Lilian Gilbreth: Defining Success

Growing up, Lillian Moller’s parents taught her that higher education for women was unacceptable, wanting her to marry a rich man. Lillian disagreed. She excelled in high school and wanted to study literature and music, and went on to fulfill her desire with the permission of her parents; she graduated with her B.A. in Literature at the University of Berkeley (Maisel and Smart). Educated and independent, Lillian traveled to Europe with a group of young women chaperoned by a high school t

eacher, Minnie Bunker. On their way, they stopped in Boston and Minnie Bunker introduced Lillian to her cousin, Frank Gilbreth; they were taken by one another and, when she returned home from Europe, he proposed and they eventually married in 1904 (Woolf). Frank was a contracting engineer in New York, and Lillian had her doctoral studies in Literature; with his technical aspects of worker efficiency and her human aspects of management, they worked together in their own business, consulting for the Industrial Engineering industry (Encyclopedia Britannica 2003).

As if raising twelve children were not difficult enough, Frank and Lillian raised their children and ran their consulting company simultaneously. Along with home and work, Lillian also went to school to obtain her doctorate in Psychology (Graham 634). Lillian believed that any wife could perform both at home and with a career and believed in finding happiness in one’s work, whether at home, outside of the home, or both. “The woman who likes her job of homemaking, who does it with skill and zest, whose home is well managed and whose family is contented, is a happy woman” (Gilbreth 1). Lillian and Frank found that their method of motion tactics worked well with their children, and they created checklists and schedules for each family member; they were very well organized. In their family, they had a family purchasing committee, utilities committee, projects committee, and a council; these committees brought results in an orderly fashion (Gilbreth and Gilbreth Carey 43). Later in life, two of their children wrote two comical books about their experiences at home. These books titled, Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes eventually became motion pictures (Graham 633).

Lillian Gilbreth, mother of twelve, engineer, and psychologist worked extremely hard to maintain an organized home and work environment, and succeeded. She is well known and was successful for her impact on management, innovations

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