ABSTRACT
The opening era of capacity reporting was one of learning, exploration, and the development of formal models that were heavily anchored in the logic of engineering. The early 1900s were a period of discovery on all major social and economic fronts. The age of discovery was built on a common belief that the application of scientific principles, brought to culmination in industrial engineering models and practices, would lead to commercial success and economic prosperity for all. To state that the key articles of the Golden Era had a common knowledge base and a common theme is not to say that these early writers on capacity agreed on all key points. The first 20 years of the 20th century laid the groundwork for the development of a sophisticated model of capacity reporting. In reviewing the earliest recorded work on idle capacity and its treatment, one is cast back into a period of relative stability, prosperity, and progress on all fronts.
