What is it that makes large families so fascinating? A hundred years after the Gilbreth family welcomed their 12 children to the world, interest in the clan behind the original Cheaper by the Dozen remains. While there is likely not widespread curiosity about the family and the generations that have followed, there is an enthusiastic fan base with multiple websites devoted to exploration of the Gilbreth family legacy.
In some ways similar to Papa Married a Mormon, Frank Gilbreth, Jr., and Ernestine Gilbreth Cary’s Cheaper by the Dozen is an episodic memorialization more than a novelistic presentation of the family history. The family consisted of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, engineers in the then-emerging field of efficiency and motion study, and their legendary brood of a dozen mostly red-headed offspring, six girls and six boys. Ever the engineer, Frank spent years introducing each baby as “the latest model” and parading the talented young children for everyone’s amusement (except perhaps the amusement of his wife, who seems to have been rather demure).
Frank is perhaps best remembered for his saying, “I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Often misattributed to Bill Gates, the saying encapsulates the philosophy of the engineering behind factory design, efficiency kitchens, and labor-saving devices. Using observation, including with film and other devices, to study human action in mechanical procedures, the Gilbreths became influential consultants and speakers.
The subject of motion study does not immediately appeal to everyone. Apparently, we are supposed to all be thanking Lillian Gilbreth as we step seamlessly around the triangle of efficiency in the kitchen and enjoy the modern wonders of factory-produced goods. Luckily, whether you find passionate interest in motion study, the pioneers of the field had many interesting and amusing applications in their life, as captured by Frank, Jr., and his sister Ernestine. The siblings recount the seemingly endless experimentation carried out on the children. While that sounds barbaric, the stories told fondly offer a light-hearted perspective on the typing drills, language lessons, psychological evaluations, and filmed surgical procedures all in the service of a fascinating family culture and the study of human efficiency.
Even so, hearing that the Gilbreths were motion study experts might sound dreadfully dull, calling to mind images of Star Trek’s Spock, a mechanical character motivated solely by rationality. But the family tales of the Gilbreths reveal anything but. The emotional range and eccentricity that accompany the pursuit of scientific efficiency are wonderfully comic and such a charming illustration of human nature with all its quirks. What is perhaps most delightful about the Gilbreths is that they saw value in the inefficient exercise of having so many children. Without the children—and the unusual worldview that produced them—there would be, of course, no story.
At turns slapstick and adult in its humor, Cheaper by the Dozen is decidedly a book for grown-ups, though children will find episodes uproariously funny (such as the description of little Bill pulling a prank on their anguished father while he tries to fix the car). It is a retrospective by adults for adults. That said, many segments preserve a childlike perspective of the parents. That may be, in part, due to the fact that Frank died when many of the children were still quite young. In that respect, Cheaper by the Dozen is a lot like Papa Married a Mormon: a fond remembrance of a patriarch much loved who died before his time.
One aspect of the Gilbreth that fascinates is the novelty of having so many children. We tend to assume that everyone had dozens of children to staff the family farm a hundred years ago, but in the WASP-dominated semi-urban areas of the Atlantic United States, this was not the case. It seems the Gilbreths had Catholic influence (attending Sunday school) but were by no means a highly religious family, and the parents were not open to many children out of any religious or moral impulse.
This becomes all the more interesting when you realize the significant social pressure already at that time and in that place not to have children. The visit from the lady starting a local chapter of the birth control organization is very amusing. After being first put in touch with a mother of eight, Mrs. Bruce, as a joke, Mrs. Bruce cheekily sends her along to Mrs. Gilbreth as a qualified civic-minded career woman capable of spear-heading the birth control movement in their New Jersey town.
The birth control enthusiast assures Mrs. Bruce, “And don’t think that I disapprove of your having children…Afterall, many people do, you know.”
“Careless of them,” remarked Mrs. Bruce.
Having avoided the reckless breeder, the birth control league lady pays a visit to Mrs. Gilbreth, mother of 12. The outrage at finding such profligate activity (and “within eighteen miles of the national headquarters” of the birth control organization!) is highly comedic.
From the children’s telling (which may or may not be accurate or complete), Frank and Lillian had so many children because they enjoyed them. The reminiscences about the eldest daughter’s babyhood are endearing, and the parents seem to delight in their children, though there is still a strong sense of the mischief so many children are capable of. Egged on by a vague plan to have a full dozen, the Gilbreths ultimately had thirteen children, one who was stillborn and one who died in childhood.
These more sobering details have no place in the breezy narrative. As with so many narratives, this is not deceit but instead can be seen as the privilege of fiction: to present a world better than the one we inhabit, embellished with counterfactuals we for which we long or of which we mourn the loss.
As a dual-career family, the Gilbreths have much to offer modern married couples. Of course, mothers and fathers have always worked in many different capacities, but the Gilbreths offer a portrait of corporate-centric work to which many computer-bound, office-based professionals can relate. Visiting factories in Europe to offer efficiency consulting and motion studies and working for the armed forces for a time, Frank was away from home for long stretches. Lillian, a significant contributor to her husband’s work and an engineer with a long and successful career in her own right, planned her work around the demands of her many children, a subject that has inspired continued interest. Every “lying in” that took place with the birth of a new baby was accompanied by a manuscript for Lillian to edit.
Feminists run amok have created an oversimplified narrative in which Frank Gilbreth was a second-rate engineer who used the oppression of continual pregnancy to hold his wife back. Many passionate fans disagree and present the evidence that it was not Frank’s death that launched Lillian’s career, though certainly she worked more publicly in order to support her many children after his death. From the narrative presented by their children, it’s interesting to consider how much Frank’s quirks and zest for life made Lillian the woman she was. From a large but retiring family in California, Lillian embarked on an adventure with a man unafraid to appear foolish because he was committed to living out the principles he set forth. The Tabitha Twitchit scene when Lillian visits her family in California is a study in contrasts: the aunts dress the children ornately for tea and send them out to the garden where they rip out their bows and drench themselves while waiting for the people they were supposed to impress to arrive. The vivacity of the Gilbreth family does not fit into the quiet routines of the Moller family.
Fitting work into life with small children may be the way that some women work well, not a hindrance to their genius. The intensity of life with many boisterous children may be the fertile ground from which the engineers drew much inspiration, not a stumbling block. Whether real or invented by the authors memorializing their parents, the wistfulness of considering life beyond the 12 children is entirely believable in the context of the story. As Frank Gilbreth was drawn to taking photograph after photograph in an attempt to capture the family as they really were, welcoming each of the “latest models” expresses an enthusiasm for living that overflows into another person. It’s more complicated than that, but surely that life-giving attitude is there.
If you made it this far, you will realize that the 2003 Cheaper by the Dozen film starring Steve Martin has nothing but the title in common with the book. Which is too bad. The book, on the other hand, offers something that sticks with you. Enthusiasts seem unable to express precisely why the Gilbreth family’s story is so captivating. Perhaps it is in the enduring impression that you have met truly interesting people and you enjoyed their company.
