ABSTRACT
Lawrence J. Henderson, a Harvard biologist, was another influential man who supported Elton Mayo. In 1926–1927 Mayo worked with Harold D. Lasswell, who was twenty-two, on his personal problems, interviewing skills, and aspects of politics and psychoanalysis, which Lasswell would later make central to his career. Mayo was considering an offer to establish experimental psychology at McGill University, but when Wallace Brett Donham outlined his plans Mayo believed the Harvard research setting would be superior. He found the plan deficient because top managers were autocratic and unbending, middle and first-line supervisors felt the plan had diminished their influence, and employee representatives and associates used the plan to unionize the work force and promote socialism. Mayo carried his work beyond the conflict and squabbling within the organization of the mines and steel works to the sociological problems in the community. He was appalled by the illiteracy, overcrowding, ill health, and sexual promiscuity in Pueblo’s Mexican community.
