Lillian Gilbreth was born to a large family in Oakland, California in 1878. Despite a brilliant high school career, her father opposed higher education for his daughters but eventually agreed to allow her to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where she performed so well that she became the first woman to deliver the commencement address. She began doctoral studies there, but then met construction company owner Frank Gilbreth, moving to New York after they married in 1904. She completed the doctoral requirements at Berkeley but was denied the degree because she was not living in California. Instead, she entered a doctoral program at Brown, earning her PhD in psychology in 1915.
Meanwhile, Lillian and Frank were producing children at a rate of about one every 15 months. One was stillborn after an accident and another died at age 5, but the remaining 11 survived and all graduated from college. Two of their children later wrote the 1948 book, Cheaper by the Dozen, which was turned into a Hollywood film in 1950. As their family burgeoned, Frank and Lillian operated a business consulting firm, producing numerous books and journal articles and lecturing throughout the United States and Europe. They pioneered the use of photographic equipment in time-motion studies, establishing the forerunner of contemporary ergonomics. Frank died suddenly in 1924, leaving Lillian to carry on alone.
Lillian soon found that many formerly loyal consulting clients did not want to do business with a company run by a woman, so she reinvented herself as a consultant to firms whose employees or customers were predominantly women. She became an early expert in the field of home economics, applying scientific principles to household tasks. Her many innovations in this sphere included the so-called triangle kitchen, the foot-pedal operated trash can, wall-mounted light switches, and the inclusion of shelving in refrigerator doors. She also researched menstrual products, surveying over 1,000 women to aid a client in developing a better sanitary napkin.
Where Taylor treated work and workers as machine-like mechanical processes, Gilbreth regarded workers as human beings. She focused less on efficiency and more on fatigue, seeking to enable workers—whether in the factory or in the kitchen—to complete tasks with as little exhaustion as possible. This would make work less taxing, free up more time for leisure, and enable workers to approach recreation with more energy. Where Taylor wanted to boost profits, Gilbreth sought to reduce what she called “humanity’s greatest unnecessary waste,” the expenditure of needless time and energy on a task that could be completed with less mental and physical strain.