GALLERY XCIV
The Hawthorne Works
Researchers raised the lighting and output went up. They lowered it and output went up again. The finding named after this study may not be what the study found - which makes it the best available lesson in reading a classic.
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
LAB3-001 · The Hawthorne Works — Open the drawer
A handwritten weekly production record from the Hawthorne Works relay assembly test room (1927–1932), documenting worker output in units per week. Students encounter the raw data before learning its contested interpretation.
LAB3-002 · The Hawthorne Works — What is this thing?
Handwritten hourly output record from the relay assembly test room at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works, Chicago, 1927–1932. Five female assemblers logged completed units per shift, creating the raw data that would be reinterpreted across decades as evidence for the Hawthorne effect.
LAB3-003 · The Hawthorne Works — Read the source
A period-accurate production record from the Hawthorne Works relay assembly test room (1928–1932), showing daily output counts and corresponding lighting levels in foot-candles, used to teach students how to read experimental data and spot assumptions embedded in historical claims.
LAB3-004 · The Hawthorne Works — Map it / time it
A representative production tally sheet from the Western Electric Hawthorne Works relay assembly test room (1927–1932), recording worker output by day and shift alongside contemporaneous notes on lighting, rest breaks, and observer presence—the primary record through which the famous productivity paradox was later reinterpreted.
LAB3-005 · The Hawthorne Works — Two sources disagree
A handwritten daily production tally from the Hawthorne Works relay assembly experiment (1927–1932), recording output counts and lighting conditions—the primary record now scrutinized by modern reanalysis for missing data and selective reporting.
LAB3-006 · The Hawthorne Works — State the claim
A handwritten production tally sheet from the Western Electric Hawthorne Works relay assembly test room (1927–1932), recording daily output counts and lighting conditions. Students examine whether output rose when lights increased, decreased when lights fell, or remained steady regardless—the core puzzle of the Hawthorne effect claim.
LAB3-007 · The Hawthorne Works — Take the other side
A period production log from Western Electric's Hawthorne Works (1927–1932) recording hourly output of five female assemblers in a controlled lighting experiment, the primary data source for the study later named the Hawthorne effect.
LAB3-008 · The Hawthorne Works — Weigh it
Daily output tally sheet from the Western Electric Hawthorne Works relay assembly test room (1927–1932), recording worker productivity alongside experimental lighting and rest-period changes, the primary data source for the famous but contested Hawthorne effect studies.
LAB3-009 · The Hawthorne Works — Build the answer
A handwritten weekly output ledger from the Hawthorne Works relay assembly experiment (1927–1932), tracking worker productivity across lighting and rest-period interventions, the primary data source for claims about observer effects on human behavior.
LAB3-010 · The Hawthorne Works — For the file
Factory floor record of worker output during lighting experiments (1924–1932), Western Electric's Chicago plant. Original handwritten daily counts form the evidentiary core of the Hawthorne effect debate.
LAB3-011 · The Hawthorne Works — Go and look
A period production tally sheet from the Hawthorne Works relay assembly experiment (1927–1932), documenting worker output across lighting and rest-period conditions, the primary source for both the original claim and modern reanalysis.
LAB3-012 · The Hawthorne Works — Now, today
A handwritten production tally sheet from the Western Electric Hawthorne Works relay assembly test room (1927–1932), recording hourly output counts and experimental condition changes—the raw data behind the study that became synonymous with observer effects in organizational behavior.
LAB3-013 · The Hawthorne Works — Teach it back
A representative page from the daily record kept by experimenters observing five female telephone relay assemblers at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works, documenting output, lighting conditions, rest breaks, and wages—the primary source behind the famous paradox that output rose under both increased and decreased illumination.
LAB3-014 · The Hawthorne Works — The other place
Production tally sheet from the Relay Assembly Test Room (1927–1932), where five female workers assembled telephone relays under varied lighting and rest conditions. The log records output counts, break schedules, and illumination levels—primary data later reanalyzed to challenge the canonical Hawthorne effect narrative.
LAB3-015 · The Hawthorne Works — One object, close
A handwritten daily output record from the Hawthorne Works telephone relay assembly test room, circa 1928–1932, documenting worker productivity counts alongside contemporaneous lighting condition changes.
From the gallery’s own wall — “LAB3-001 · The Hawthorne Works — Open the drawer”.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?