Great depression Quote by Jack Lynch
““The American Works Progress (later Projects) Administration, founded in 1935 to provide jobs for “employable workers” during the Great Depression, established the Mathematical Tables Project in 1938 as one of its “small useful projects.” Useful it was, but hardly small: it was one of the largest-scale computing operations in the pre-ENIAC age, headed by a Polish-born mathematician, Gertrude Blanch, who supervised 450 clerks.18 Just as de Prony had learned a lesson from Adam Smith, Blanch took her cue from Henry Ford—she gave each group of workers a single task: some did only addition, some only subtraction. The best were trusted with long division. The resulting tables of logarithms and other functions were published in twenty-eight volumes; in some of them, no one to this day has discovered a single error.””
About This Quote
Source Historical: Works Progress Administration, United States, 1935‑1943
The passage describes the massive scale and efficient organization of the Mathematical Tables Project, highlighting its impact despite being labeled “small.”
In simple terms: A large, well‑organized project produced highly accurate tables during the Depression.
Key Takeaway
Value organized teamwork and specialization for complex tasks.
Themes
teamwork
efficiency
history
Mood
inspirational
reflective
Type
educational
historical
When to use this quote
- government projects
- data processing
- historical research
- education
- STEM fields
Key Concepts
division of labor
project management
computing history
Questions to Reflect On
- What modern projects could benefit from similar specialization?
- How does scale affect perceived importance?
A Different Perspective
It may idealize the project without mentioning challenges faced by workers.
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