ABSTRACT
Elton Mayo’s activities at the Hawthorne Works diminished during the 1930s. While convalescing in London, Mayo learned from Whitehead how seriously the depression imperiled research at Hawthorne, and was asked to support a scheme to protect the researchers from retrenchment. The girls who had been replaced in the test room and later let go from the Hawthorne Works held Mayo’s attention for several years afterward through the efforts of Emily Osborne. Mayo’s Lowell lectures were published as The Human Problems of Industrial Civilization in 1933. Most reviews of the book were favorable, and many reported accurately what Mayo had written. Mayo described his study in Philadelphia, and concluded that after rest pauses monotony declined, production rose, labor turnover fell, and the mental health and general welfare of workers improved. Criticism came from the New York Sun, which condemned him for being out of date and recommending anthropological studies for the nation’s economic problems.
