Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth -- A Life Beyond "Cheaper by the Dozen"

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Overview

Readers of Cheaper by the Dozen remember Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) as the working mom who endures the antics of not only twelve children but also an engineer husband eager to experiment with the principles of efficiency -- especially on his own household.

What readers today might not know is that Lillian Gilbreth was herself a high-profile engineer, and the only woman to win the coveted Hoover Medal for engineers. She traveled the world, served as an advisor on women's...

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Overview

Readers of Cheaper by the Dozen remember Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) as the working mom who endures the antics of not only twelve children but also an engineer husband eager to experiment with the principles of efficiency -- especially on his own household.

What readers today might not know is that Lillian Gilbreth was herself a high-profile engineer, and the only woman to win the coveted Hoover Medal for engineers. She traveled the world, served as an advisor on women's issues to five U.S. presidents, and mingled with the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. Her husband, Frank Gilbreth, died after twenty years of marriage, leaving her to raise their eleven surviving children, all under the age of nineteen. She continued her career and put each child through college. Retiring at the age of ninety, Lillian Gilbreth was the working mother who "did it all."

Jane Lancaster's spirited and richly detailed biography tells Lillian Gilbreth's life story-one that resonates with issues faced today by many working women. Lancaster confronts the complexities of how one of the twentieth century's foremost career women could be pregnant, nursing, or caring for children for more than three decades.

Yet we see how Gilbreth's engineering work dovetailed with her family life in the professional and domestic partnership that she forged with her husband and in her long solo career. The innovators behind many labor-saving devices and procedures used in factories, offices, and kitchens, the Gilbreths tackled the problem of efficiency through motion study. To this Lillian added a psychological dimension, with empathy toward the worker. The couple's expertise also yielded the "Gilbreth family system," a model that allowed the mother to be professionally active if she chose, while the parents worked together to raise responsible citizens.

Lancaster has woven into her narrative many insights gleaned from interviews with the surviving Gilbreth children and from historical research into such topics as technology, family, work, and feminism. Filled with anecdotes, this definitive biography of Lillian Gilbreth will engage readers intrigued by one of America's most famous families and by one of the nation's most successful women.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
"An absorbing, psychologically acute biography that links Gilbreth's career and embrace of 'the strenuous life' with the Progressive Era's conflicted ideas about gender and the rise of the 'New Woman.'"--Publishers Weekly

"Gilbreth's amazing story should be required reading for contemporary women struggling to achieve balance in their hectic lives."--Booklist

"This well-written biography has a fluid style that will engage all readers, but it will be of particular interest to historians and students of the relationship between gender and business."--Enterprise & Society

Making Time is "notable for its focus on social context, and on cultural and political history. At every spot along the way, the author presents the wider background to Lilian's story... This well-written, intriguing study presents a fascinating way to learn and to teach the evolving experience of American women during the ninety-four years of Lilian Gilbreth's life."--American Historical Review

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781555536527
  • Publisher: Northeastern University Press
  • Publication date: 5/31/2006
  • Pages: 428
  • Sales rank: 1,079,880
  • Product dimensions: 6.10 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Table of Contents

Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction - Wasn't She the Mother in Cheaper by the Dozen?
there was only one consolation, and that was work Gone West dear lillie was always a remarkable person Once Upon a Time The "Athens of the Pacific"
In Search of the Strenuous Life the one best partnership Not Like Any Boys We Know Even Quest Makers Change Their Minds A Long-Distance Engagement The One Best Marriage Planning a Family Mentioned from the Platform by Taylor
"some classy bear-cat and cave-woman"
Divine Providence Scientifically Managing New England Butt The Good Exception A Second Dissertation Therbligs and Tonsils The Home Front The Gilbreth Family System Indicting the Stopwatch
"successfully in two places at the same time"
"Here I Stand, 'the Case!'"
Am I a Lady or an Engineer?
Counter Cultures for Women The Home-maker and Her Job The Kitchen and the Office
"one of america's foremost women"
This Home Is for Hoover A Dollar-a-Year Woman in Washington Woman Power Professor Gilbreth A Superannuated Bachelor Girl Goes to War As Resilient As a Good Rubber Band
"only a thermometer has more degrees"
Cheaper by the Dozen Work, for the Night Is Coming
"It Doesn't Take Long to Get Back from Rangoon"
Archives and Libraries Consulted Notes Index
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