Clock in for This Quiz on the History of the Workplace

Taylorism followed the ideas of Frederick Taylor, a management consultant who sought to maximize worker productivity. Unfortunately, the comfort of workers was not considered in this design, resulting in harsh, regimented layouts where workers were placed in a common area so managers could watch them closely. By the 1930s, Taylorism was replaced by open-concept designs.

In the 1950s, brothers Eberhard and Wolfgang Schnelle developed the concept of Bürolandschaft. Not only was it an architectural style, but it was also a post-WWII social movement toward innovative office design. Bürolandschaft involved an open, interactive workplace with desks that are informally separated by plants and curved screens. It eventually spread to the U.S. and can still be seen today in many modern offices.

In 1967, Texas Instruments created the first portable calculator, which was possible thanks to the invention of the integrated chip. The handheld calculator measured 6 inches tall — a far cry from the 55-pound calculators of the early 1960s.

In the 1970s, ergonomics — which is the study of efficiency and comfort in the workplace — was a new field. The Ergon Chair was released in 1976 and was one of the first chairs of its kind. It featured foam padding on the seat and back, more spine support, and levers to adjust height and tilt.

In 1901, the National Cash Register Company was facing serious employee unrest. After a major strike, the organization decided to create a “personnel” department dedicated specifically to addressing employee grievances. While this early HR branch was mostly focused on dealing with complaints, today almost every company has a team devoted to human resources tasks such as employee benefits, onboarding, and recruitment.

3M was founded in 1902 as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, and as the name suggests, was originally a mining operation. The company was just small-time back then, and the mining business didn't end up being a winner for 3M. After many reinventions and expansions, 3M became the Fortune 500 company we know today, producing everything from Post-It notes to respiratory masks.

When journalist and political activist Upton Sinclair first used the phrase “white-collar,” he was referencing the white shirts worn by clerical workers, a field that was small prior to the Civil War but grew tremendously leading up to the turn of the 20th century. Today, the term is generally most associated with people who work information-based jobs in offices, versus physical labor.

In 1959, Motorola coined the term “pager” when its tone and voice pagers (also called “beepers”) hit the market. Pagers had a surge in popularity in the ’80s and ’90s before the rise of cellphones. Motorola discontinued its pagers in 2001.

Workplace fashion trends of the ’70s and ’80s evolved as more women entered the office. Instead of long pencil skirts, women wore pantsuits to work like their male counterparts. “Power suits” featured large shoulder pads, double-breasted jackets, and wide-cut legs.

A 1960s marketing campaign known as “Operation Liberation” encouraged Hawaiians to dress casually in the office on Fridays. The focal point was the Hawaiian or “Aloha” shirt, which was handed out to state legislators. The giveaway promotion, plus the shirt’s popularity among celebrities such as Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, helped the Aloha shirt cement its status as a mainstream staple of casualwear.

Created by inventor Robert Propst and released by office furniture company Herman Miller, the cubicle, dubbed the Action Office, was designed to accommodate a variety of tasks, from phone calls to typing. The idea didn’t catch on at first because of its emphasis on innovation and fluidity, which executives felt was unnecessary. Only after the release of the Action Office II in 1967 did the cubicle start developing into the workplace icon it is today.

The 1999 hit comedy "Office Space" (starring Ron Livingston and Jennifer Aniston) brought the dread of dull corporate life to the silver screen, depicting the work culture at a fictional software company called Initech. That infamous case of “the Mondays” is still a disease we're fighting today.

Post-It notes were invented by accident: 3M chemist Spencer Silver was trying to invent a formula for a more powerful adhesive, but created a milder one instead. Believe it or not, Post-It Notes didn’t catch on at first — it was only when Silver’s colleague, Art Fry, began using them to mark hymns in his church songbook that the two decided to team up and convince 3M to market the product.

In 1926, the Ford Motor Company instituted the 8-hour day, 40-hour week work schedule that’s now standard at most companies today. Although some industries were already operating on a shorter schedule, many physical laborers were putting in 100-hour weeks at the time. Henry Ford’s belief that working citizens deserved time for leisure helped popularize his company and cement its success.

American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes created the first commercially successful typewriter in 1867, inspired by an article about a similar machine in Britain. After making improvements to the original prototype, he signed a manufacturing deal with E. Remington and Sons in 1874, and the invention soon became known as a Remington typewriter. The name stuck for decades, even though Remington sold its typewriter business just a few years later.

PowerPoint is one of Microsoft’s most powerful software programs, used to create presentations with text, images, videos, and more. The program was made for Apple in 1987 and was originally named Presenter. Seeing the potential of the software, Microsoft purchased the rights to the program for $14 million later that year.

During Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, Apple aired a now-famous dystopian commercial to generate buzz about their new, yet-to-be-announced computer. Two days later, a tuxedo-clad Steve Jobs took to the stage at the Flint Center in De Anza College in Cupertino, California, to officially debut Apple’s first Macintosh computer. The Macintosh offered exciting new features (such as MacWrite and MacPaint), weighed 17 pounds, and cost $2,495.

Located in Arlington, Va., the Pentagon servesving as the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, and its size comes from building out instead of up. Its 6.6 million square feet of office space is spread across five sides that are each 921 feet long. A full lap around the outer corridor is close to a full mile — the halls are so long that before phones became ubiquitous, messengers would often travel on roller skates.

Google co-founder Larry Page originally wanted to name the company after the mathematical term “googol,” which is 10 to the 100th power. Thanks to a misspelling, the company's name became “Google.” Today, Google handles more than 70% of worldwide online searches.

“Facsimile,” meaning “exact copy,” is an old word from the 17th century. However, it gained new popularity centuries later with the invention of the fax machine. The concept of a fax machine has been around since 1850, when it was called a “copying telegraph,” but the first long-range fax wouldn’t be sent for another hundred years.