This dissertation analyzes the causes, development, and consequences of scientific management in American and British industry between 1878 and 1920. It contextualizes Frederick Winslow Taylor’s wage incentive system in economic and social changes associated with the transition from proprietary capitalism to managerial capitalism during this period, especially the growth of high fixed-cost investments in plant and machinery. This study also reorients scholarly understanding of scientific management by expanding the analysis to include figures who were neither efficiency engineers nor managers. Therefore, it examines how and why Louis Brandeis popularized scientific management, and argues that in doing so, he turned scientific management into a movement which proponents thought could be applied to all realms of work, far removed from the manufacturing setting for which Taylor had designed it. This study also analyzes the congressional investigation into Taylor’s system by arguing that the opposition to scientific management of the investigation’s leader, William B. Wilson, must be understood in the context of the nature of work in coal mining and its technical differences from the metalworking industries. By examining Wilson’s tenure as secretary of the newly created Department of Labor, the dissertation also traces the role of coal miners in shaping the development of the American state. Additionally, the dissertation offers an analysis of scientific management at the Cadbury chocolate factory, which raises questions about the system’s transatlantic construction, the role of organizational knowledge in improving the production process, and debates over the nature of British industrial decline. / 2027-03-01T00:00:00Z