Frederick Winslow Taylor was born in 1856. Born into wealth, Taylor's family was a Quaker family from Pennsylvania. He aspired to attend Harvard University but he didn't have very good eyesight and during the era in which he lived, found that the eyesight problem held him back from a pursuit of a Harvard education.
Taylor was allowed to study at home and graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology through the correspondence courses that the school offered to Taylor. It was around this time that he began to take on his own management philosophies and implement them at Midvale Steel Works. He quickly rose through the ranks at the plant until he became the chief engineer.
Frederick Taylor later went on to develop high speed steel with the help of some colleagues at Bethlehem Steel. It was there that Taylor began to become deeply embedded in his belief that trade unions were not a necessity.
Dedicated to passing along his beliefs to others so that they could implement his beliefs into their own workplace environments, Taylor soon published the Principles of Scientific Management. The book was published in 1911 and soon Taylor was dubbed as the "Father of Scientific Management".
F.W. Taylor, which is what Frederick became known to the world, was convinced that for businesses to be successful that managers had to select and train their employees for the tasks at hand. His principles of management were solid. He believed that employees needed management and management needed the employees and when the two sides could work together amicably, businesses were able to thrive.
Frederick Winslow Taylor was instrumental in the way others began to emulate his business management skills. During the Progressive Era, Taylor was widely accepted for his leadership skills and his ability to make the workplace a more efficient environment for all who were willing to look at his plan for improvement.
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