Lillian Gilbreth, the original domestic engineer.

Neat article at Slate about how she revolutionized the American kitchen.

To quantify the efficiency of the Kitchen Practical, and a later, similar kitchen designed for the New York Herald Tribune Magazine, Gilbreth used a metric from the motion study of the production line: steps. As described in the 1931 Better Homes Manual,

The test of the efficiency of the new kitchen was made with strawberry shortcake...The cake was first made in a typically haphazard kitchen…Then an exactly similar shortcake was prepared in the Herald Tribune Kitchen, which has the same equipment and utensils as the other kitchen, but has them arranged for efficiency. The results of this test were so startling as to be almost unbelievable. The number of kitchen operations had been cut from 97 to 64. The number of actual steps taken had been reduced from 281 to 45—less than one-sixth!

...In the 1940s, what Gilbreth called “circular routing” became known as the kitchen “work triangle,” a concept that designers still rely on today.

I feel a certain kinship with this woman's style. And if only she had gotten her way with respect to countertop heights, we short cooks would have even more to thank her for.

 

Comments

[Jenny]

I wish she had gotten her way on counter height. At 5'1.75'' prepping food is problematic at best.

[Amy F]

Cheaper by the Dozen! I need to go reread that now. I loved those books! As a teenager I remember thinking it would be fun to be what, a systems engineer? I tried to get jobs on logistics when I graduated.

[Sara]

One of her books on scientific management in the home is available through Cornell's amazing HEARTH: http://hearth.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=hearth;idno=4301989.

[Kate]

I finally read the sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen, Belles on their Toes. Better, if anything, than the original, dealing as it does with the time after Lillian was widowed and the ways she and the children had to pull together. You get a real sense of what a formidable woman she was.

[GeekLady]

What, short people having their way on bathroom countertops wasn't enough??

[Bearing]

Um. I don't really want to hear about *anyone* having their way on bathroom countertops. But I am sure it is worse for short people when they try.

[Melanie B]

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

I'm on the other end of the height spectrum and long for higher counters. I used to get terrible backaches in our old apartment because all the kitchen counters were too low.

And don't get me started on bathrooms! The shower head in the "kid's" bathroom in my parents' house hit me at the base of my neck. In order to wash my hair I had to do gymnastic contortions! They have since replaced it. After I moved out.

The tiny kitchen in our 50s era home is not laid out efficiently and it drives me crazy. Far from having a work triangle, it has one tiny counter between the stove and sink and another tiny counter between the sink and refrigerator. The distance from stove to fridge is about ten feet. It doesn't have near enough storage space either.

[jen ambrose]

Thanks for the link, Erin. This is great. She Kaizen-ed way before it was cool.

[GeekLady]

I'd forgotten to check up on comments for this post

...I hope you're kidding me, because that was absolutely not what I meant. I just meant the *redacted* bathroom counters are too short.

[bearing]

I figured it out, GL, I just felt like having a little fun with the wording. ;-)