Charles D. Wrege

Wrege died on August 19, 2014, at his home in Spring Lake, New Jersey.

In his later years Wrege supplied Steven D. Levitt and John A. List with unpublished information and background data for their research later published in the 2011 article "Was There Really a Hawthorne Effect at the Hawthorne Plant?."

In 1991 Wrege and a colleague management historian Ron Greenwood (d. 1995) published a more general work on the myth and reality of Frederick W. Taylor as father of scientific management.

In the 1970s Wrege conducted further research into the origins of scientific management, especially on the pig-iron experiments by Frederick W. Taylor's. The pig-iron experiments on the loading of pig-iron were conducted by Taylor in 1899. Wrege and Perroni (1974) found out that

Back in the States after the war, he started his studies at the New Mexico Highlands University. Later on he moved back East, and obtained his AB in 1952 at the Upsala College. Next at The New School he had participated in the Asch conformity experiments, and in 1955 obtained his MA in Experimental Psychology. In 1956 he obtained his M.B.A. at the New York University, where in 1961 he also obtained his Ph.D. under John Glover.

In 1952, Wrege had started his career as industrial engineer at the Weston Electric Light Company in Newark, New Jersey. After his graduation at The New School he joined the faculty of the New York University at its School of Commerce. After his graduation in 1961 he moved to the Rutgers University, where he spend the rest of his academic career until his retirement in 1991.

This organizational chart was thought lost for years, until Alfred D. Chandler Jr. had suggested its existence. Chandler had unsuccessfully searched for it, which inspired Wrege to follow into his footsteps. After many years of research Wrege and Guidon Sorbo Jr. (1950 - ) located one last specimen at the Library of Congress in 2005 (see image).

Charles D. Wrege (March 11, 1924 – August 19, 2014) was an American management historian, and Professor at Rutgers University. He is known for his contributions to management history, especially his critical work on Frederick W. Taylor and scientific management.

Wrege wrote his PhD thesis at the New York University about the Hawthorne studies conducted by Elton Mayo and others in the 1920s and 1930s at the Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. Wrege published his findings in 1961 and his work was republished in 1986 by Garland publisher in New York.

During his historical studies of scientific management, Wrege developed a growing interest in the graphic history of Scientific Management, which he dated from 1856 to 1929. The year of 1856 apparently signified the origin, and this is the same year in which Daniel McCallum published the first modern organizational chart of the New York & Erie Railroad drawn by George Holt Henshaw.