This class, we discussed how the perception and treatment of the natural world changed with the introduction of modernizing ideas and inventions near the turn of the century around the late 1800s.  These technologies included standardization of time, electric light, and telephones.

The most notable idea, or technology, was an industrialized process called “scientific management.”  This “human technology” was developed by one.  F. W. Taylor, who made extensive studies on efficiency and time management.  These observations were then implemented to determine the most scientifically effficient way to do things.  A new technology was introduced: the used of wires, based on the observations of Taylor, to teach other workers the scientific way to assemble a telephone.

I personally had never heard of either Taylor or the “wire teaching method.” My first reaction to this in class was a chuckle, because it looked so comical.  But then I thought about it in the scope of the era this is from.  In the industrial revolutionized America, time was highly regimented due to the value of time, and the products that were needed to be produced during the day.  The era transitioned from the farmplace carrying the most importance on humanity to the importance of the “factory work day.”