Spic-and-Span!: Lillian Gilbreth’s Wonder Kitchen by Monica Kulling (review)

A more (ahem) seasoned generation for whom Cheaper by the Dozen was standard reading and viewing will recognize the Gilbreths and the eyebrow-raising application of their professional efficiency expertise to organizing their abundant family. Here Kulling turns the spotlight on the materfamilias, Lillian. Working alongside husband Frank, she provided input as a psychologist to their work studying industrial workflow and collaborated in their pioneering use of the motion picture camera to provide detailed information on workers and their tasks. When Frank died of a heart attack, the widow was forced to re-create her life as sole support of her children in an age when her own accomplishments seemed to follow Frank to the grave. At Kulling’s skillful hands, Gilbreth’s eventual acclaim as a noted designer of efficient kitchens plays as a merited triumph rather than a domestic letdown, and readers will enjoy learning about kitchen innovations that are now standard equipment. Parkins’s ink and watercolor paintings have a Schindler-esque delight in detail and flair for humor, milking the innate fun of big, rowdy family scenes, while handling Frank’s sudden death with imagination and delicacy, situating viewers within the phone booth where Frank passed. Closing notes remark on Gilbreth’s formal awards, and four of Kulling’s “sources of inspiration” are included.