ABSTRACT
The Second World War made a sudden, immense impact on Elton Mayo’s image of himself, and civilization. When his associates went to war and close friends at the Business School died, Mayo’s working life changed. As the war began to threaten all of European civilization Mayo felt uncommonly fortunate that his interesting work prevented the nights from being too long and dark. In February 1942 Mayo’s close friend Lawrence J. Henderson died. Mayo turned to Alan Gregg, a Harvard-trained physician who had served with Britain’s Royal Army Medical Corps during the Great War. Mayo began what he considered at the time was a complete revision of his whole approach by studying writers whose work would add authority to his two essays “Why Doth the Heathen Rage?” and “The Rabble Hypothesis.” He sent Gregg a copy of the letter to Dean David that explained the origins of the gap between his work and that of other faculty in the Business School.
