ABSTRACT
George Elton Mayo’s industrial work developed with help from influential people who respected his ideas and ability and sympathized with his feelings and clinical orientation. He saw patients whom doctors referred to him, and met Pierre Janet, whose ideas he would use for many years. Shortly before going to Harvard, he attended the first of the Dartmouth conferences on the social sciences. By May 1923, shortly before his family joined him, Mayo had an established reputation in Philadelphia’s medical, academic, and business community. S. DeWit Ludlum liked Mayo’s ideas on the application of psychology to industry, offered Mayo private patients, and suggested that Mayo set himself up as a psychological consultant. Mayo’s industrial work also benefited from the opportunities he was given to address informal groups and professional associations whose interest lay in applied psychology. One of Mayo’s most important audiences were Philadelphia’s Psychiatric Society; his topic, “Total Situation in Health and Psychoneurosis.”
