Content area
Full Text
Questions have been raised about the relation of Progressive-Era women reformers to scientific management and the efficiency concept associated with it. This article brings evidence from organizations such as the National Consumers League and the Taylor Society to argue that in the Progressive Era female reformers belonged to a community of discourse close to scientific management. Understanding this relationship helps delineate the intellectual foundations of progressive reform.
In the last 20 years many disciplines have tried to enlarge their understanding of their origins by exploring the traditionally neglected role of women in their development (e.g., Scott, 1988; Silverberg, 1998). As part of this trend, public administration scholars have analyzed some underpublicized contributions of women to their field (e.g., Guy, 2000; Rubin, 1990).
The early years of the 20th century are an important locus for this reevaluation because they constitute a time when the administrative state expanded and public administration emerged as an area of study (Waldo, 1948). The break-up of the Victorian gender system offered women new opportunities for education and work. As many traditional institutions were still closed to female participation, women contributed by joining new institutions and movements. Even before they achieved the right to vote they used voluntary associations to work for an expanded state presence in social issues. Settlement houses became important venues for female action to promote government interest in the poor (e.g., Stillman, 1998, pp. 81-97). The General Federation of Women's Clubs figured centrally in state enactment of mothers' pensions as well as early labor legislation (Skocpol, 1992; Skocpol et. al., 1993).
The importance of women in the expansion of the administrative state is clear. Questions remain, however, about the intellectual affiliations of female reformers. One question is the relation of women reformers, particularly settlement women, to scientific management and the efficiency concept associated with it. For men, scientific management and the quest for efficiency undergirded early 20th-century urban reform and public administration (e.g., Schiesl, 1977), but no scholarly consensus exists on the relation of female reformers to scientific management and efficiency.
Stivers (1995, 2000) contrasted the settlement women's concern for political substance with what she sees as the male reformer's concern with creating a science of efficient organizations. Her analysis posited "clear differences in values" (2000, p....