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!How to Apply Business Efficiency to Your Servants and Home
An Important Analysis of Time and Money
Waste in Housework, and the Methods of
Avoiding It, by Mrs. Christine Frederick,
——— 1
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Mrs. Frederick in Her Efficien cy Experiment Kitchen at Green lawn, L. I.
Note Carefully the Arr angement of Utensils and Furniture
to the right lays it on a serving table, when
1 carry it to dining room.
On the return trip I take the soiled platter
from dining room directly to the sink table,
wheel left to sink, left to drain, and last, left
to closet shelves.
I have drawn two diagrams which show the
making of an omelet under two arrangements
of equipment. One is a steady track from ice
box to table; the other is a crossing and re
crossing, like the tracks of a hound after a
hare.
BUSINESS-LIKE RECORDS FOR THE HOME.
Now, I am not a system fiend, but I found
after wasting much time and still more valu
able nervous energy, that I simply couldn't
waste this time and eneTgy on searching, pull
ing and hunting for all my household data. In
keeping a home I have rent and gas receipts,
butcher's and milk bills, addresses of friends
and trades people, and many other kinds of
data. In my husband’s office are up-to-date
filing systems and every convenience for the
systematic keeping of data. Why should I at
home not have my records reliable, immediate
and accurate?
So after much experiment I worked out a
filing drawer with cards, in which I kept cards
of all the important things I want to know.
In this fifteen-inch box which stands on my
desk is practically all the data concerned in
the entire running of my home. I have called
it my "Time and Worry-Saving Family Cabi
net,” and any woman can get such a box or
drawer, filled with 3x5 cards and make up her
own subheads for her own needs.
Here is the complete list of the subjects
as 1 have worked them out:
(X) Household Accounts — Subdivided by
mouths, and with a yearly ‘‘recapitula
tion.” Separate cards for “personal,"
etc., and for each of the children.
. Under every month’s subdivision of house
hold accounts there is a set of plain, ruled 3x5
inch cards. In my system they number four
teen. They are as follows:
(1) Groceries.
(2) Meats.
(3) Vegetables and fruit.
(4) Bread, milk.
(5) Ice, cleansers.
(ti) Service.
(7) Laundry, soap, starch, blueing.
(X) Fuel, gas, electricity.
(9) Furnishings and repairing.
(10) Me'dical and drugs.
(11) Church, charity.
112) Amusement, carfare,s.
(13) Cash record.
Diagram
rangement
Showing Proper Ar-
of Equipment which
Makes a Simple Chain of Steps in
Either Preparing or Clearing Away
a Meal.
(A—Preparing; B—Clearing.
least possible number of steps, motion, time
and fatigue But if the stove, sink and tables
are not in the right relation to each other it
will require twice as much energy to cook and
serve our omelet.
The definite equipment of the processes of
Group I come in order this way:
Icebox, table, stove, serving table, pantry,
cabinet.
The definite equipment of processes of
Group II come in this order.
Sink table, sink, china and dish closets.
In my small kitchen, therefore, -J have ar
ranged the equipment as follows: First, at the
south, an icebox, then a kitchen cabinet, then
the stove, and at last, a small serving table.
At the other side of the room come, first, to
left, china shelves, then sink, and last at right,
sink table.
To make my omelet, I take materials from
the icebox, turn a step -o the right, where I
beat it on the surface of cabinet, turn one
more step to right for stove, and a last step
The Noted Household Expert.
(Mrs. Frederick's book, ‘‘The New House
keeping; Efficiency Studies in Home Manage
ment," will be published next month by Double
day, Page Co., and is sure to attract much fa
vorable comment. Mrs. Frederick is the wife of
J. George Frederick, editor of the Efficiency
Magazine. At their home in Greenlawn, L. I.,
they are fitting up an efficiency experiment
kitchen, where further experiments In methods,
devices, foods, etc., will be carried on).
By Mrs. CHRISTINE FREDERICK.
(National Secretary of the Associated Clubs of Domestic Science—Consulting Household
Editor of The Ladles' Home Journal.)
O NK evening several years ago, when
■ without a servant, I counted the num
ber of pots, pans, and dishes I was
washing. There were 87 in all. I timed my
self on this unplea ant old task of washing
dishes, which I hated from the bottom of my
heart, and 1 found it took 45 minutes to wash
dry and lay them away. When I was through
I was so heated and tired that I didn t feel
like doing anything else all the evening.
That evening, however, we were entertain
ing a friend who was prominent in the new
science of industrial efficiency, lie and my
husband were discussing it, and I beard them
say “motion study," and such mysterious
phrases as "standardization and standard
practise." Although I was tired I found my
self interested in spite of myself. I asked him
to explain what he meant, and he did, telling
me how efficiency was revolutionizing the
office and the factory.
“Do you mean to tell me." I asked skepti
cally, "that you think auch things could be ap
plied to a home?"
“They are universally applicable to any
work anywhere," he replied seriously.
Still half skeptical, 1 dec ided to experiment.
That was three years ago, and I can say that
It lias revolutionized my entire thought and
practice about my home, and convinced me
that a new era for woman’s work—tradition
ally never done is coming.
Emerson has expounded twelve now famous
principles of efficiency. I have proved that it
i, just as possible to apply each one of these
tv. five in running my home, as it Is to apply
Hu in with success in any factory or office.
1 Ideals.
2- Common sense.
:: Go in potent counsel.
I -Standardized operations.
., -Standardized conditions
■, Standard practise.
7 Dispatching,
x- Scheduling.
9—Reliable, Immediate and accurate
methods.
10—Discipline.
H—Fair deal.
12 Efficiency reward
No woman can make a success of her busi
ness unless sh< knows why she is running it,
and what are the ideals she wishes to follow.
The clearer the woman’s ideals, the better
home maker she will be.
Then this matter of common sense. It is
certainly common sense to hang a pot close
to hand instead of stooping for it.
We have beard much of "motion study” and
“standard practice." and how ran these points
be applied in the home? There is my old
haled task of washing dishes. I used wrong
methods. I cramped my back over a sink 2X
Inches high, when I am a tail woman and need
to work on a surface at least 31 inches high.
) was using the wrong tools and I wasted time
running about for things I needed. Since then
1 have “standardized," not only washing dishes,
but all tasks Involving the hands, or the head
and hands working in eo-operatlon. 1 have exam
ined hundreds of sinks and tested women of
all heights, and have been able (o work out a
table of the relative height of the worker and
(he working surface.
Height, of woman.
4 feet 10 inches.
4 " 11
5 “
6 " 1
5 “ 2
5 “ 3
5 “ 4
5 “ 5
5 " ti "
5 “ 7
5 “ 8
5 “ 9
5 “ 10
5 " 11
Proper height of
working surface.
27 inches
27 Ms "
28
28% "
29 "
29% “
30
30% "
31 "
31% "
32
32% "
33
33% "
Group I. II—Preparing all
foods.
|2—Cooking all
I foods.
Clearing Meal.
Group II.
1- Removing all foods.
2- Washing utensils.
8—Laying away dishes
ilrn. Christine I'rrtrrlfk, thr Illnlin-
u illslir<l Household lOfflcleo.-v i:\perl.
Next to be considered are the causes of
present, day household inefficiency.
By watching myself and others at work I
have been able to group the causes of 80 per
cent of the inefficiency of modern housework:
(1) The worker does not have all the needful
tools or utensils at hand before her when
she begins to work; therefore,
(2) She wastes time and effort walking to,
hunting for or fetching ingredients, tools
or materials she neglected to have at
hand when she began the task.
(3) She stops in the middle of one task to do
something else quite unrelated.
(4) She lowers the efficiency of good work by
losing time putting tools or work away,
generally due to poor arrangement of
kitchen, pantry and closets.
(5) She uses a poor tool, or a wrong one; or
works at a table, sink, Ironing board, or
moulding board of the wrong height
from the floor.
((>) She loses time because she does not keep
sufficient, supplies on hand, and because
she does not keep her tools and utensils
in good condition.
When i came to study the conditions under
which I worked in my kitchen at cooking and
serving meals, I found that it was impossible
to do standardized work under such unstand
ardized conditions.
Not only were ray sink, tables and stove too
low for efficient work, but they were in the
wrong relation to each other.
THE PROPER ROUTINE OF HOUSEHOLD
PROCESSES.
I have since studied out the proper relation
for this larger equipment and found the dia
gram shown herewith the best arrangement.
In studying all my kitchen work I found
that there were just two separate processes
under which all tasks could be grouped:
Preparing Meal. Kqulpment.
Icebox, pantry, stor
age, table, kitchen
cabinet, stove uten
sils, tnble, trays.
Equipment.
Trays, tables,
sink, closets,
pantry, icebox
oaiNir
.--ff
LINING VOOfd
Every task done—peeling potatoes or Wash-
Diagram Showing Badly Ar
ranged Equipment Which Makes
Confused Intersecting Chains of
Steps in Either Preparing or Clear
ing Away a Meal.
(A—Preparing; B—Clearing.)
ing a skillet—t an be divided clearly under qne
or the other group. One group is those pro
t-essos which prepare the meal: the second
group is those processes which clear away the
meal. Each of those processes coveds distinct
equipment. The reason for so much ineffi
eieney in kitchen work is due almost solely
because these two processes are not kept sepa
rate, and because, particularly, the equipment
of f ilch process is not kept together.
Suppose, for instance, we wish to make an
omelet. We take eggs and milk from the ice
box or pantry (follow diagram), beat it at a
table, cook on a stove, serve on platter ami
take to dining room. This is the preparing pro
cess of this dish, and is the simplest method
we can follow. The return trip, or the processes
of clearing away l take the empty platter from
tlie dining room to the kitchen sink, wash it
and lay it away.
Now if ttie kitchen table, stove and sink
are in the right relation to each other, we can
make our omelet or any other dish, with the
(14) Recapitulation.
(2) Household Records: ’
a—Family sizes record (shoes, hosiery,
gloves, etc.).
b—Clothes storage record,
c—Linen record (number, cost, price and
date of purchase),
d—Preserve record,
e—Pantry record,
f—Anniversary record,
g—Gift record.
(3) Library Records:
a—Poetry.
b—Fiction,
c—History
d—Reference.
e—Books to read or to buy.
f—Music, repertoire, lyric, humorous, sacred,
g—Music to buy.
(4) Family Medical Record.
a—Physician, b—Dentist, c—Oculist.
(5) Record of Addresses:
a—Social, b—Professional, c—Special.
(6) House Hints Division:
a—Toilet and laundry hints,
b—Baby hygiene,
c—Garden and flower hints,
d—Entertainment suggestions,
e—Jokes, quotations, etc.
(7) Home Financial Record:
a—Taxes, real estate. j
b—Document record,
c—Bank records,
d—Bills receivable,
e—Bills payable.
f—Personal, financial records, club dues, etc.
(8) General Inventory:
Subdivided (or clothes, furniture, jewelry,
silver, miscellaneous, etc.
We have talked a great deal about methods
and systems, plans and schedules in the house
hold. Now comes the most vital, the most diffi
cult point of all, and yet the keystone of the
whole maiter—the personal attitude of the
woman toward her work.
Without properly applying the modern ideas
of efficiency to her own mind (which is in
itself a complete and separate organization)
the whole plan of the “new housekeeping" falls
to pieces. No stream can rise higher than its
source, and no household efficiency can be
greater than the personal efficiency of the
woman w-ho directs it.
Some women regard housework as an ogre
which has them in its grasp, and from which
they cannot escape. Others have a mania for
all housework, so that they elaborate, repeat
and prolong work. Still others mistake the
physical work of housekeeping for the real
ends of home-making; a large group assumes
merely a tolerant attitude toward housework,
and prefers business or other careers, as more
"interesting.”
Every one of these attitudes of mind is
realty poisonous and antagonistic to cither
efficiency or the highest personal happiness
and character. These seven typical attitudes
of mind have hung like millstones around the
neck of the real emancipation and development
of women. The first great work of efficiency
in the home, and of liberation of women from
hdusehold drudgery, i s to exchange any or all
of these attitudes for the efficient attitude,
my interpretation of which I write down here
in bold type so as to give it every possible em
phasis:
First of all. thr fltlrlrnl attitude of mind for
Ibe houN«‘vrlf<* and homemaker, la to realise that,
no matter hmv difficult an«l trying are the
household tasks and burdens she find* placed
upon her, there positively nre ways to meet and
conquer them efficiently — If she approaches
these problems vigorously, hopefully and pa
tiently.
Second, that far from being dull drudgery,
homemaklng In all its details is fascinating and
stimulating If n woman applies to it her best
intelligence and culture.
Third, that no matter liow good a housekeeper
and homemaker a woman may already be, she
will be eager not only to TRY, but to persist
ently anil Intelligently to keep on trying, to ap
ply In her home the scientific methods of work
and management already proved and tried In
shop and office throughout the world.
If housework is drudgery to a woman it is
only because that woman refuses to avail her
self of the improved equipment and efficient
methods offered her on every hand.
Housework—the art as well as the science of
home making—if followed out on an intelligent
basis, is the most glorious career opened to
any woman, and one which offers her widest
talents their most varied scope.
Reading the Earth’s Past in the Fossils of the Arctic—
By Dr. EDMUND OTIS H0VEY,
The Distinguished Geologist.
By Dr. Edmund Otis Hovey
Curator of the Department of Geology and
Invertebrate Paleontology, American Mu
seum Natural History, New York.
(In an Interview)
HE easily accessible parts of the earth's
surface in the temperate and torrid
zones have long since revealed, like
pages of written history, the main facts about
our planet and the life upon it. But these
chapters written in rooks, in coal bedb and in
the remains of ancient animal and plant life
otherwise preserved, invariably contain hints
of other, probably earlier chapters, written in
she same way in wliat are now frozen Polar
areas.
Explorations within the Arctic Circle, duriug
the last half century have tended to bear out
ihese hints. These regions were not always
wrapped in ice and snow. Where fossils of
tropical plants ure found, a tropical climate
must have once existed. When was that? Why
v.as it? What are the geological records
buried under the ire and snow ?
Adventurous explorers have now proved that
vtu •ally no part of the Polar regions is in
accessible. Profiting by their experience, purely
• cientitle expeditions in charge of these ex
perienced leaders can proceed systematically
with investigations which heretofore have
been desultory and unduly hazardous.
The American Museum of Natural History,
in co-operation with the American Geographical
Society and the University of Illinois will have
its appropriate part in investigations of North
Polar lands and conditions, through its support
of the MacMillan expedition, which will leave
New York next Jnly. The party w ill establish
Winter quarters on the south side of Bache
Peninsula, in latitude 79' 10‘ and will devote
two years to scientific reasearches to the north
and west of Gape Thomas Hubbard, including
Grocker Land, returning to New York in 1915.
The work of this expedition will be purely
scientific. Geology, geography, glaciology,
metoroiosy, terrestrial magnetism, electricity
(wireless telegraph), seismology, zoology in
various branches vertebrate and Invertebrate,
botany, oceanography from the ambitions pro
gramme of the party. Additional knowledge
of present aDd past geological conditions Is
one of tile greatest things to bp expected of
such expeditions. Any discovery of coal or
minerals will be of small consequence, owing
to the difficulty of mining them and transport
ing the product back to civilization. There is
coal on Spitzbergen Island, but not even the
Gulf Stream, which flows into that region,
sufficiently mitigates the rigors of the climate
to make those deposits of much commercial
value.
Specimens of rock formations, coal, minerals
and fossils, however, will be of great value In
au educational way. These, besides charts and
records of ocean depths and currents and so
forth, will be expected to lead us nearer to the
solutions of several problems concerning the
history of the planet which geology and as
tronomy have thus far been unable to solve.
For instance, the development of different
forms of life upon the earth we know to have
been very much influenced by glaciation—evi
dences of which exist in nearly all latitudes.
We know that some 50,000 years ago the whole
of Northern Europe and America was burled
beneath great glaciers which drove before
them,'or carried with them, forms of life,
plant and animal, which originated in Arctic
regions and yet were of a tropical character.
We also know that the gradual disappearance
of glaciers extends even to those of the Far
North.
But we do not know exactly what changes
in terrestrial conditions brought about these
glacial periods. According to the formerly ac
cepted theory, the climates of the Pleistocene
period were strongly contrasted as an indirect
result of an Increased eccentricity of the
earth's orbit combined with the precession of
the equinox, bringing the earth at different
periods within greatly varying distances from
the sun. But, as Bir Norman Lockyer said re
cently apropos of expected discoveries by
Gaptain Scott in the Antarctic:
"We do not believe this. But we have no
new theory to take its place. We recognize
that there may be a hundred and one reasons
for either the appearance or disappearance of
glaciers."
Sir Norman Lockyer also remarked that it
England were again to be submerged by
glaciers, in that case the poles probably would
become temperate. In a great many ways
study of the phenomeua of glaciation has ad
vanccd our knowledge of the history of the
earth and of life upon it. Pos ibly such records
In the Arctic re
gion may supply
historical links
which are now
tantalizingly mis
sing. If they ex
ist, they are to he
found in the char
acter of rocks,
minerals and fos
sils.
From a geologl K,
cal standpoint th, ® ;
Western coasts of
King Oscar Land
and Axel Heiberg
Land, from lati
tudes T<1* to SI
LT.', are yet vir
tually a sealed
liook. The scien
tists of the Mac
Millan expedition
will investigate
them as thorough
ly as circumstan
ces will permit.
From the two
months' explora
tions of Crocker
Hand interesting
results are ex
pected. Appar
ently that unex
plored region of
fers fresh oppor
tunity for studies
In glaciation.
T’eary, who dis
cerned its mountainous southeastern coast on
June 30, 1906, from Cape Thopias Hubbard.
w*rote:
"The clear day greatly favored my work in
taking a round of angles and with the glasses
1 could make out, apparently a little more dis
tinctly, the snow-clad summits of the distant
land in the northwest, above the ice horizon,"
The existence of this unexplored land, which
tidal observations have indicated must be
either a continent or an archipelago with an
area of half a million square miles, has a very
significant bearing on unsolved problems of
the earths history. It upsets calculations
cased on the theory of a wide, deep sea North
Polar basin, though Pea y established the ex
istenc
e of
very
deep water at
the
Pole
itself.
Its
geology on
the
<*onst
line and in
! he
interior.
its
rooks
, minerals
and
fossils,
and
its living plants
and animals
should open up a
'(^ new and impnrt-
1 ant field of study.
It probably con
tains the most
northerly of ail
glaciers and gla
cial ice capsi The
glaciers of Grants
Land and the ice
probably existent
on Crocker Land
will surely sup
ply new data on
the characteris
tics of continental
ice masses.
Referring to ex
isting evidences
that the Polar re
gions enjoyed a
tropical, or at
least a temperate.
Diagram Showing Where Free Development Stopped in !'mnarativelv' K re-
the North Polar Regions When the Great Cold Settled cat geological
on the Ancient Continent. This Occurred in the Mio- period, you ask
cene Period, Just Before Man Appeared. whether the
change was prob
ably due to a shifting of the earth’s axis.
Geology has yet to furnish proof to that effect.
Some years ago Flammarion, the astronomer,
wrote on that subject, specifically “referring to
the history of an alternating series of Polar
deluges which in age-long periods recur first at
the North and then at the South Pole;
This theory depends on the fact of the
unequal length of the seasons in the two
hemispheres. Our Autumn and Winter last
179 days. In the Southern Hemisphere they
last 18(1 days. This seven days or ’8fi hours of
difference increase each year the coldness of
the Pole. During 10.500 years the 'ce accumu
lates at one Pole and melts at the dlier. there
by displacing the earth's centre of gravity.
"Now a time will arrive when, after the
maximum of elevation of temperature on one
side, a catastrophe will happen which will
bring back the centre of gravity to the centre
of the figure and cause an immense deluge.
The deluge of the North Pole was 4.200 years
ago, therefore the next will be 6,300 years
hen8e.”
But whatever caused them, there have been
North Polar deluges—according to indications
that are apparently to be accounted for in no
other way. Toward the beginning of Arctic
explorations it was noted that no trace of sea
deposit of Eocene age has ever been found in
the Polar area, ail the vestiges of strata re
maining showing that these latitudes • e
then occupied by dry land.
In 1880, Alfred Russel Wallace wrote in hia
book, "Island Life”: “The distribution of the
Eocene and Miocene formation shows that
during a considerable portion of the Tertiary
period an inland sea. more or less occupied by
an archipelago of islands, extended across
Gentral Europe between the Baltic and the
Black and Caspian seas, and thence by nar
rower channels southeastward to the valley of
the Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, thus open
ing a communication between the North At
lantic and the Indian Ocean.
“From the Caspian also a wide arm of the
sea extended, during some portion of the
Tertiary epoch, northwards to the Arctic
Ocean and there is nothing to show that this
sea may not have been in existence during the
whole Tertiary period.”
Wallace, in this connection, refers to evi
dences of the existence of a primitive Eocene
continent in the highest north latitudes. He
says: “The rich and varied fauna which In
habited Europe at the dawn of the Tertiary
per’od—as shown by the abundant remains of
mammalia wherever suitable deposits of
Eocene age have been discovered—proves
that an extensive Palearetic continent then
existed."
Later explorations within the Arctic Circle
have furnished evidences bearing out this
theory. Accordingly, Spitzbergen and the
Islands believed to form a great archipelago,
the southeasterly limit of which we call
Crocker Land, may be considered as mountain
peaks of that ancient Arctic Continent In
Western Thibet marine fossils of Eocene age
have been found at a height of 16,700 fee*. As
far as our information goes, Arctic lands and
waters have always teemed with life, and
records of the life of the past are always left
behind in fossil forms, which tell their own
story.
The theory that the life of this hemisphere
originated in the Arctic regions, where the
earth's crust was first to cool sufficiently to
make life possible, is a familiar one. It holds
not only that the increasing cold forced this
life eventually to migrate southward, covering
the whole hemisphere with its forms, but that
nowhere upon the earth were conditions go
favorable as there for the development of
luxuriant types. Astronomy informs us that
the annual total of sunlight and twilight at the
Pole—where for months at a time there is no
darkness at all—considerably exceeds that en
joyed by any other section of the earth's sur
face.
The argument is Interesting, If not alto
gether scientific. It seems certain that the
molten earth cooled first at the Pole and that
the appearance of life awaited only a con
genial temperature. While the internal heat
of the earth successfully combatted the ab
sence of heat, from the sun, it appears that
those latitudes must have been peculiarly
favorable to the development of species of
plants and animals. For ages the vairars aris
ing from the warm earth formed a protecting
blanket against the outer cold. The one long
night In each year was more than balanced
by the extra length of the sunlight period—
such are some of the arguments advanced to
prove that the evolution of living forms pro
needed more rapidly and favorably upon the
ancient, Arctic Continent than elsewhere.
Soundings of the 150 miles of Arctic Ocean
which separate Cape Thomas Hubbard—
northernmost extremity of Axel Heiberg Land
from the high coast of Crocker Land, should
Indicate the ancient relationship between the
two. In any case all the lands of that region
should contain mineral and fossil records of
their past of a character to add to the value
of the contributing institutions.
The problems to be studied in botany, ter
restrial and marine zoology, physiography,
meteorology and climatology, seismology,
ocean currents and other lines of work offer
a programme of research in science that will
fully occupy the time and the energes and
talents of the splendid scientific staff that
forms the Crocker Land expedit'd!.