Lillian Moller Gilbreth

Context: Lillie Evelyn Moller was born in Oakland, California, on May 24, 1878, to Annie (Delger) and William Moller, a builder's supply merchant. She was the second of the family's eleven children. Both of her wealthy parents were of German descent. Educated at home until the age of nine, Moller began formal schooling in the first grade at a public elementary school and was rapidly promoted through the grade levels. She was elected vice president of her senior class at Oakland High School and graduated with exemplary grades in May 1896. Moller, who changed her name to Lillian during college, continued her education at the University of California, Berkeley, commuting by streetcar from her parents' Oakland home. She graduated from the university in 1900, earning a teaching certificate and a bachelor's degree in English literature, and was the school's first female commencement speaker at the university. Moller enrolled at Columbia University, intending to pursue a master's degree in literature and to study with Brander Matthews, a well-known writer and educator, but soon realized he did not allow women to study with him or attend his lectures. Following her exposure to Edward Thorndike's psychology courses, she turned to Thorndike and the study of psychology because he did accept female students. After Moller became ill and returned home, she completed a master's degree in literature at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1902. The topic of her thesis was Ben Jonson's play Bartholomew Fair. Moller began studies for a Ph.D. at the University of California, but took time off to travel in Europe in the spring of 1903. Following her marriage to Frank Bunker Gilbreth in 1904 and relocation to New York, she completed a dissertation for a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1911, but was not awarded the degree due to her noncompliance with residency requirements for doctoral candidates. The dissertation was published as The Psychology of Management: The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and Installing Methods of Least Waste in 1914. After the Gilbreths relocated their family to Providence, Rhode Island, Lillian enrolled at Brown University. She earned a Ph.D. in applied psychology in 1915, which mader her the first of the pioneers of industrial management to have a doctorate. The topic of her dissertation was efficient teaching methods and titled Some Aspects of Eliminating Waste in Teaching. For more than forty years, Gilbreth's career combined psychology with the study of scientific management and engineering. She also included her perspectives as a wife and mother in her research, writing, and consulting work. Gilbreth became a pioneer in what is now known as Industrial and organizational psychology. She helped industrial engineers recognized the importance of the psychological dimensions of work. In addition, she became the first American engineer ever to create a synthesis of psychology and scientific management. (Gilbreth introduced the concept of using psychology to study management at the Dartmouth College Conference on Scientific Management in 1911.) In addition to jointly running Gilbreth Incorporated, their business and engineering consulting firm, Lillian and Frank wrote numerous publications as sole authors, as well as co-authoring multiple books and more than fifty papers on a variety of scientific topics. However, in their joint publications Lillian was not always named as a co-author, possibly due to publishers' concerns about a female writer. Althhough her credentials included a doctorate in psychology, she is less frequently credited in their joing publications than her husband, who did not attend college. The Gilbreths were certain that the revolutionary ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor would be neither easy to implement nor sufficient; their implementation would require hard work by engineers and psychologists to make them successful. The Gilbreths also believed that scientific management as formulated by Taylor fell short when it came to managing the human element on the shop floor. The Gilbreths helped formulate a constructive critique of Taylorism; this critique had the support of other successful managers. Gilbreth collaborated with her husband until his death in 1924. Afterwards, she continued to research, write, and teach, in addition to consulting with businesses and manufacturers. She also participated in professional organizations such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers until her own death nearly fifty years later in 1972. In addition, Gilbreth turned her attention to the home, despite her aversion to housework and the fact that she had long employed full-time household help. Her children once described her kitchen as a "model of inefficiency." Due to discrimination within the engineering community, Gilbreth shifted her efforts toward research projects in the female-friendly arena of domestic management and home economics. She applied the principles of scientific management to household tasks and "sought to provide women with shorter, simpler, and easier ways of doing housework to enable them to seek paid employment outside the home." The Gilbreth children often took part in the experiments. In addition, Gilbreth was instrumental in the development of the modern kitchen, creating the "work triangle" and linear-kitchen layouts that are often used today. She is als credited with the invention of the foot-pedal trash can, adding shelves to the inside of refrigerator doors (including the butter tray and egg keeper), and wall-light switches, all now standard. Gilbreth filed numerous patents for her designs, including one to improve the electric can opener and another for a wastewater hose for washing machines. When Gilbreth was an industrial engineer working at General Electric, she "interviewed over 4,000 women to design the proper height for stoves, sinks, and other kitchen fixtures as she worked on improving kitchen designs". After World War I the Gilbreths did pioneering work with in the rehabilitation of war-veteran amputees. Lillian continued consulting with businesses and manufacturers after Frank's death. Her clients included Johnson & Johnson and Macy's, among others. In 1926, when Johnson & Johnson hired her as a consultant to do marketing research on sanitary napkins, Gilbreth and the firm benefited in three ways. First, Johnson & Johnson could use her training as a psychologist in the measurement and analysis of attitudes and opinions. Second, it could give her experience as an engineer specializing in the interaction between bodies and material objects. Third, her public image as a mother and a modern career woman could help the firm build consumer trust in its products. In addition to her work with Johnson & Johnson, Gilbreth was instrumental in the design of a desk in cooperation with IBM for display at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 CANNOTANSWER

Question: How successful was Lillian Moller Gilbreth in her career?
Answer: Gilbreth filed numerous patents for her designs, including one to improve the electric can opener and another for a wastewater hose for washing machines.