Mary Barnett Gilson
Mary Barnett Gilson | |
|---|---|
| Member of the National War Labor Board | |
| In office 1942–1943 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 10, 1877 Uniontown, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | March 10, 1969 (aged 91) Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation |
|
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (1939) |
Mary Barnett Gilson (September 10, 1877 – March 10, 1969) was an American economist, business executive, and government official. As the manager of Clothcraft Shops' service programs, She and her boss Richard A. Feiss considered scientific management beneficial for employee retention, implementing it in the workplace and employees' homes. After doing academic research, including a master's degree at Columbia University, she wrote Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain (1931) and What's Past Is Prologue (1940), became an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and worked as a special mediation representative for the National War Labor Board.
Biography
[edit]Mary Barnett Gilson was born on September 10, 1877, at Uniontown, Pennsylvania,[1] daughter of Agnes (née Pollock) and religious newspaper editor Samuel S. Gilson.[2][3] She was educated at Wellesley College, where she got her bachelor of arts degree in 1899;[2] that year, she got her first professional job, working at a Pittsburgh public library.[4] She joined the Women's Educational and Industrial Union's department store worker training program in 1910, and did research on saleswomen employment by working at department stores.[3] After being disillusioned with the "artificiality" of the department store environment,[5] she decided to become a vocational counselor at the Trade School for Girls.[3]
In 1913, she began working at Clothcraft Shops, a garment factory in Cleveland.[6] She and her boss Richard A. Feiss considered scientific management beneficial for employee retention, with Feiss providing her freedom to manage things her own way.[7] Originally starting as welfare secretary, she was granted management of the factory's service programs, improving them in both the factory and the employees' residences;[8] she also encouraged the promotion of the factory's women employees.[9] David J. Goldberg called her "an example of a Progressive era reformer who cast her lot with industry rather than with settlement houses or trade unions",[5] and Sharon Hartman Strom described her as "the most influential and articulate woman advocate of Taylorism".[3] Following the company's financial decline due to the rise of the automobile, which allowed customers to buy locally instead of a factory, she resigned in 1924.[10]
From 1925 to 1926, she did research on working conditions at Hawaiian sugar plantations and on unemployment insurance in the United Kingdom, before getting her MA at Columbia University during the latter year.[2] In October 1928, she endorsed Herbert Hoover's successful presidential campaign.[11] She returned to England to do research for her 1931 book Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain.[2] The same year, she became assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, working there until her retirement in 1942 as professor emeritus.[1][2] She published Unemployment Insurance (1932).[1] In 1939, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.[1] She also chaired the Illinois Minimum Wage Commission for the Laundry Industry and Special Advisory Committee on Unemployment Compensation Administrative Methods for Illinois.[12]
In 1940, she published her memoir What's Past Is Prologue.[2][13] She worked for the National War Labor Board as a special mediation representative from June 1942 until it was regionalized the next year.[12] She later moved to Chapel Hill afterwards.[4] She obtained her honorary doctor of laws from Russell Sage College in 1945.[14]
Gilson died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on March 10, 1969.[4] Her papers are at the University of North Carolina Wilmington Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History.[2]
Publications
[edit]- Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain (1931)[15][16][17][18]
- Unemployment Insurance (1932)
- What's Past Is Prologue (1940)[19][20][21]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Mary Barnett Gilson". Guggenheim Fellowship. Retrieved April 13, 2025.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Mary Barnett Gilson Private Papers". Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History. University of North Carolina Wilmington. Retrieved April 13, 2025.
- ^ a b c d Strom 1992, p. 129.
- ^ a b c Written at Chapel Hill. "Dr. Mary Barnett Gilson". The Herald-Sun. Durham, North Carolina. March 12, 1969. p. 8B. Retrieved April 29, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Goldberg 1992, p. 45.
- ^ Strom 1992, pp. 130–131.
- ^ Strom 1992, pp. 131–132.
- ^ Strom 1992, pp. 131, 135.
- ^ Goldberg 1992, p. 47.
- ^ Goldberg 1992, p. 51.
- ^ "Woman Industrial Research Worker Comes Out for Hoover". The Springfield Union. New York (published October 20, 1928). October 15, 1928. p. 8. Retrieved April 29, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Inter-College Groups To Hear Miss Gilson". Hartford Courant. November 26, 1944. p. A13. Retrieved April 29, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "The Autobiography of Mary Gilson". The New York Times. March 2, 1941. pp. BR8. Retrieved April 29, 2025 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Spears, George James (1966). Russell Sage College: The Second Quarter Century, 1941–1966. p. 253.
- ^ Burns, E. M. (1932). "The Problem of Unemployment, by Paul H. Douglas, Aaron Director; Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain, by Mary Barnett Gilson; Unemployment Benefits in the United States, by Bryce M. Stewart". Political Science Quarterly. 47 (2): 293–296. doi:10.2307/2143096. ISSN 0032-3195. JSTOR 2143096.
- ^ Cohen, Joseph L. (1933). "Review of Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain". Journal of Political Economy. 41 (3): 408–412. ISSN 0022-3808. JSTOR 1823290.
- ^ Perlman, S. (1932). "Review of Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain". American Journal of Sociology. 37 (5): 836–837. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 2767579.
- ^ Troxell, John P. (1931). "Review of Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain: The National System and Additional Benefit Plans". The American Economic Review. 21 (4): 764–766. ISSN 0002-8282. JSTOR 529.
- ^ Ise, John (1941). "Review of What's Past Is Prologue: Reflections on My Industrial Experience". Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (1915–1955). 27 (1): 92–93. doi:10.2307/40219185. ISSN 0883-1610. JSTOR 40219185.
- ^ Leiserson, William M. (1941). "Review of What's Past Is Prologue". American Journal of Sociology. 47 (1): 123–124. ISSN 0002-9602. JSTOR 2769801.
- ^ Wolf, H. D. (1941). "What's Past Is Prologue". Social Forces. 19 (4): 574–575. doi:10.2307/2571228. ISSN 0037-7732. JSTOR 2571228.
- Goldberg, David J. (1992). "Richard A. Feiss, Mary Barnett Gilson, and Scientific Management at Joseph & Feiss, 1909–1925" (PDF). In Nelson, Daniel (ed.). A Mental Revolution: Scientific Management Since Taylor. Ohio State University Press.
- Strom, Sharon Hartman (1992). Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900–1930.
- 1877 births
- 1969 deaths
- People from Uniontown, Pennsylvania
- Businesspeople from Pennsylvania
- Economists from Pennsylvania
- 20th-century American economists
- American women economists
- American labor economists
- Businesspeople from Cleveland
- 20th-century American memoirists
- American women memoirists
- 20th-century American businesswomen
- American textile industry businesspeople
- American women business executives
- American business executives
- Franklin D. Roosevelt administration personnel
- United States government officials of World War II
- 20th-century American women civil servants
- Wellesley College alumni
- Columbia University alumni
- University of Chicago faculty