens for themselves.
These new duties are grouped under four heads:
First. They develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule-of-thumb
method.
Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past
he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.
Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance
with the principles of the science which has been developed.
Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management
and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen,
while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the
men.
It is this combination of the initiative of the workmen, coupled with the new types of work done by the
management, that makes scientific management so much more efficient than the old plan. . . .
Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern scientific management is the task idea. The
work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each
man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to
accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work. And the work planned in advance in this
way constitutes a task which is to be solved, as explained above, not by the workman alone, but in almost
all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the management. This task specifies not only what is to be
done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it. And whenever the workman
Copyright © National Humanities Center, 2013. AMERICA IN CLASS®: americainclass.org/. Some spelling and punctuation modernized for clarity.
Library of Congress
succeeds in doing his task right, and within
the time limit specified, he receives an
addition of from 30 percent to 100 percent to
his ordinary wages. These tasks are carefully
planned, so that both good and careful work
are called for in their performance, but it
should be distinctly understood that in no case
is the workman called upon to work at a pace
which would be injurious to his health. The
task is always so regulated that the man who
is well suited to his job will thrive while
working at this rate during a long term of
years and grow happier and more prosperous,
instead of being overworked. Scientific
management consists very largely in
preparing for and carrying out these tasks. . . .
One of the first pieces of work undertaken
Cords of pig iron, Pittsburgh, 1905
by us, when the writer started to introduce
scientific management into the Bethlehem
Steel Company, was to handle pig iron on task work. The opening of the Spanish War found some 80,000
tons of pig iron placed in small piles in an open field adjoining the works. Prices for pig iron had been so
low that it could not be sold at a profit, and it therefore had been stored. With the opening of the Spanish
War the price of pig iron rose, and this large accumulation of iron was sold. This gave us a good
opportunity to show the workmen, as well as the owners and managers of the works, on a fairly large
scale the advantages of task work over the old-fashioned day work and piece work, in doing a very
elementary class of work.
The Bethlehem Steel Company had five blast furnaces, the product of which had been handled by a
pig-iron gang for many years. This gang, at this time, consisted of about 75 men. They were good,
average pig-iron handlers, were under an excellent foreman who himself had been a pig-iron handler, and
the work was done, on the whole, about as fast and as cheaply as it was anywhere else at that time.
A railroad switch was run out into the field, right along the edge of the piles of pig iron. An inclined
plank was placed against the side of a car, and each man picked up from his pile a pig of iron weighing
about 92 pounds, walked up the inclined plank and dropped it on the end of the car.
We found that this gang were loading on the average about 12½ long tons per man per day. We were
surprised to find, after studying the matter, that a first-class pig-iron handler ought to handle between 471
and 48 long tons per day, instead of 12½ tons. This task seemed to us so very large that we were obliged
to go over our work several times before we were absolutely sure that we were right. Once we were sure,
however, that 47 tons was a proper day’s work for a first-class pig-iron handler, the task which faced us
as managers under the modern scientific plan was clearly before us. It was our duty to see that the 80,000
1
Many people have questioned the accuracy of the statement that first-class workmen can load 47½ tons of pig iron from the ground on to a car in a
day. For those who are skeptical, therefore, the following data relating to this work are given:
First. That our experiments indicated the existence of the following law: that a first-class laborer, suited to such work as handling pig iron, could be
under load only 42 per cent. of the day and must be free from load 58 per cent. of the day.
Second. That a man in loading pig iron from piles placed on the ground in an open field on to a car which stood on a track adjoining these piles,
ought to handle (and that they did handle regularly) 47½ long tons (2240 pounds per ton) per day. . . .
A pig-iron handler walks on the level at the rate of one foot in 0.006 minutes. The average distance of the piles of pig iron from the car was 36 feet.
It is a fact, however, that many of the pig-iron handlers ran with their pig as soon as they reached the inclined plank. Many of them also would run
down the plank after loading the car. So that when the actual loading went on, many of them moved at a faster rate than is indicated by the above
figures. . . .
If anyone who is interested in these figures will multiply them and divide them, one into the other, in various ways, he will find that all of the facts
stated check up exactly. [Footnote in original]
National Humanities Center Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1910, Ch. 2, excerpts
2
tons of pig iron was loaded on to the cars at
the rate of 47 tons per man per day, in place
of 12½ tons, at which rate the work was then
being done. And it was further our duty to
see that this work was done without bringing
on a strike among the men, without any
quarrel with the men, and to see that the men
were happier and better contented when
loading at the new rate of 47 tons than they
were when loading at the old rate of 12½
tons.
Our first step was the scientific selection
of the workman. In dealing with workmen
under this type of management, it is an
inflexible rule to talk to and deal with only
one man at a time, since each workman has
his own special abilities and limitations, and
since we are not dealing with men in masses,
but are trying to develop each individual
“Loading the pigs,” Pittsburgh, 1905
man to his highest state of efficiency and
prosperity. Our first step was to find the
proper workman to begin with. We therefore carefully watched and studied these 75 men for three or four
days, at the end of which time we had picked out four men who appeared to be physically able to handle
pig iron at the rate of 47 tons per day. A careful study was then made of each of these men. We looked up
their history as far back as practicable and thorough inquiries were made as to the character, habits, and
the ambition of each of them. Finally we selected one from among the four as the most likely man to start
with. He was a little Pennsylvania Dutchman who had been observed to trot back home for a mile or so
after his work in the evening about as fresh as he was when he came trotting down to work in the
morning. We found that upon wages of $1.15 a day he had succeeded in buying a small plot of ground,
and that he was engaged in putting up the walls of a little house for himself in the morning before starting
to work and at night after leaving. He also had the reputation of being exceedingly “close,” that is, of
placing a very high value on a dollar. As one man whom we talked to about him said, “A penny looks
about the size of a cart-wheel to him.” This man we will call Schmidt.
The task before us, then, narrowed itself down to getting Schmidt to handle 47 tons of pig iron per day
and making him glad to do it. This was done as follows. Schmidt was called out from among the gang of
pig-iron handlers and talked to somewhat in this way:
“Schmidt, are you a high-priced man?”
“Vell, I don’t know vat you mean.”
“Oh yes, you do. What I want to know is whether you are a high-priced man or not.”
“Vell, I don’t know vat you mean.”
“Oh, come now, you answer my questions. What I want to find out is whether you are a high-priced
man or one of these cheap fellows here. What I want to find out is whether you want to earn $1.85 a day
or whether you are satisfied with $1.15, just the same as all those cheap fellows are getting.”
“Did I vant $1.85 a day? Vas dot a high-priced man? Vell, yes, I vas a high-priced man.”
“Oh, you’re aggravating me. Of course you want $1.85 a day every one wants it! You know
perfectly well that that has very little to do with your being a high-priced man. For goodness’ sake answer
my questions, and don’t waste any more of my time. Now come over here. You see that pile of pig iron?”
Library of Congress
National Humanities Center Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1910, Ch. 2, excerpts
3
Natl. Canal Museum Archives
“Yes.”
“You see that car?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will load that pig iron on
that car tomorrow for $1.85. Now do wake up and answer my
question. Tell me whether you are a high-priced man or not.”
“Vell did I got $1.85 for loading dot pig iron on dot car
tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course you do, and you get $1.85 for loading a pile like
that every day right through the year. That is what a high-priced man
does, and you know it just as well as I do.”
“Vell, dot’s all right. I could load dot pig iron on the car tomorrow
for $1.85, and I get it every day, don’t I?”
“Certainly you do certainly you do.”
“Vell, den, I vas a high-priced man.”
Henry Noll, the steel worker on whom
“Now, hold on, hold on. You know just as well as I do that a highTaylor based his characterization of
priced man has to do exactly as he’s told from morning till night. You
“Schmidt.” In 1899, Noll went from hauling
13 to 48 tons of pig iron a day during
have seen this man here before, haven’t you?”
an incentive program run by Taylor.
“No, I never saw him.”
“Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will do exactly as this man tells you tomorrow, from morning
till night. When he tells you to pick up a pig and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when he tells you
to sit down and rest, you sit down. You do that right straight through the day. And what’s more, no back
talk. Now a high-priced man does just what he’s told to do, and no back talk. Do you understand that?
When this man tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit down, and you don’t
talk back at him. Now you come on to work here tomorrow morning and I’ll know before night whether
you are really a high-priced man or not.”
This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or even
an intelligent laborer. With a man of the mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not
unkind, since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he wants and away from what,
if it were called to his attention, he probably would consider impossibly hard work. . . .
Schmidt started to work, and all day long, and at regular intervals, was told by the man who stood over
him with a watch, “Now pick up a pig and walk. Now sit down and rest. Now walk now rest,” etc. He
worked when he was told to work, and rested when he was told to rest, and at half-past five in the
afternoon had his 47½ tons loaded on the car. And he practically never failed to work at this pace and do
the task that was set him during the three years that the writer was at Bethlehem. And throughout this time
he averaged a little more than $1.85 per day, whereas before he had never received over $1.15 per day,
which was the ruling rate of wages at that time in Bethlehem. That is, he received 60 per cent higher
wages than were paid to other men who were not working on task work. One man after another was
picked out and trained to handle pig iron at the rate of 47½ tons per day until all of the pig iron was
handled at this rate, and the men were receiving 60 per cent more wages than other workmen around
them. . . .
Doubtless some of those who are especially interested in working men will complain because under
scientific management the workman, when he is shown how to do twice as much work as he formerly did,
is not paid twice his former wages, while others who are more interested in the dividends than the
workmen will complain that under this system the men receive much higher wages than they did before.
National Humanities Center Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1910, Ch. 2, excerpts
4
It does seem grossly unjust when the bare statement is made that the competent pig-iron handler, for
instance, who has been so trained that he piles 3 6/10 times as much iron as the incompetent man formerly
did, should receive an increase of only 60 percent in wages.
It is not fair, however, to form any final judgment until all of the elements in the case have been
considered. At the first glance we see only two parties to the transaction, the workmen and their
employers. We overlook the third great party, the whole people the consumers, who buy the product of
the first two and who ultimately pay both the wages of the workmen and the profits of the employers.
The rights of the people are therefore greater than those of either employer or employee. And this third
great party should be given its proper share of any gain. In fact, a glance at industrial history shows that in
the end the whole people receive the greater part of the benefit coming from industrial improvements. In
the past hundred years, for example, the greatest factor tending toward increasing the output, and thereby
the prosperity of the civilized world, has been the introduction of machinery to replace hand labor. And
without doubt the greatest gain through this change has come to the whole people the consumer. . . .
It is no single element, but rather this whole combination, that constitutes scientific management,
which may be summarized as:
Science, not rule of thumb.
Harmony, not discord.
Cooperation, not individualism.
Maximum output, in place of restricted output.
The development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity.
The writer wishes to again state that: “The time is fast going by for the great personal or individual
achievement of any one man standing alone and without the help of those around him. And the time is
coming when all great things will be done by that type of cooperation in which each man performs the
function for which he is best suited, each man preserves his own individuality and is supreme in his
particular function, and each man at the same time loses none of his originality and proper personal
initiative, and yet is controlled by and must work harmoniously with many other men.”
Library of Congress
Bethlehem Steel Works, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1896
National Humanities Center Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1910, Ch. 2, excerpts
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