Description: Scientific management: technology spawned it, Frederick Winslow Taylor championed it, Thorstein Veblen dissected it, Henry Ford implemented it. By the turn of the century, practical visionaries prided themselves on having arrived at "the one best way" both to increase industrial productivity and to regulate human behavior. Martha Banta takes a close look at texts ranging from mail order catalogs and popular romances to the works of Henry Adams and Nathanael West to trace the effects of the efficiency craze on the full fabric of American culture.
Brief description: Martha Banta is a professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was awarded the Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies in 2002 for her lifetime of achievement and service within the field. She is also the author of four previous books, most recently Taylored Lives: Narrative Productions in the Age of Taylor, Veblen, and Ford.