Charles Day (1879-1931)

Charles Day (May 15, 1879 - May 10, 1931) was an American electrical, construction and consulting engineer, and co-founder of Day & Zimmermann. He is known as a specialist in public utility management and operation, and for his seminal contributions to flow charts and the routing diagram.

Day was born in 1879 in Germantown, Philadelphia, son of Charles A. Day and Frances Corson Day. He attended Germantown Academy, where he met his future business partner Kern Dodge, son of James Mapes Dodge. After graduation he entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his BS in 1899 in Electrical Engineering. Thereafter in 1901 he obtained his Master of Engineering in 1901.

After obtaining his master's degree, Day was superintendent of installation of power-plant equipment and transmission machinery at the 1899 Philadelphia Export Exposition, where James Mapes Dodge had served on the exhibition commission. At its close, 31 November 1899, Day entered the employ of Link Belt Engineering Co. in Nicetown–Tioga where James Mapes Dodge was president. He started out as assistant to superintendent and became engineer of works, working on modernizing the plant.

Dodge himself would become one of the promoters of scientific management, and Day would follow into those footsteps. One decade later a 1911 article in The American Magazine would present Day as one of a dozen frontmen of scientific management.

After Day's friend Kern Dodge obtained his BS in mechanical engineering at Drexel Institute in 1901, the two of them founded the company Dodge & Day, specializing in engineering, shop equipment and management. One of their first employees was Conrad N. Lauer. Later, the scope of the organization was enlarged to include a great deal of engineering and construction work in both the industrial and public-service fields. In 1907, another former classmate John Zimmerman joined the firm as partner, and they renamed the firm Dodge, Day & Zimmermann. After Kern Dodge withdrew as partner in 1911, the firm became Day & Zimmermann, incorporated in 1916, and still exists today.

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