Walter Rautenstrauch

September 7, 1880 (age 70)

Sedalia, Missouri, United States

Rautenstrauch was assistant professor at Cornell (1904 - 1906) and then professor at the Columbia University School of Engineering until his retirement in 1945, serving as professor emeritus until his death. Like many college-educated engineers of his time, Rautenstrauch became convinced of the usefulness of Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management theories and of the new field of industrial engineering. With Harlow S. Person he helped to form the Taylor Society, which later became the Society for Advancement of Management. In 1916 Henry L. Gantt, the foremost Taylorite engineer, formed the New Machine, an organization aimed at restructuring industry and society along the lines of scientific management. As secretary of the New Machine, Rautenstrauch was an articulate spokesman for the engineers' belief that President Woodrow Wilson should transfer control of industry from businessmen to industrial engineers. The organization failed to gain wide support and was disbanded during World War I. Rautenstrauch was more successful, however, in persuading universities to accept industrial engineering, and convinced Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia, that the university should conduct industrial research and train engineers. In 1919 Columbia established the first department of industrial engineering, which Rautenstrauch headed until his retirement. Rautenstrauch's interest in politics waned in the 1920's. After an ambitious but unsuccessful plan to rehabilitate the industry of the Soviet Union, which he developed in 1921 with George W. Goethals, he became a consultant and executive of several industrial firms. Meanwhile, he continued to press engineers to accept greater responsibility for society. Rautenstrauch achieved national prominence through his involvement with the technocracy movement of the early 1930's. With the onset of the Great Depression, his belief in the potential of social engineering had resurfaced. Attacking economists, politicians, and business leaders for their failure to solve the economic debacle, he called on engineers to offer scientific solutions to industrial problems. To achieve this end, he formed the Committee on Technocracy in 1932, under the auspices of the Columbia Department of Industrial Engineering. In addition to Rautenstrauch, who headed the committee, the original technocrats - as the members called themselves - were Howard Scott, who later became leader of the movement; economist Leon Henderson, head of the Russell Sage Foundation; architect and urban planner Frederick L. Ackerman; Marion King Hubbert, a geophysicist and expert on energy resources; and engineers Bassett Jones, Dal Hitchcock, and Harold King. Although the technocrats lacked a fully coherent social analysis or ideology, their central argument was that because North America had become a "high energy" technological society drastic changes were required in the organizational structure of society. Massive unemployment, they maintained, had resulted from the technological displacement of workers. Although their idea of technological unemployment was not original, the technocrats were responsible for making it a public issue. Blaming the price system for creating mounting debt, they charged that neither representative government nor businessmen were capable of preventing a total economic collapse. Rautenstrauch's first public announcement in August 1932 touched off a craze that continued for the next nine months. Technocracy became front-page news, hundreds of organizations of self-styled technocrats sprang up, and technocracy appeared to be developing into a powerful social and economic movement. Rautenstrauch, however, became uncomfortable with the organization that he had helped to create. Scott and the more radical advocates called for "governance by science, " the abolition of elective government, and transfer of power to engineers. Disenchantment led Rautenstrauch in January 1933 to resign, along with Ackerman, Henderson, and Jones. Although popular support for technocracy had not yet peaked, the press took Rautenstrauch's resignation as signaling the end of the movement. Six weeks later technocracy sustained a major blow when damaging disclosures concerning Scott's background were made public. He had not attended European universities as he had claimed, nor had he been engaged in executive engineering capacities in the United States and abroad. The leader of a movement purporting to be of international economic significance, it was learned, was penniless, several thousand dollars in debt, dunned by a dozen creditors, and living solely on handouts from friends. Rautenstrauch continued to remain critical of the government's economic policy and subsequently became a staunch supporter of civil liberties. He advocated profit controls, abolition of fixed interest charges, a moratorium on debts, reorganization of the banking system, and a tax on machines. In 1948 he campaigned for Henry Wallace for president and was active in the defense of Edward U. Condon, director of the National Bureau of Standards, who was under attack by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. He died at Palisade, New Jersey.

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Machine Drafting and Empirical Design, Vol. 1: A Text-Book for Students in Engineering Schools and Others Who Are Beginning the Study of Drawing as ... Design; Machine Drafting (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Machine Drafting and Empirical Design, Vol. ...)

Principles of Modern Industrial Organization

The Economics Of Industrial Management

Syllabus of Lectures and Notes on the Elements of Machine Design (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Syllabus of Lectures and Notes on the Elemen...)

Machine Drafting and Empirical Design: A Text-Book for Students in Engineering Schools, and Others Who Are Beginning the Study of Drawing as Applied to Machine Design

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Walter Rautenstrauch Edit Profile

educator engineer

Background

Walter Rautenstrauch was born on September 7, 1880 in Sedalia, Missouri, the son of Julius and Anna Nichter Rautenstrauch.

Education

He received the B. S. from the University of Missouri in 1902 and the M. S. the following year. He then undertook a year of advanced study at Cornell University.

Career

Rautenstrauch was assistant professor at Cornell (1904 - 1906) and then professor at the Columbia University School of Engineering until his retirement in 1945, serving as professor emeritus until his death.

Like many college-educated engineers of his time, Rautenstrauch became convinced of the usefulness of Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management theories and of the new field of industrial engineering. With Harlow S. Person he helped to form the Taylor Society, which later became the Society for Advancement of Management.

In 1916 Henry L. Gantt, the foremost Taylorite engineer, formed the New Machine, an organization aimed at restructuring industry and society along the lines of scientific management. As secretary of the New Machine, Rautenstrauch was an articulate spokesman for the engineers' belief that President Woodrow Wilson should transfer control of industry from businessmen to industrial engineers. The organization failed to gain wide support and was disbanded during World War I.

Rautenstrauch was more successful, however, in persuading universities to accept industrial engineering, and convinced Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia, that the university should conduct industrial research and train engineers.

In 1919 Columbia established the first department of industrial engineering, which Rautenstrauch headed until his retirement. Rautenstrauch's interest in politics waned in the 1920's. After an ambitious but unsuccessful plan to rehabilitate the industry of the Soviet Union, which he developed in 1921 with George W. Goethals, he became a consultant and executive of several industrial firms.

Meanwhile, he continued to press engineers to accept greater responsibility for society. Rautenstrauch achieved national prominence through his involvement with the technocracy movement of the early 1930's. With the onset of the Great Depression, his belief in the potential of social engineering had resurfaced. Attacking economists, politicians, and business leaders for their failure to solve the economic debacle, he called on engineers to offer scientific solutions to industrial problems.

To achieve this end, he formed the Committee on Technocracy in 1932, under the auspices of the Columbia Department of Industrial Engineering. In addition to Rautenstrauch, who headed the committee, the original technocrats - as the members called themselves - were Howard Scott, who later became leader of the movement; economist Leon Henderson, head of the Russell Sage Foundation; architect and urban planner Frederick L. Ackerman; Marion King Hubbert, a geophysicist and expert on energy resources; and engineers Bassett Jones, Dal Hitchcock, and Harold King.

Although the technocrats lacked a fully coherent social analysis or ideology, their central argument was that because North America had become a "high energy" technological society drastic changes were required in the organizational structure of society. Massive unemployment, they maintained, had resulted from the technological displacement of workers.

Although their idea of technological unemployment was not original, the technocrats were responsible for making it a public issue. Blaming the price system for creating mounting debt, they charged that neither representative government nor businessmen were capable of preventing a total economic collapse.

Rautenstrauch's first public announcement in August 1932 touched off a craze that continued for the next nine months. Technocracy became front-page news, hundreds of organizations of self-styled technocrats sprang up, and technocracy appeared to be developing into a powerful social and economic movement.

Rautenstrauch, however, became uncomfortable with the organization that he had helped to create. Scott and the more radical advocates called for "governance by science, " the abolition of elective government, and transfer of power to engineers. Disenchantment led Rautenstrauch in January 1933 to resign, along with Ackerman, Henderson, and Jones. Although popular support for technocracy had not yet peaked, the press took Rautenstrauch's resignation as signaling the end of the movement. Six weeks later technocracy sustained a major blow when damaging disclosures concerning Scott's background were made public. He had not attended European universities as he had claimed, nor had he been engaged in executive engineering capacities in the United States and abroad.

The leader of a movement purporting to be of international economic significance, it was learned, was penniless, several thousand dollars in debt, dunned by a dozen creditors, and living solely on handouts from friends. Rautenstrauch continued to remain critical of the government's economic policy and subsequently became a staunch supporter of civil liberties. He advocated profit controls, abolition of fixed interest charges, a moratorium on debts, reorganization of the banking system, and a tax on machines.

In 1948 he campaigned for Henry Wallace for president and was active in the defense of Edward U. Condon, director of the National Bureau of Standards, who was under attack by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities.

He died at Palisade, New Jersey.

Achievements

Much of Rautenstrauch's academic reputation was derived from his writings on engineering economics, which brought the scientific management theories of the early twentieth century up to date.