Project

• Overview / Forward

From the early 1900’s until the US entered WWI, millions of Europeans emigrated to the United States to provide essential labor needed in our factories. The American experience is increasingly urban. Most jobs required very little formal schooling. Only 14% of teenagers (14-17 year-olds) were in high school in 19151.

This decade was a watershed in aligning the interests of industry employers, vocational education and developing a growing theory of management for the modern industrial age that was to come. Still, our entry into WWI in 2017 and the 1918 Pandemic were powerful events impacting the availability of talent at the end of the decade.

1910’s Milestones:

• 1911 – The New York Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.2
• 1911 – The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor was published.3
• 1913 – Psychology and Industrial Efficiency published.4
• 1913 – Department of Labor established.5
• 1913 – The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) workers was formed.6
• 1914 – Sir Ernest Shackleton recruits a crew to join the Endurance.7
• 1915 – Early Personality tests developed.8
• 1916 – The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act signed.9
• 1917 – Uncle Sam Poster – ‘I Want You’ first published.10
• 1917 – Smith-Hughes Act.11
• 1917 – The Army Alpha & Beta Cognitive Ability Tests developed.12
• 1919 – Yale U. creates a “Placement Bureau” for its graduates.13
• 1919 – Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.14

References

1. Even today undeveloped countries and desperate families will force their children out of school to supplement the workforce
   The life of American workers in 1915 : Monthly Labor Review: US Bureau of Labor Statistics
2. “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men, mostly between 14 and 23 years old. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.”
   Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire – Wikipedia
3. Frederick W. Taylor proposed 4 major principles adopted by many of the leading employers in his Principles of Scientific Management – 1) Science, Not Rule of Thumb; 2) Harmony, Not Discord; 3) Cooperation, Not Individualism; 4) Development of Each and Every Person to His / Her Greatest Efficiency and Prosperity.
   Many of these principles are still hotly debated today in one business formula or another and, while later in the century, much of ‘Taylorism’ was discarded as too mechanistic, his detailed accounting of how to recruit and develop continues to be a basic standard.
   The Principles of Scientific Management – Wikipedia
4. Munsterberg’s “Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (1913) is considered the beginning of what would later become known as Industrial Psychology (I/O Psych). His books dealt with many topics including hiring workers who had personalities and mental abilities best suited to certain types of vocations as the best way to increase motivation, performance, and retention, methods of increasing work efficiency, and marketing and advertising techniques. His paper “Psychology and the Market” (1909) suggested that psychology could be used in many different industrial applications including management, vocational decisions, advertising, job performance and employee motivation.”
   Hugo Münsterberg – Wikipedia
5. President Taft elevates the Department of Labor to cabinet-level. William B. Wilson was named the first secretary.
   United States Department of Labor
6. “The number of industrial welfare workers had grown so a conference organized by Seebohm Rowntree was held. The welfare workers association was formed and later changed to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.”
   The Historical Background Of Human Resource Management
7. Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Men Wanted ad to crew the Endurance in his failed attempt to cross Antarctica is a job description at its best and worst…but, incredibly authentic.
   Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
   “The first job post I could find was from the 1700s. It was for a sailor who would go out into a treacherous night and may never return home. While it sounds scary, it was still better than most job postings I read today. At least it was honest. They didn’t oversell. There weren’t four paragraphs about how the company was so excellent. No buzzwords at all. They said a lot without saying much on that poster.
   Something went wrong after that. Looking at job postings 100 years ago, you start to see the same trends that make most postings subpar today. First of all, that line about “now seeking motivated professionals” is all over job postings from a century ago. They were even using phrases and favorite buzzwords like “highly collaborative.” Stylistically, they look almost the same.
   While I am all for a best practice, have you read enough history to know what kind of bias existed 100 years ago? Do you remember how the world looked? It’s not a world I would ever like to go back to, that’s for sure.”
   From the Notes/Blog published by Katrina Kibben
8. Personality tests were created and used during WWI to rule out soldiers likely to experience the newly coined “shell shock.” 
   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-personality-test-was-developed-during-world-war-1-18097319
9. The Keating Owen Child Labor Act prohibited the sale in interstate commerce of goods produced by factories that employed children under fourteen, mines that employed children younger than sixteen, and any facility where children under fourteen worked after 7:00 p.m. or before 6:00 a.m. or more than eight hours daily.
   Keating–Owen Act
10. I Want You is perhaps the most recognized recruitment marketing campaign ever. Used in both WWI and WWII, it was designed by J.M.Flagg. “The Uncle Sam poster introduced in 1917 built on a personification of the US dating back to the War of 1812.”
    origin of Uncle Sam
11. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 was created to align vocational education to industry needs and provided federal funding to States to support the teaching of vocational education in home ec and agriculture, making the instruction much more authentic and providing standards for the operation of vocational education programs.
    The Smith-Hughes Act: The Road to It and What It Accomplished
12. “Both the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests were recognized as prototypes for subsequent group-administered Cognitive Ability Tests. Over the course of World War I, some 1.5 million recruits were given tests to identify those who were capable of serving, to classify them into military jobs, and to select those who appeared to be candidates for leadership positions.”
    https://bit.ly/2SpcBSt
13. The Yale Placement Bureau may be the first of today’s “Career Services” and might have held the first  job fair.
    https://ydnhistorical.library.yale.edu/?a=d&d=YDN19300605-01.1.1&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN——-
14. The ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution- women’s suffrage was a historic milestone in the effort to be seen and heard as equals in society as it granted women the right to vote and paved the way for improving women’s rights in the workplace
    The Importance of the 19th Amendment