Continuing an Alternative View of Public Administration

Abstract

This article argues that from 1918 through 1927 prominent social scientist and reformer Mary van Kleeck (1883-1972) pursued an alternative theory of public administration enunciated by women reformers in the early 1900s. van Kleeck continued to support the theory through her idea of industrial citizenship, through which labor and capital would work as equals. Two new forums for her idea—the International Taylor Society and Herbert Hoover’s Special Committee on Business Cycles—did not prove satisfactory, so van Kleeck helped promote the successful passage of a 48-hr bill for working women in New York by 1927 through social justice feminism.