Henry Fleetwood Albright
Henry Fleetwood Albright (1868-1926)
1919 of the Western Electric Co.[1]
1926 Obituary [2]
HENRY FLEETWOOD ALBRIGHT was born at Lancaster, Pa., on the 5th October, 1868, and died on the 11th May, 1926.
He was vice-president of the Western Electric Company, in charge of all its manufacturing plants in the United States, and also played a prominent part in the planning and organization not only of the plants of the Western Electric Co., Ltd., in England, but also of many of the telephone manufacturing plants in continental Europe. The biggest testimonial to his business genius is the well-designed Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Co.
He was educated at Philadelphia, Pa., and after a short time with the Thomson-Houston Co., as a sales engineer, he joined the Western Electric Co. in 1892.
In 1894 he was transferred to the construction department at New York, his first work being the reconstruction of the power plant. The marked increase in efficiency of the plant won for him the position of factory engineer.
One year later he was made assistant superintendent, and four years later, in 1899, he became superintendent of the New York factory. It was about this time that he began to group together under responsible heads departments which performed the same general functions.
In 1905 the first buildings of the Hawthorne Works were erected and he personally supervised the drawing up of an ultimate factory lay-out, which has been consistently followed ever since. He also planned the lay-out for the factory now under construction at Kearny, N.J.
In 1908 he became general superintendent of the company's manufacturing plant, when he moved to Chicago, and in 1917 he was elected a vice-president of the company.
Throughout his career he was keenly appreciative of the human side of industry, realizing earlier than many the importance of sound employee relations.
He joined the Institution in 1895 as a Foreign Member and was elected a Member in 1902.