Charles D. Wrege (March 11, 1924 – August 19, 2014) Art Bedeian, Dan Wren and Regina Greenwood
Charles D. Wrege Obituary
" Academy of Management,at ''aom.org,'' 2014. Accessed 14-05-2017 was an American management historian, and Professor at Rutgers University. He is known for his contributions to management history, especially his critical work on Frederick W. Taylor and

scientific management Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineer ...

Biography

Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Wrege attended Newark Arts High School. In World War II he joined the United States Army Air Forces, where he was deployed to the

Pacific Theater The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

and served as photographer in the Twentieth Air Force. Back in the States after the war, he started his studies at the New Mexico Highlands University. Later on he moved back East, and obtained his AB in 1952 at the Upsala College. Next at The New School he had participated in the Asch conformity experiments, and in 1955 obtained his MA in Experimental Psychology. In 1956 he obtained his M.B.A. at the New York University, where in 1961 he also obtained his Ph.D. under John Glover. In 1952, Wrege had started his career as industrial engineer at the

Weston Electric Light Company Weston may refer to: Places Australia * Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Weston, New South Wales * Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra * Weston Park, Canberra, a park Canada * Weston, Nova Scotia * W ...

in Newark, New Jersey. After his graduation at The New School he joined the faculty of the New York University at its School of Commerce. After his graduation in 1961 he moved to the Rutgers University, where he spend the rest of his academic career until his retirement in 1991. Wrege died on August 19, 2014, at his home in

Spring Lake, New Jersey Spring Lake is a borough situated on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 2,993,

Work

''Facts and fallacies of Hawthorne,'' 1961

Wrege wrote his PhD thesis at the New York University about the Hawthorne studies conducted by Elton Mayo and others in the 1920s and 1930s at the Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. Wrege published his findings in 1961 and his work was republished in 1986 by Garland publisher in New York. Wrege conducted a historical study of the Hawthorne illumination tests, one of the earliest studies at the Hawthorne works that studied the effect of light levels on worker

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

. Wrege looked at the origins, procedures, and results of these early studies and their influence upon the later Hawthorne studies. In his later years Wrege supplied

Steven D. Levitt Steven David Levitt (born May 29, 1967) is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book ''Freakonomics'' and its sequels (along with Stephen J. Dubner). Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal for his work in the ...

and John A. List with unpublished information and background data for their research later published in the 2011 article "Was There Really a Hawthorne Effect at the Hawthorne Plant?."

F.W. Taylor and the principles of scientific management

Casting pig iron, Iroquois smelter, Chicago

In the 1970s Wrege conducted further research into the origins of

, especially on the

pig-iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with silica ...

experiments by Frederick W. Taylor's.Wrege & Perroni, 1974 The pig-iron experiments on the loading of pig-iron were conducted by Taylor in 1899. Wrege and Perroni (1974) found out that They even concluded: In 1991 Wrege and a colleague management historian Ron Greenwood (d. 1995) published a more general work on the myth and reality of Frederick W. Taylor as father of scientific management.

Graphic history of Scientific Management 1856–1929

During his historical studies of scientific management, Wrege developed a growing interest in the graphic history of Scientific Management, which he dated from 1856 to 1929. The year of 1856 apparently signified the origin, and this is the same year in which

Daniel McCallum Daniel Craig McCallum (January 21, 1815 – December 27, 1878) was a Scottish-born American railroad engineer, general manager of the New York and Erie Railroad and Union Brevet Major General of the United States Military Railroads during the Am ...

published the first modern organizational chart of the New York & Erie Railroad drawn by George Holt Henshaw. This organizational chart was thought lost for years, until

Alfred D. Chandler Jr. Alfred DuPont Chandler Jr. (September 15, 1918 – May 9, 2007) was a professor of business history at Harvard Business School and Johns Hopkins University, who wrote extensively about the scale and the management structures of modern corporatio ...

had suggested its existence. Chandler had unsuccessfully searched for it, which inspired Wrege to follow into his footsteps. After many years of research Wrege and Guidon Sorbo Jr. (1950 - ) located one last specimen at the Library of Congress in 2005 (see image).Charles Wrege and Guidon Sorbo, Jr., "A Bridge Builder Changes a Railroad: The Story of Daniel Craig McCallum," ''Canal History and Technology Proceedings'' 24 (March 2005): 183–218.

Selected publications

* Charles D. Wrege, ''Facts and Fallacies of Hawthorne,'' Doctoral Dissertation. 1961 ; republished 1986. * Wrege, Charles D., and Ronald G. Greenwood. ''Frederick W. Taylor, the father of scientific management: myth and reality.'' Irwin Professional Pub, 1991. ;Articles, a selection * Wrege, Charles D., and Amedeo G. Perroni. "Taylor's pig-tale: A historical analysis of Frederick W. Taylor's pig-iron experiments." ''Academy of Management Journal'' 17.1 (1974): 6–27. * Wrege, Charles D. "Solving Mayo's Mystery: The First Complete Account of the Origin of the Hawthorne Studies-The Forgotten Contributions of CE Snow and H. Hibarger." ''Academy of Management Proceedings. Vol. 1976. No. 1.'' Academy of Management, 1976. * Wrege, Charles D., and Anne Marie Stotka. "Cooke creates a classic: the story behind FW Taylor's principles of scientific management." ''Academy of Management Review'' 3.4 (1978): 736–749. * Wrege, Charles D., Regina A. Greenwood, and Sakae Hata.
What we do not know about management history: Some categories of research and methods to uncover management history mysteries
" ''Journal of Management History'' 5.7 (1999): 414–424. * Wrege, Charles D., and Richard M. Hodgetts. "Frederick W. Taylor's 1899 pig iron observations: Examining fact, fiction, and lessons for the new millennium." ''Academy of Management Journal'' 43.6 (2000): 1283–1291.

References

External links

Charles D. Wrege Obituary
Academy of Management

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wrege, Charles D. 1924 births 2014 deaths Historians from New York (state) American organizational theorists New Mexico Highlands University alumni Newark Arts High School alumni New York University Stern School of Business alumni New York University faculty People from Newark, New Jersey People from Spring Lake, New Jersey Rutgers University faculty The New School alumni United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Upsala College alumni United States Army Air Forces soldiers Historians from New Jersey