Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Frank Bunker Gilbreth was born on July 7, 1868 in Fairfield, Maine. He was a bricklayer, a building contractor, and a management engineer. He was a member of the ASME, the Taylor Society (precursor to the SAM), and a lecturer at Purdue University. Frank died on June 14, 1924.
Lillian Evelyn Moller was born on May 24, 1878 in Oakland, California. She graduated from the University of California with a B.A. and M.A. and went on to earn a Ph.D. from Brown University. She earned membership in the ASME, and like her husband lectured at Purdue University. Lillian died on January 2, 1972.

Frank and Lillian were married in 1904 and were parents of twelve children. Together they were partners in the management consulting firm of Gilbreth, Inc.

The following biography of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth was printed in the IW/SI Newas
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letter of the International Work Simplification Institute, Inc., in September 1968. For further reading on the Gilbreths and their family, please consult our bibliography of Gilbreth books.
Pioneers in Improvement and our Modern Standard of Living
IW/SI Newas
, Issue 18, September 1968, pgs. 37-38
One of the great husband-and-wife teams of science and engineering, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth early in the 1900s collaborated on the development of motion study as an engineering and management technique. Frank Gilbreth was much concerned until his death in 1924, with the relationship between human beings and human effort.
Frank Gilbreth's well-known work in improving brick-laying in the construction trade is a good example of his approach. From his start in the building industry, he observed that workers developed their own peculiar ways of working and that no two used the same method. In studying bricklayers, he noted that individuals did not always use the same motions in the course of their work. These observations led him to seek one best way to perform tasks.
He developed many improvements in brick-laying. A scaffold he...