User talk:Mdd/John Calder (1866-1936)

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Mdd in topic Further reading: quotes

Further reading: quotes

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1880s

Calder came into prominence in 1887 at the age of 21 after obtaining a Whitworth scholarship after Joseph Whitworth. The English Mechanics and the World of Science, Vol. 45, 1887, p. 604 reported:

Whitworth scholarship
The following is the list of candidates successful in the competition for the Whitworth Scholarships, 1887 : — James Whitaker, 21, engineer student, Burnley, ,£200 ; John Calder, 20, mechanical engineer, Glasgow, £160; John Smith, 22, carpenter, Belfast, £ 150 ; Nicholas K. Turnbull, 21, mechanical engineer...

Afterwards the Whitworth Society would keep following his tracks. So far the only source found about his year of birth and his year of death originates from the The Whitworth register, republished in the 1940s, p. 50, which mentions

Calder, John (Glasgow) M.E. (College of Science & Arts, Glasgow)
b. 1866, d. 1936. Apprenticed to Sir William McConie & Co., Glasgow, and Denny & Co., Dumbarton, after four years at College of Science & Arts, Glasgow. After seven years consulting and inspection in Scottish Industry emigrated to the U.S. where he occupied such positions as General Manager of Works of Remington Typewriter Co., and Cadillac Motor Co. Has published numerous books and papers on Works Management and Industrial Relations.

The first company was probably the W. and A. McOnie, manufacturer of sugar machinery in Glasgow, by William McOnie and two of his brothers.

1890s

Late 1890s there was a first mentioning from Calder acting as Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories. The magazine Engineering, Vol. 67, 1899, p. 516 mentioned:

NOTES FROM THE NORTH. Glasgow ... Mr. John Calder, Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories, Aberdeen, addressed the graduates' section of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland, at the last meeting of that body, on the " Prevention of Accidents in Factories." In the course of his address he stated that there were 200,000 factories of various kinds in the country, employing 4\ millions of people. In 80,000 factories, with an average of 47 employes, mechanical power was used. In those factories there were 40,000 accidents during 1897, in which 700 persons were killed. Only one woman in 100,000 was killed, one girl in 30,000, one boy in 7000, and one man in 4000, and the relative figures in the non-fatal accidents were much the same. Dealing with the causes of accidents, Mr. Calder said that in spite of the facilities now afforded for the acquisition of some knowledge of mechanical principles, many workmen and some foremen and employers were grossly ignorant of the nature of the forces and mechanical arrangements which it is in their power either to control, or to set free with resulting danger to themselves and others.

The last part of the message originated form The Mechanical Engineer and Prevention of Accidents, p. 140, and was published in over a dozen similar journals around 1910.

The conditions about the dismissal as Inspector of Factories, can be found in Sessional Papers of the Houses of Commons. The Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons (1901), Sessional Papers. Vol. 44, p. 135, gave the late 1899 minutes, in which the dismissal of John Calder was subject of debate:

Secretary of State, Home Department, Whitehall, Sir, 29 December 1899. I am directed by Secretary Sir Matthew Ridley to report to you the circumstances in which Mr. John Calder, formerly Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories, Aberdeen, has been dismissed from the Public Service.
In September last Mr. Cooke-Taylor, Her Majesty's Superintending Inspector of Factories or Scotland, having had cause to suspect the reports received by him from Mr. Calder, determined to test their accuracy by visiting the places alleged by Mr. Calder in his reports to have been inspected on certain days in the latter part of the month of August. The result was that of the visit said to have been paid by Mr. Calder on those days, for which travelling expenses had been claimed by him, it was found that not one visit had actually taken place.
After the receipt of Mr. Cooke-Taylor's report of the result of his investigation, the Secretary of State directed Mr. Calder's suspension from duty, and communicated with the Lord Advocate in regard to the taking of criminal proceedings against him on a charge of attempting to obtain money on false pretences...

This seem to have taken place in the year 1899. It's unclear if criminal proceedings actually had been taken up, and how this relates to Calder and his family emigrating to the United States. The next page of the Sessional Papers, Vol. 44, 1901, p. 136 does mention:

Secretary of State. Home Department, Whitehall. Sir, " 29 November 1900. I am directed by Mr. Secretary Ritchie to transmit to you, herewith, for the consideration of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, a copy of a letter addressed by direction of the Secretary of States to the Comptroller and Auditor General in December last, reporting the circumstances in which Mr. John Calder, formerly Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories, at Aberdeen, had been dismissed from the Public Service. To this communication the Auditor General replied that he would be glad to receive any further information on the subject as and when it could be given ; but as Mr. Calder has been successful in evading arrest, no further information has been forthcoming.
The Auditor General having now inquired whether the amount fraudulently obtained by Mr. Calder has yet been approximately estimated and whether the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have been made acquainted with the facts if the case. Mr. Ritchie desires to lay the case before their Lordships, and to explain that it would not be possible to form any estimate of the loss sustained through Mr. Calder's misconduct without making inquiries of the occupiers of all the factories and workshops reported by Mr. Calder as having been inspected by him for some months at least before the latter part of August 1899. a course which would not be productive of any definite result, and one which, for obvious reasons, the Secretary of State would regard as detrimental to the public interest...

1900s

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The first publications in the new century, where about the book Calder had published. For example the George Dudley Aspinall Parr (1901), Practical Electrical Testing in Physics and Electrical Engineering: ... mentioned:

CALDER.—THE PREVENTION OF FACTORY ACCIDENTS: being an Account of Manufacturing Industry and Accident, and a Practical Guide to the Law on the Safe-guarding, Safe-working and Safe-construction of Factory Machinery, Plant and Premises. By John Calder, sometime Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories for the North of Scotland.

In 1903 the work of Calder at the C. W. Hunt Company in West New Brighton, N. Y. company came into prominence. For example the Electrical Review, Vol. 43, 1903, p. 759 mentioned:

JOHN CALDER, who has been with the C. W. Hunt Company, West New Brighton, N. Y., as its executive engineer, left on Saturday, November 14, for Ilion, N. Y., where he will be connected with the management of the Remington Typewriter...

Calder had joined the ASME and was mentioned in it's Transactions, Vol. 24, 1903, p. 1320. These described the discussion between Mr. F.W. Taylor, Mr. Wm Kent, Mr. Gantt, Mr. John Calder and Mr. Charles Day after the 1903 presentation by Day, entitled The Machine Shop Problem. Calder had participated in the afterwards discussion, and had commented:

Referring to Mr. Day's graphical method of illustrating certain routine in respect to manufacturing in the simp, I will say I think that is one of the most useful methods which a manager can have before him. It can be carried out in many different ways, so that not only the manager can from time to time refresh his memory as to the duties of the men by graphically illustrating to them, but he can also have the reference there before his eyes in the event of new men coming in, and by means of that graphic representation, can show them how to pick up their work much more quickly and put it through. It also enables one to pick out bad methods and prevent work retrograding. I would say, in conclusion, that the method Mr. Day has brought forward can be used generally, broadly, and also in detail, with great success. I hand in samples of charts which I have drawn up and use daily in the practical work of production. (Fig. 288.)

The chart that Calder showed, and was printed in the Transaction article, was the same as system chart No 1, published in Horace Lucian Arnold's (1930) The Factory manager and accountant, p. 322. The author Charles Day (1879-1931) (not to be confused with the British gracesguide.co.uk) was on the break of becoming into prominence in those days. He was credited by Wrege (1978) for "presented a paper in the diagrammatic analysis of work flow in machine shops." The article however was illustrated with a partial organizational chart, three mind maps and a early network diagram. The illustration Calder provided actually pictured the organization structure of a machine shop, and the order and other data streams. See further #About the early use of flow charts

Engineering Magazine, Vol. 26, 1904, p. 482

... these engineers availing themselves of the advice of Mr. Edwin Reynolds, consulting engineer of the company. ... John Calder, who has been with the C: W. Hunt Company as its executive engineer, left on Saturday, November 14th. for Ilion, N. Y., where he will be connected with the management of the Remington Typewriter Company. Before leaving, he was treated to a pleasant surprise. A few minutes before the noon hour, members and employees of the company gathered around his desk to participate in the presentation of a handsome silver loving cup suitably inscribed. Mr. George S. Humphrey presented the token to him, with a few appropriate remarks, expressing the esteem in which he was held both professionally and personally by the donors. Mr. Calder made a brief impromptu reply, expressing his...
1910s

In 1911 the Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers mentioned, that Calder presented the lecture The American engineer and prevention of accidents at a New York monthly meeting, February 1911, of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The journal mentioned:

The paper by John Calder on The Mechanical Engineer and Prevention of Accidents was presented and discussed by A. C. Edwards at a meeting of the University of Missouri Student Branch, on April 3.

Ernest Merton Best (1912), Business Equipment Topics. Vol. 20-22, p. 121

Typewriter Men Meet at Monarch Works John Calder, general manager of the Remington typewriter factory at Ilion, and John H. Barr. consulting engineer for the Union Typewriter Co., of New York, met last month with officers of the Smith...

Engineering and Contracting, Vol. 39, 1913, p. 36

At a special meeting of the Board of Directors of the International Motor Co., on June 13, John Calder was elected President, in place of C. P. Coleman, resigned. Robert E. Fulton was elected Vice President, and Mr. F. R. Phillips has been

In March 28, 1913 The Philadelphia Inquirer, published the following article about a Calder's appointment as vice-president of the International Motor Company:

John Calder, formerly associate general manager of the Motor Car Company, of Detroit, has just accepted the appointment of acting vice president of the International Motors Company, manufacturers of Mack, fourer and Hewitt trucks. Mr. Calder will have general supervision over, engineering design and production of the company's three manufacturing plants at Plainfield, N. J; Allentown, Pa., economic administration of industrial establishments in the United States and los been associated as industrial engineer and general works manager with manufacturing corporations whose names are legion for the quality of their product and their large successes. Mr. Calder was for nine years identified with Remington Works, of Ilion, N. Y.. as general manager, and prior to' that was executive engineer of the C. W. Hunt Company, whose large works are located on Staten Island, N. Y. Mr. Calder's unusual record for the introduction of economic administration in these large industrial establishments attracted several years ago the attention of Mr. W. C. Leland, of the Cadillac Motor Car Company, one of tho best-known and most successful administrators in the automobile industry, who invited Mr. Calder to become associated with him in the production departments of the Cadillac Company, which enjoys an enviable reputation for its efficient and economic manufacturing departments. Mr. Calder will be elected vice president of the International Motor Company at the first meeting of the directors.
Mr. Calder's acquisition as vice president should bring wide congratulations to the International Motor Company by those who are best qualified to know his ability as a production expert. Mr. Calder's activity in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he is a full member, lias gained for him a marked reputation as an authority on industrial safety, hygiene and industrial efficiency. Mr. F. R. Phillips, former works manager, becomes assistant to Mr. Calder.

In 1915 the Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (p. 729) mentions Calder in the new function as President of the Metals Coating Company:

The Engineering Society of Buffalo held a successful meeting on November 17 at the J. P. Devine Company's plant in Buffalo, at which Jolm Calder, President of the Metals Coating Company of America, addressed the Society on the Sehoop Process of Spraying Metals. The lecture was accompanied by a very interesting demonstration of a process new to America, the coating of wood, paper, iron, steel and other substances with metals.
The importance of the process which was brought to this country by Mr. Calder from Switzerland, is, as regards steel-and-iron construction, the arrest of -corrosion and rust. Mr. Calder explained that that tuberculosis which iron and steel suffers from, has been arrested to some extent temporarily by paints, enamels and their substitutes.

A year later Calder has moved on again, as Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1916 mentions:

John Calder has been appointed works manager and assistant to vice-president H. H. Pinuey of the Bridgeport works of the...

Automotive Engineering, Vol. 3, 1918, p. 89

John Calder has been made vice-president and general manager of the Aero Marine Plane it Engine Co., Keyport,...

By 1918 John Calder was director of the publication of the Course in modern production methods.[1]

Engineering News-record. Vol. 82, 1919, p. 793:

Dr. Charles A. Eaton presented a forceful address on the subject of industrial democracy, and John Calder, consulting engineer, formerly general manager of the Remington Typewriter Co., treated the subject of "Recent Advances in Industrial Management."

The Niagara Area: A Monthly News Journal. 1919, Volume 10.

John Calder is the director of the course. Ile is one of the best known production men in the country. He was consulting engineer to the French government in perfecting the organization of a great munitions factory in Paris. As manager of the works of the Remington Arms Co., Bridgeport, Conn., Mr. Calder had charge of 9,000 men. The course will take twelve weeks for completion, class sessions being held every Thursday evening at Central Y. M. C. A.
1920s

The BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, 1921 mentioned:

BUSINESS TRAINING CORPORATION.
185 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y. 440 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, 111.
This corporation conducts a course in modern production methods, planned by Mr. John Calder, in charge of industrial relations for Swift & Co., Chicago, for the training of foremen. An outline of the subject matter and method of procedure is given in a pamphlet entitled “A plan for group training for making better foremen, adopted by 300 leading concerns,” which may be obtained on application.

Blast Furnace and Steel Plant. Vol. 10, 1922, p. 599:

John Calder, consulting engineer, Lexington, Mass., who has devoted the past three years to organizing and managing the industrial relations of Swift & Company, in its various plants in the United States and Canada, as central office in...

Advance, Vol. 108, 1923, p. 779

... in Industry REVIEWED BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF The sub-title of a new book by John Calder is A Manual of Principles ... an industrial and consulting engineer, who has not only had a continuous experience in industry of nearly forty years.

The Iron Age, Vol. 111, 1924, p. 452":

By John Calder. ... Mr. Calder's work as an engineer and his experience as a manager of men in industry make his thinking on "the labor problem," as hackneyed speech calls it, ... As general manager of the Remington Typewriter Co., general manager of the Cadillac Motor Car Co. ... Sitting on the employer's side of the table has made him by no means deficient in appreciation of the worker's claims.

The Rotarian, Vol. 24, nr. 2, Feb. 1924

John Calder, industrial investigator and organizer, has written an article on "Capital, Labor, and the Public" for the March Number of The Rotarian, an article

The Rotarian, Vol. 24, nr. 3, March 1924, Pagina 6

John Calder who writes of "Capital, Labor and the Public," is a consulting engineer of Lexington, Mass. He was trained in the steel industry of Scotland and is an honor graduate of the Royal Technical College. He has managed American plants for twenty years and has acquired a national reputation for his work in industrial relations.

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1925), ASME Yearbook, p. 250

CALDER, John ('03), Cons. Engr., V. P., Wheelock Bogue, Inc., 141 Milk

John Robertson Dunlap, ‎Henry Clemens Pearson (1925). Rubber World, Vol. 71, p. 178

John Calder, consulting engineer, was the principal speaker, his subject being "Human Nature in Industry." In common with other tire manufacturers, the Hood Rubber Co., Watertown, Massachusetts, has been doing a record business for a .

Jerome Davis (1926), Business and the church: a symposium. p. 2

JOHN CALDER Consulting Engineer Mr. Calder was trained in the steel industry of Scotland and is an honor graduate of the Royal Technical College. For twenty-five years he managed well known American plants, including those of the of the Remington Typewriter Company and the Cadillac Motor Car Company. He acquired a national reputation in labor management and was called to be the first manager of industrial relations of Swift & Co. with over 100 plants. There, during several years, he developed policies and made a marked success of employee repiesentation, of the organization and education of foremen and executives, and of personnel services. He is now in practice as a consultant. His book "Capital's Duty to the Wage Earner" has attracted wide attention in the past two years. Time for Making Ashpit Molds Lowered by Machine Combining Jolt-Ram,. IT is interesting twelve years after...

Amherst Graduates' Quarterly, Vol. 16, 1926, p. 59

1920 Howard M. Bassett, Secretary, 56 Wall Street, New York City Glenn F. Card was married in June to Miss Wilma D. Calder, daughter of John Calder of Lexington, Mass. The ceremony was performed in the Church of the Pilgrims in New...
1930s

Saul G. Bron (1930), Soviet Economic Development and American Business: Results of the ...

Among these are the following: John Calder — General superintendent of construction for Traktor-stroy (Stalingrad tractor plant), and six foremen. Leon S. Moisseiff — Consulting engineer for Commissariat for Transportation. The Precision ...

Rajani Palme Dutt (1932), Labour Monthly. Vol. 14, p. 616

John Calder, a Canadian consulting engineer at Magnitogorsk, says to the Toronto Star (May 21 , 1932) : " When I read the bunk that's printed in North American papers about Russia, that's the only time I see red . . . There never was anything...

The Literary Digest, Vol. 114, 1932, p. 35

A Kansas Winner of the Order of Lenin George MacDowell has brought to birth a huge Soviet State Farm. ... is John Calder, one of the many American technicians who are helping Soviet leaders put the Five- Year Plan across, and who are the ..
1940s

Research Bureau for Post-War Economics, ‎Lawrence T. Beck (1944), The Engineer in the Post-war World: Speeches and Addresses Delivered ...

Commissariat of Transportation, was a consulting engineer on the George Washington Bridge. There were also John Calder, the Detroit contractor who aided in the development of Soviet automotive plants; Harold Ware, the American...

1950s

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1960s

One of the first to recon the accomplishments was George Jean Nathan, ‎Henry Louis Mencken (1960), The American Mercury, Vol. 90, p. 49, who stated:

The American engineer John Calder helped the Soviets construct their two major industrial developments of the period — the steel and iron plants of ... (who received the Order of Lenin), Howard J. MacDowell and Arthur Powell Davis. Sidney ...
1970s

Early 1970s more notable work by Antony C. Sutton (1971), Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development; 1930 to 1945, explained more in detail:

John Calder's work epitomized American engineering practice in the U.S.S.R. At one time connected with construction of the River Rouge plant as well as the Packard plant in the U.S., he was from 1929 to 1933 the chief Soviet trouble-shooter, sent by Soviet authorities to any project in trouble or behind schedule, Calder held numerous official positions—Chief Construction Engineer at Stalingrad Tractor Plant (before Swajian), a similar position at Chelyabinsk, Technical Supervisor of 90 steel plants under the Stal' Trust, Technical Director at Magnitogorsk, Chief Consultant at the Lake Balkash copper project, and so on. Called by Maurice Hindus 'Russia's miracle man,' 41 he received the Order of Lenin (the highest Soviet order) and is generally known as the hero of the Soviet play Tempo, by Nikolai Pogodin. [p. 12] ... John Calder was chief adviser to Ivanov and took over when Wheeler withdrew completely from Russia. [p. 55]

And furthermore:

The Stalingrad Tractor Plant was the first of three massive plants for the production of tractors in peace and tanks in war. It was built in every sense of the word in the United States and reassembled by 570 Americans and 50 Germans in Stalingrad. The plant was delivered in component parts, and installed in a building supplied by McClintock and Marshall and erected under John Calder of the Austin Company. Za Indmtrializatmu pointed out that 'it is very important to note that the work of the American specialists . . . was not that of consulting b at of actually superintending the entire construction and the various operations involved.' [p. 185-6]

In a later publication Antony C. Sutton (1973), National suicide: military aid to the Soviet Union, explained once more:

  • American engineers, including John Calder, the expert troubleshooter, were then called in to take over construction of the plant and initial operating ... The chief consulting engineer from 1931 to 1933 108 The Chelyabinsk "Tractor" Plant. [p. 108]

About the early use of flow charts

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The contribution of Calder to the early use of flow charts was first recognized by Charles D. Wrege, "Pioneer Documents in MIS A Closer Look." Proceedings. Vol. 1. American Institute for Decision Sciences, 1978. In the article summary he first summarized the state of the art:

It has been claimed chat prior to 1920, flowcharts were used merely to depict the flow of materials and that It was not until the period of 1920-1950, that flowcharts were modified to show paper work flow. The research in this paper reveals that the importance of charting paper flow was recognised as early as 1903. In addition, numerous improvements and advancements were made between 1903 and 1915. The authors believe that Management Information Systems scholars should know more about these antecedents and search for more information about forgotten contributors to the development of MIS.
BACKGROUND
In 1973, Couger said that "prior to 1920, process flow charts were only used by Frederick W. Taylor only to show the flow of material" and not until the period of 1920, was "the process flow chart... modified to depict forms flow. [p. 303]

It was Calder's opinion that this was wrong. He argued:

... Careful study of unpublished manuscripts in archives and in the personal possession of the authors, reveals Couger was wrong and that as early as 1903, activity flowcharts showing the flow of paper work through an organization were in daily use. In his research, Couger only used popular accounts of early management procedures and ignored unpublished documents and obscure publications. But the real history of the evolution of MIS lies buried in such sources and they must be studied to learn the early history of MIS. An earlier paper by the senior author researched the MIS work of Barth, Feiss and Hall Zfil. The present paper examines the contributions of John Calder and additional material on the early work of Carl Barth.
JOHN CALDER: MIS "NETWORKS" (1903)
In 1903, Charles Day presented a paper in the diagrammatic analysis of work flow in machine shops. During a discussion of this paper, John Calder, revealed his use of an early form of MIS "network" to chart the flow of materials and paper work Eb]. Analysis of Calder's chart reveals it contained elements of the "networks" used in quantitative approaches to management because in "networks, events are generally drawn as circles, and activities are presented as arrows joining two circles." In his chart, Calder utilized an identical procedure. A special feature of his chart was his use of a portable file containing in sequence all correspondence on orders and copies of all drawings. This file remained with the order and, like a computer terminal, permitted immediate reference to all paper work.

Wrege is speaking here about the one chart of Calder, later presented by H.L. Arnold as "System Chart 1."

In the first quote above, Wrege was probably referring to a work, republished in: J. Daniel Couger, ‎Mel A. Colter, ‎Robert W. Knapp (1982) Advanced system development/feasibility techniques, p. 17, which stated:

Techniques for portraying information flow evolved from process flow charts used by industrial engineers in the early 1900s. Process flow charts were used for very different purpose. They depicted the flow of physical products through a production process, including related material flows. Frederick W. Taylor was the leader in the development of the process flow charts. With the introduction of computers, analysts did not develop new tools specifically for computer-related system analysis. . Their approach was to modify techniques used for analysis and design of manual systems... Because each of our presenr-day systems contain some manual activities, it is important to evaluate these techniques for manual system analysis in light of their applicability to current systems.

Also Couger (1982, p. 22), which mentions

FORMS FLOW CHART
As organizations grew and paperwork began to be a problem, the process flow chart was modified to depict forms flow. Figure 3 illustrates a forms flow chart. It was similar to the process flow chart in that special symbols were used to identify different activities. However, an additional feature was added — vertical lines to identify organizational responsibility for various activities. he objectives in improving the system were similar to those stated previously. It is obvious from the chart, however, that the quantity and distribution of copies of forms were highlighted as a target for simplification.

The 1978 article of Wrege continued on the contribution of the Carl Barth to flow charting:

CARL BARTH: DECISION POINT SYMBOLS (1915)
While Carl Barth developed flowcharts of paper work in 1908 [A], he continued to improve them and by 1915, h created two advanced charts of this nature. In the first (chart #180), dated April 23, 1915, he introduced symbols to represent decision points. They were identified by a letter (referring to the paper work in question), placed in a circle located In the center of a line showing the direction of paper work flow as in Figure 2 D3 • Two months later, on June 25, 1915, (Chart #181) he modified the symbols to represent both decision points and the state of decisions at specific locations as shown in Figure 3 C2D. The June 25, 1915 symbols were...

1980s

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The interest in Calder's work continued in the 1980s. For example the Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress, 1984, p. 3754 summarized about his years in Russia :

Among these are the following: John Calder—General superintendent of construction for Traktorstroy (Stalingrad tractor plant), and six foremen. Leon S. Moisseiff—Consulting engineer for Commissariat for Transportation. The Precision...

Raymond L. Hogler (1989) Worker Participation, Employer Anti-Unionism, and Labor Law: the Case of the Steel Industry, 1918-1937 told about the consulting work of Calder at Bethlehem corporation in the early 1920s

By 1923, the Bethlehem corporation employed more than 55,000 employees at seven steel plants in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York. In John Calder's favorable assessment, workers at each operation were "happily functioning under the [representation] plan . . . . ,[103] Calder extolled the Bethlehem system as a model of industrial democracy based on trust and cooperation. Its "unique feature" was that "the employees of each of its plants are trusted to organize as a body, to meet through their collective representatives of their own choosing and to formulate their opinions or requests."[104]
Calder, Five Years of Employee Representation Under "The Bethlehem Plan," The Iron Age, June 14, 1923, at 1690.

And furthermore Hogler (1989) explained

Grievances or requests were channeled through a series of steps involving the employee representative, the management representative, a joint appeals committee, the president of the corporation, and an outside arbitrator. According to the Calder report, a striking indication of the success of the plan was that in five years, no case proceeded to arbitration, and only one case in more than 2,400 went beyond the joint appeals committee.[105] That fact, Calder pointed out, did not signify that President Grace was removed from the process; his office maintained detailed records of all cases taken up by all representatives in the various plants. Statistics compiled by Calder reveal that the majority of cases involved employment and working conditions, with the issue of compensation being the next most important category. Others dealt with safety, health, transportation, pensions, housing, and recreation. Of a total number of 2,365 cases, Calder states that 1,682 were settled in favor of employees, and 330 against.[106]
104. Id. at 1692.; 105. Id. at 1694.
1990s

Mark Aldrich, Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Business in the Building of American ..., 1997, p. 117 recalled that:

John Calder, an engineer and general manager of Remington Typewriter, claimed that "The principles of safeguarding the workers should be as much a part of the education of the engineer as should those of efficiency in other directions."

Another summary of the contribution of Calder to flow charting gave Charles D. Wrege et al. "What we do not know about management history," (1999, 419), which states:

Example 1. Early charts of information flow, decision alternatives and the psychology of decision (1903-1923). In 1903, Charles Day and John Calder revealed a series of charts designed to outline information flow and to demonstrate the advantage of network analysis of alternative methods of modernizing factories (Day, 1903).
Day’s Company, Dodge and Day (later Day and Zimmerman), utilized his network charts, “betterment reports” and early form of “decision trees” until his death in 1933, building a consulting company worth millions. After Day’s death, Day and Zimmerman reportedly sold Day’s original charts to the Lockheed Company, but their eventual fate and how they became incorporated into management information systems literature is still a mystery.
Parallel to Day’s work were “information flow” charts prepared by Carl Barth (Taylor’s mathematician), to implement the Taylor system (Barth, 1960). The first chart appeared in 1908 and more elaborate charts depicting information flow with decision points and decision symbols appeared by 1915. Barth continued to prepare these charts until 1923, but where they were used and how they influenced systems theory is unknown.


New millennium

Alan M. Ball (2003), Imagining America: Influence and Images in Twentieth-century Russia. p. 125:

A group of American engineers led once again by John Calder supervised construction of the factory, and Edward Terry served as chief consulting engineer from 1931 to 1933...

"John Alexander Calder 1895-1976 Steuben County," by Claire Jewkes April 05, 2005 at 11:06:02

Searching for information or descendents of John Alexander Calder b 1895 Aberdeen, Scotland died 14/May/1976 Steuben County New York, parents were John Calder and Jessie Sharp Niven Alexander, came to the US about 1898.
John and Jessie also had Agnes Hyslop Calder and Wilma D Calder. John Alexander was a twin, his brother died a few days old in Scotland

Calder family from Scotland to Massachusettes - Message Boards, 11 apr. 2005

Searching for information or descendants of John Calder b 1867 in Scotland and wife Jessie Sharp Niven Alexander b 1872 in Scotland, came to the US in 1900, children
John b 1895 scotland
Agnesb 1898 scotland
Wilma b 1899 Scotland
Alexander b 1906 New York
Gilbert b 1909 New York
John senior died before 1930 Jessie before 1920, Agnes in is Mclean hospital Massachusettes in 1930.
John b 1895 married an Agnes? but have no children b 1930.

The Guide to the Charles D. Wrege Papers, (2017) listed:

1903 - John Calder Chart 1903 - Box 14 Folder 42 - Copy of original document
1903 - John Calder Chart 1903 - Box 14 Folder 43 - Copies of original documents
1903 - John Calder Flow Chart - ASME 1903 (Charles Day Article) - Box 14 Folder 44 Copies of original documents
1903 - John Calder Systems Chart 1903 - Box 14 Folder 45 - Copy of original document
...
1920-1923 Data on John Calder (Had 1903 Systems Chart) Box 14 Folder 47 Original document
1903-1913 John Calder - on Production Control - Efficiency Society Transaction 1912 Box 14 Folder 48

-- Mdd (talk) 12:50, 7 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

  1. ^ Calder (1920, p. ii)