Lillian Moller Gilbreth, born in 1878, along with her husband Frank Gilbreth, born in 1868, created a method to analyze work habits, which helped employers find new ways for job standardization and simplification. Lillian and Frank knew that their method of motion in the workplace could also be effective at home; they proved this method in the way they raised their twelve children (Graham 633). Lillian's definition of success would be to carefully analyze situations and assess them, create new ways for improvement, and work hard to achieve the set goals. She demonstrated her success in the way she managed her home and the workplace, using hard work, proper analysis, organization and time management. .
Growing up, Lillian Moller's parents taught her that higher education for women was unacceptable, wanting her to marry a rich man. Lillian disagreed. She excelled in high school and wanted to study literature and music, and went on to fulfill her desire with the permission of her parents; she graduated with her B.A. in Literature at the University of Berkeley (Maisel and Smart). Educated and independent, Lillian traveled to Europe with a group of young women chaperoned by a high school teacher, Minnie Bunker. On their way, they stopped in Boston and Minnie Bunker introduced Lillian to her cousin, Frank Gilbreth; they were taken by one another and, when she returned home from Europe, he proposed and they eventually married in 1904 (Woolf). Frank was a contracting engineer in New York, and Lillian had her doctoral studies in Literature; with his technical aspects of worker efficiency and her human aspects of management, they worked together in their own business, consulting for the Industrial Engineering industry (Encyclopedia Britannica 2003).
The husband and wife duo developed the method of "time and motion" study in the early 1900's. This was applied to work habits of industrial employees, in order to increase efficiency and hence their output (Encyclopedia Britannica 2003).