Mary Barnett Gilson | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

s Past Is Prologue To my beloved sister and loyal friend AGNES GILSON BIGNELL Contents Preface ix 1 The None Too Gay Nineties in Pittsburgh 1 II. NeaththeOaksofWellesley 10 III. Books, Steel, and Slums 20 IV. Salesgirls and Selling 33 V. Trade-School Experiences 46 VI. Pioneering in Industrial Employment Man agement 57 VIL Promotions and Headaches 67 VIII Production and Monotony 78 IX. Foremen 91 X. A Company Union 104 XL Outside Contacts 119 XII. The Total Situation 136 XIII. Adjusting Grievances 151 XIV. We Go to War 161 XV. In the Countrys Service 167 XVI. First Experiences in Consulting Work 175 XVII. New England Cotton Textile Mills 182 XVIII. The South Mills and Mill Villages 193 XIX. After-war Adjustments and Maladjustments 206 viii Contents XX. Hawaiian Sugar Plantations 221 XXI. Unemployment Benefits in the United States 241 XXII. England Government Unemployment Insur ance and Tangential Comments 250 XXIII. Work and Contacts in Geneva 259 XXIV. The Birth of Dull Progeny 269 XXV. The Thrill of Reeducation 281 XXVI. A Postscript on Women 289 XXVII. The Play Goes On 293 Prcfc ace It is a matter for apology when an unimportant person writes an autobiography. The sociologist sees some value in human documents whether they issue from the great or small. But the public in general is curious to know why a person who has never laid claim to fame should think his experience of sufficient import to relate. I can only say that I never seriously intended to relate my experi ences. Like many persons living in these crucial and uncertain times I am one of the war casualties. A Guggenheim fellowship and a years leave of absence from the University of Chicago were generously granted to me topursue a study in my special field of interest British unemployment insurance. When I found research in England was out of the question, I cast about for a field of inquiry in this country. There were plenty of fields but those in which I was par ticularly interested had been so recently plowed that I decided to at tempt to get perspective on the past fifty years of my personal experi ences with the hope that this might be of some small value to persons who will help to shape the next fifty. This book, moreover, does not purport to be the usual autobiography. I have attempted to confine my recollections and reflections to my preparation for and progress through the world of industry. Up to now I have never stopped long enough to look back. There has always been another port of call to which I have been hurrying more ex periences, more information to pack in my luggage. It is not because I consider my experiences in industry unique that I record them it is because I consider so many of them common to those men and women who went into personnel work in the early part of this century with faith in its power to meliorate industrial un rest. I still think many of the phases of well-thought-out personnel x Preface work in industry are important, if not essential, to happy and healthy relations in ones place of work, whatever our political and economic system may be. But I believe the foundations of democracy can be strengthened by more fundamental measures than we then envisioned. I came to this conclusion through my observation of the installation of scientific management during my years in a factory and my con viction that when workers were consulted in setting standards they took theirresponsibilities seriously. If in the early years of our indus trialization workers responsibilities had been extended beyond the four walls of the plant in which they worked, if they had been trained to deal collectively with problems not only of their industry, but of industry in general, I believe we would have a different world today. But that course would have demanded leadership, with almost super natural foresight of owners and managers. Instead, only too many of both groups have chosen a fighting instead of a collaborative plane...