Henning Webb Prentis Jr. (July 11, 1884 - October 29, 1959) was an American industrialist, known as president of the

Armstrong Cork Company The Armstrong Cork Company (formerly of Armstrong World Industries) was a cork manufacturer located at 2349 Railroad Street in the Strip District neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company's building was built circa 1901, and designed ...

, president of the

National Association of Manufacturers The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C., with additional offices across the United States. It is the nation's largest manufacturing industrial trade association, representing 14,000 s ...

, and recipient of the

Henry Laurence Gantt Medal The Henry Laurence Gantt Medal was established in 1929 by the American Management Association and the Management section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for "distinguished achievement in management and service to the community" in ho ...

in 1956. In the 1940s, he described the “Prentis Cycle”, according to which popular self-governance leads people from bondage to abundance and back to bondage.

Life and work

Prentis was a son of Henning Webb Prentis Sr. and Mary Morton McNutt Prentis. He was born and raised in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, attended Central High School in St. Louis graduating in 1901, and obtained his AB from the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

in 1903The University of Missouri, "The Prentis Brothers" in: ''The Missouri Alumnus.'' December 1933. After his graduation in 1903 he started his career in industry. In 1907 he joined the

in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he worked his way up to First Vice President in 1933. In 1934 he became the next president of the Armstrong Cork Company. In his later years he was also president of the

. In 1956 the

American Management Association The American Management Association (AMA) is an American non-profit educational membership organization for the promotion of management, based in New York City. Besides its headquarters there, it has local head offices throughout the world. It o ...

and the

ASME The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

awarded him the annual

for distinguished achievement in industrial management as a service to the community."

The Prentis Cycle

In a 1943 address to the University of Pennsylvania entitled Tʜᴇ Cᴜʟᴛ ᴏғ Cᴏᴍᴘᴇᴛᴇɴᴄʏ (later reprinted as Iɴᴅᴜsᴛʀɪᴀʟ Mᴀɴᴀɢᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ ɪɴ ᴀ Rᴇᴘᴜʙʟɪᴄ), Prentis described what has become known as ''The Prentis Cycle'' in which, he asserted, "popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within", as: :From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more. In a 1946 book, Prentis renamed one stage of the cycle and added two stages. The cycle, as revised, is: :From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to freedom; from freedom to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency ; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to fear; from fear to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.

Selected publications

* Prentis, Henning Webb. ''The Roots of American Liberty.'' University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941. * Prentis, Henning Webb. ''Industrial Management in a Republic. No. 25.'' Printed at the Princeton University Press, 1943. ;Articles, a selection * Henning W. Prentis, Jr.
The Cult of Competency: Address Delivered at the Mid-Year Convocation
" University of Pennsylvania, February 1943. * Prentis Jr, H. W. "Taxation and Business Initiative." ''The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 266.1 (1949): 70-76. * Prentis, H. W. "Liberal Education for Business and Industry." ''Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors'' (1915-1955) 38.3 (1952): 345-355. * Prentis Jr, H. W. "The essential factors of good management." ''Mechanical Engineering'' 78.12 (1956): 1121-1124. ;Books *

References

External links

PrenticeNet :: The Prentis Brothers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prentis, Henning Webb 1884 births 1959 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople University of Missouri alumni People from St. Louis Henry Laurence Gantt Medal recipients