Claude Lucien Bergery

Claude Lucien Bergery (1787–1863) was a French economist and management theorist. He was a founder of scientific management.^[1]

Life

The son of an innkeeper, Bergery was born in Orléans.^[2] He was a student at the École Polytechnique which he entered in 1806,^[3][4] He became an artillery captain, serving in Spain, and was decorated by Napoleon I during the Hundred Days. Demobilised, he taught applied science at the École royale de l'artillerie in Metz from 1817, then transferred to teacher training in the same city.^[2][5][6]

Bergery believed the study of applied geometry was improving.^[7] With Jean-Victor Poncelet, he created free courses for workers and artisans, in response to a call from Charles Dupin.^[8][9] Courses were given in 1826 by Bergery, Poncelet, Libre-Irmond Bardin and Jean-Louis Woisard, all past polytechniciens.^[10]

In the aftermath of the July Revolution of 1830 Bergery had a chance to move to Paris. He had supporters who wished to keep out Adolphe Blanqui, who became successor to Jean-Baptiste Say at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers; and he might have combined that position with the artillery professorship at Vincennes. In the event, he preferred to stay in Metz.^[11] He was elected a corresponding member of the moral section of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on 25 January 1834.^[2]

Bergery was one of the founders in 1834 of La Gerbe de la Moselle, a monthly periodical to which he contributed.^[12] It ran to 1839, and Bergery became the major contributor. From 1840 it was succeeded by L'instituteur de la Moselle, which became in 1842 Le Messager de la Moselle. Bergery was on its editorial committee.^[13] The Gerbe proved divisive in Metz, in particular with Bergery's line as moralist and social critic.^[14]

In 1835 Bergery quarrelled seriously with Poncelet and François Théodore Gosselin, who accused him of plagiarism; and his position in Metz was undermined.^[15] He became the mayor of Tincry in 1848, where he opened a primary school for girls in 1857. He was made an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1847 when he retired. He died at Tincry.^[16]

Works

Bergery's thought drew heavily on the thought of Dupin, Say and Gérard-Joseph Christian, who was director of the Conservatoire. He was influenced particularly by the Cours complet d'économie politique pratique of Say.^[17] He wrote:

• Géométrie des courbes appliquée à l'industrie (1825), based on public lectures.^[18]
• Economie industrielle, ou, Science de l'industrie (1829–31). This work was in three volumes, the first (1829, 2nd edition 1833)^[19] being Economie de l'ouvrier, the second and third Economie du fabricant. Where the first volume included advice for lifestyle of a worker, the others were a management manual, the whole being connected by the idea that a frugal worker could, with temperance and restraint, accumulate capital.^[20] Volume 1 gained Bergery a Prix Montyon.^[11][21] This was an early course covering industrial management as a whole. It appeared at the same time as work of Charles Babbage in the same area. Bergery paid more attention to the issue of recruitment,^[22] and tried to quantify the cost of Monday absenteeism.^[23]
• Théorie des affuts et des voitures d'artillerie (1840) with Jean-Charles Migout. This work on gun carriages was based on a course given at Metz in the later 1820s by Bergery and two colleagues (the obscure Migout and Jean-Louis Woisard, 1798–1828), at the request of the War Ministry.^[24] The second edition advocated for interchangeable parts.^[25] The authors wrote also a Cours des Machines (1842) for artillery officers.^[26]

Arithmétique appliquée aux spéculations commerciales et industrielles (1830)^[27] was the second edition by Bergery of a book by the late Woisard. Bergery also wrote textbooks and elementary works on elementary geometry, chemistry and other topics.^[4][28] In 1837 Complements to his arithmetic text addressed the teaching of probability, in the context of gambling and economics, then an innovative idea.^[29]

Notes

1. Anson Rabinbach (January 1992). The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. University of California Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-520-07827-7.
2. (French) La littérature française contemporaine: Chr-Fuz. 1827-1844, par Ch. Louandre et Félix Bourquelot. Daguin. 1842. pp. 316–9.
3. M. Hachette (Jean Nicolas Pierre) (1808). Correspondance sur l'École impériale Polytechnique: Avril 1804-janvier 1816. Bernard. p. 265.
4. Anders Lundgren; Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (2000). Communicating Chemistry: Textbooks and Their Audiences, 1789-1939. Science History Publications/USA. p. 457. ISBN 978-0-88135-274-0.
5. Ambroise Fourcy (1828). Histoire de l'École polytechnique. Chez l'Auteur. p. 425.
6. (French) Collectif,. Melanges D'histoire Sociale Offerts a Jean Maitron. Editions de l'Atelier. p. 177. GGKEY:QQULHJ6NABA.
7. J. L. Heilbron (2000). Geometry Civilized: History, Culture, and Technique. Oxford University Press. pp. 297–8. ISBN 978-0-19-850690-4.
8. Margaret Bradley. Charles Dupin (1784-1873) and His Influence on France. Cambria Press. pp. 283–4. ISBN 978-1-62196-814-6.
9. (French) Thierry Pillon; François Vatin (2003). Traité de sociologie du travail. Octarès. p. 399.
10. Helbronner, Jules (1890). "Report on the social economy section of the Universal International Exhibition of 1889 at Paris". Internet Archive. Ottawa: B. Chamberlin. p. 197. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
11. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 26–7. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
12. Joseph-Marie Quérard; Charles-Léopold Louandre; Félix Bourquelot; Alfred Maury (1842). La littérature française contemporaine. Daguin. pp. 317–8.
13. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 372–3. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
14. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
15. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 33–5. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
16. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 46–8. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
17. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 130 note 365 and 279. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
18. Joe Albree; David C. Arney; V. Frederick Rickey. A Station Favorable to the Pursuits of Science: Primary Materials in the History of Mathematics at the United States Military Academy. American Mathematical Soc. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-8218-9048-6.
19. Gilbert Faccarello (11 September 2002). Studies in the History of French Political Economy: From Bodin to Walras. Routledge. p. 314. ISBN 978-1-134-85768-5.
20. (French) Thierry Pillon; François Vatin (2003). Traité de sociologie du travail. Octarès. p. 164 with note 272.
21. Journal des économistes: revue de l'économie politique, des questions agricoles, manufacturières et commerciales. Journal des économistes. 1864. p. 467.
22. Gilbert Faccarello (11 September 2002). Studies in the History of French Political Economy: From Bodin to Walras. Routledge. pp. 303–4. ISBN 978-1-134-85768-5.
23. Ira Katznelson; Aristide R. Zolberg (1986). Working-class Formation: Nineteenth-century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States. Princeton University Press. p. 73. ISBN 0-691-10207-4.
24. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. p. 18 and p.37 note 92. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.
25. Jacques Guillerme (2008). L'art du projet: histoire, technique, architecture. Editions Mardaga. p. 310. ISBN 978-2-87009-986-5.
26. United States Military Academy. Library; André Freis; Oliver Otis Howard (1860). Supplement to the catalogue ...: containing the additions from the first of January, 1853, to the first of October, 1859. Printed by G.W. Wood. p. 49.
27. Jean-Louis Woisard (1830). Arithmétique appliquée aux spéculations commerciales et industrielles, par J.-L. Woisard,... 2e édition, revue et augmentée des proportions, des progressions, de l'extraction des racines et de notions élémentaires d'algèbre, par C.-L. Bergery,... Mme Thiel.
28. First Proofs of the Universal Catalogue of Books on Art, Comp. for Use of the National Art Library and the Schools of Art in the United Kingdom. Chapman and Hall. 1870. p. 96.
29. François Vatin (2007). Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIXe siècle: Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863. Harmattan. pp. 323–4. ISBN 978-2-296-03105-0.