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Twentieth-Century Beginnings in Employee Counseling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Henry Eilbirt
Henry Eilbirt
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Management at theCity College Of New York
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Abstract

The practice of giving advice to employees is probably as old as the employer-employee relationship itself, but personnel counseling has become institutionalized over the past half-century and provides an example of the emergence of a specialized staff function.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1957 , pp. 310 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1957

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References

1 See Roethlisberger, F. J. and Dickson, W. J., Management and the Worker (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 190–191, 204, and Ch. XXVI.Google Scholar

2 Bellows, Roger M., Psychology of Personnel in Business and Industry (New York, 1954), p. 306.Google Scholar

3 Drucker, Arthur J., “Employee Counseling,” in Psychology of Industrial Relatisons (New York, 1953), edited by Lawshe, C. H., p. 190.Google Scholar

4 Baker, Helen, Employee Counseling (Princeton, 1944), p. 51.Google Scholar

5 Adams, William, The Duty of Christian People To Those In Their Employ (New York, 1866), p. 18.Google Scholar

6 See Tolman, William H., Social Engineering (New York, 1909), p. 355.Google Scholar

7 See Josephson, Hannah, The Golden Threads (New York, 1949), especially Ch. IV.Google Scholar

8 Sales Management, Aug. 15, 1939, p. 2.

9 Shuey, Edwin L., Factory People and Their Employers (New York, 1900), p. 201.Google Scholar Similar sentiment will be found expressed in Henderson, C. R., The Social Spirit in America (Meadville, Pa., 1897), Ch. VIII.Google Scholar

10 Greenhut, J. B., “Welfare Work of the Siegel-Cooper Co.,” National Civic Federation Review, Vol. 2 (May 15, 1905), p. 13.Google Scholar

11 Lincoln, Jonathan T., “A Manufacturer's Point of View,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 98 (Sept., 1906), p. 291.Google Scholar

12 Dean, Stuart, “Selecting, Sorting, Treating and Paying Men,” Iron Age, Vol. 90 (Nov. 28, 1912), p. 1262.Google Scholar

13 Victor H. Olmsted, “The Betterment of Industrial Conditions,” Department of Labor Bulletin #31, p. 1137.

14 Ibid.; Gilman, Nicholas P., A Dividend to Labor (Boston, 1899)Google Scholar; Shuey, op. cit.; and Tolman, William H., Industrial Betterment (New York, 1900).Google Scholar

15 See Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of Who's Who.

16 Gilman, op. cit., p. iii.

17 Olmsted, op. cit., p. 1117.

18 Shuey, op. cit., p. 170.

19 See report of talk by James M. Craig, actuary of the company, at the Get-Together Club meeting in New York, in Social Service (April, 1901), p. 97.

20 Gilman, op. cit., p. 207.

21 See above, fns. 7, 8, and 9. Note also such items as the compulsory shower bath to protect workers reported by Phillips, R. E., “The Betterment of Working Life,” World's Work, Vol. 1 (Dec, 1900), p. 162.Google Scholar Or see Wertenbaker's, Charles “Patterson's Marvelous Money Box,” Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 226 (Sept. 19, 1953), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

22 See news item in Social Service (Nov., 1900), p. 16.

23 Ibid.

24 Hedfield, William C., “The Employment Problems in Industry,” Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 65 (May, 1916), p. 13.Google Scholar

25 Gilman, op. cit., pp. 268 and 289. A much clearer description of the early matron-counselor will, however, be found in Goss, Mary L., Welfare Work by Corporations (Philadelphia, 1911), pp. 19–21.Google Scholar

26 Olmsted, op. cit., pp. 1120–21.

27 Ibid., p. 1124.

28 The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1128. Other references in this volume indicate that the editors were following Meakin's, B.Model Factories and Villages (London, 1905), cf. p. 41.Google Scholar The section on “Industrial Betterment” shows that the editors were familiar with Meakin's work and the language similarities are marked.

29 Tolman, William H., “The Social Secretary: A New Profession,” Outlook, Vol. 77 (July, 1904), p. 594.Google Scholar

30 A Social Service editorial, Nov., 1900, reveals this to be the New York Tribune and puts the time at “a year ago.”

31 Again unnamed, but in the light of the evidence, probably either Filene's in Boston or Shepard Brothers in Providence.

32 Social Engineering, p. 49. However, the term appears before his trip to the Exposition in the pages of Social Service, in 1900!

33 Nathan, Maud, “The Social Secretary,” World's Work, Vol. 4 (May, 1902), p. 2100.Google Scholar

34 Between 1898 and 1901, this institution had used both League and Institute in its name.

35 Cranston, Mary B., “The Social Secretary,” Craftsman, Vol. 10 (July, 1906), p. 489.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.

37 If the 1889 date were a typographical error, intended to be 1899, the stories would however be consistent, for a National Civic Federation conference of social secretaries did take place in 1904.

38 Conference, pp. 112 and 26, respectively.

39 See Porter's, H. F. J. comment in Cassier's Magazine, Vol. 38 (Aug., 1910), p. 303Google Scholar; and Willcox's, statement in the National Civic Federation Review, Vol. 3 (July 1, 1911), p. 24.Google Scholar

40 This date is indicated in the speech of Mary L. Goss, reported in the National Civic Federation Review of Sept., 1908. Approximately, it corresponds to the time given by Commons, John R. in “Welfare Work in a Great Industrial Plant,” Review of Reviews, Vol. 28 (July, 1903), p. 79.Google Scholar

41 New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1128.

42 Ibid.

43 See National Civic Federation, Welfare Department, Conference on Welfare Work (New York, 1904), pp. 26 ff.Google Scholar

44 Nathan, op. cit., p. 2100.

45 Dorr, Rheta C., “A New Profession,” Current Literature, Vol. 34 (March, 1903), p. 294.Google Scholar See Tolman, Ako, “The Social Secretary,” Outlook, Vol. 77 (July, 1904), p. 595.Google Scholar

46 Tolman, ibid., p. 596. It is not clear whether this reference is to an English firm. A similar and more detailed case in reference to the National Cash Register Company will be found in Cook's, E.WakeBetterment (New York, 1906), pp. 215–220.Google Scholar

47 Brittin, Emma S., “Two Years of Successful Welfare Work in a Factory Employing One Thousand People,” Human Engineering, Vol. 1 (April, 1911), p. 80.Google Scholar

48 Hirschler, op. cit., p. 29. See also Elizabeth Wheeler's similar statement, p. 113. Further illustrations of this relationship will be found in Brittin, op. cit., or in Van de Carr, Anna E., “Work of the Welfare Manager,” National Civic Federation, Employers Welfare Department, Conference on Welfare Work (January, 1911), p. 357.Google Scholar

49 Nathan, op. cit., p. 2100. See also, Social Service, Vol. 10 (July, 1904), news item on p. 10 for a similar comment.

50 Tolman, “The Social Secretary,” p. 598.

51 Dorr, op. cit., p. 239.

52 See Citizens in Industry (New York, 1915), p. 33.

53 Cook, op. cit., p. 239.

54 Cranston, op. cit., p. 490. See also Isabel Nye's account to the National Civic Federation Welfare Conference, 1904, p. 109, for a similar expression.

55 Tolman, “The Social Secretary,” pp. 594 ff. Cranston, op. cit., also contains “cases.”

56 Those meeting at the first Conference of the Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation in 1904 “objected” to the designation “social secretary” (see p. viii). Instead, the term “welfare secretary” was preferred and this seems generally to have become the term used. By 1915, both “social” and “secretary” seem to have disappeared.

57 Seven brief personal histories of social secretaries will be found in Henderson's Citizens in Industry, pp. 273–276.

58 Ibid., pp. 279–280.

59 Beeks, Gertrude, “The New Profession,” National Civic Federation Review, Vol. 1 (Feb. 1, 1905), p. 12.Google Scholar

60 Nye, Conference on Welfare Work, 1904, p. 105. See also Pearl E. Wyche (Social Secretary, Proximity Manufacturing Co.) who observed that she had studied for the job at the Institute of Social Service and at settlement houses. “In a Southern Factory,” Social Service, Vol. 9 (July, 1904), p. 6.

61 Gilman, op. cit., p. 280, or Henderson, op. cit., pp. 297–298. In fact, the origin of the term secretary may have come from this field.

62 Conference on Welfare Work discussion beginning on p. 82. See also United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin #250, pp. 122–123.

63 See Conference on Welfare Work, p. 323; Cranston, op. cit., pp. 491–492; Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin #250, pp. 15 and 123; William H. Tolman, Social Engineering, pp. 57–58.

64 See Corwin, Richard W., “Social Betterment in the Rocky Mountains,” Social Service, Vol. 4 (Dec, 1901), pp. 220–225Google Scholar; and Lewis, Lawrence, “Uplifting 17,000 Employees,” World's Work, Vol. 9 (March, 1905), pp. 5939–50.Google Scholar