Engineering Magazine

Engineering Magazine  

Discipline	Engineering and Industrial Management
Language	English
Edited by	John R. Dunlap, Arthur Van Vlissingen, John M. Carmody
Publication details
Publisher	Engineering Magazine Co.
Publication history	1891-1916
Frequency	12/year

The Engineering Magazine was an American illustrated monthly magazine devoted to industrial progress, first published in 1891. The periodical is published under this title until Oct. 1916. Sequentially from Nov. 1916 to 1927 it was published as Industrial Management.

The Engineering Magazine was a popular journals about engineering, technology, and industry. It described the system of manufacturing which has come to be known as distinctively American. Several leading authors of the efficiency movement published the first versions of their seminal works in the Engineering Magazine

With Frederick W. Taylor named the father of scientific management, the Engineering Magazine has been called "the mother of the entire management movement."

The Engineering Magazine started as an illustrated monthly magazine devoted to industrial progress, with its first number published in April 1891. An 1891 review explained, that the magazine is devoted to the popular treatment of engineering in all its branches, and is "certainly worthy of support by all who desire to keep pace with industrial development throughout the world."

In Europe and the United States magazines on engineering had been published for over half a century. Notable magazines since those days were:

Late 19th century more of these journals also focussed the impact of engineering on technology and industry.

The Engineering Magazine (1891) explained that "the magazine is founded upon the idea of treating only the principles involved in engineering problems — which are always simple — to the end that our circle of readers may embrace, in addition to professional men, the thousands of intelligent business men who are interested or actively engaged in the industrial enterprises of our times, but who are without technical training."

Alexander (2008) recalled that the "Engineering Magazine was a witness to the workings of technical efficiency. Directed toward readers who were technically and mathematically trained it encouraged them to base their social contributions on professionalized status, primarily as mechanical engineers but also as physicists, civil engineers, and, increasingly after 1900, as industrial managers and governmental officials. Engineering Magazine came out monthly, each issue compact and dense, sitting heavy in the hand. It was composed of close-copy text, mathematical formulas and statistical charts and tables, alongside drawings and photographs of instruments, machines, and construction sites. Its reach was international and grounded in advanced formal training, its contributors' names often prefaced by the title "Professor." Between 1907 and 1911 several leaders in the Progressive efficiency movement published the first versions of their seminal works in the Engineering Magazine: Harrington Emerson's Twelve Principles of Efficiency appeared in serial form from 1909 to 1911, and the magazine was among the first to publish Gantt's influential efficiency charts."