Cheaper by the Dozen

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Cheaper by the Dozen

The book Cheaper by the Dozen written by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and

Ernestine Gilbreth Carey was the life story of the Gilbreth family

before Mr. Gilbreth died. Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth

were two of the twelve children. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth, both

industrial engineers, ran a firm, Gilbreth, Inc. which was employed as

"efficiency experts" by major industrial plants in the United States,

Britain, and Germany.

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth had twelve children, six girls and six boys.

The names of the children are Anne, Ernestine, Frank, Bill, Lillian,

Martha, Jack, Jane, Fred, Mart, Bob, and Dan. The older children's

job is to take care of the youngest and the mother took care of the

intermediate children and babies.

Nothing was consider more a sin than wasting time, that is why

the father, Frank, times himself trying to go as fast as he can

with almost everything. He timed himself buttoning his shirt

to see which way is faster, top-bottom or bottom-top. He timed

himself shaving to see which way took longer, using two brushes

to apply the shaving cream of one. He found that two were

faster. Frank, the father also experiment on which ways was

faster, using two razors of one. He found that one was faster,

because with two he cut himself so many times it took him twice

as much time to cover the cuts up.

The book talked about how smart Frank, the Father was. He

painted mores code on the walls of their summerhouse to teach

it to his children. When the children decoded the message

written on the wall, it revealed a clue that tells the child

who decoded it where a prize was hidden. He painted also all

of the planets and stars you can see in the sky on the walls of

their summerhouse to teach his kids astrology.

A neat power that the father, Frank, had was that as soon as he

look at a person he would know their nationality. When ever

the family would go somewhere were you would have to pay by the

person, such as a toll bridge, Frank, the father, would take

one look at the person and know that their nationality was

Irish. The father, Frank, would say, "do my Irishmen come

cheaper by the dozen?" The owner would probably say,

"Irishmen? If you are Irish, you should not pay a toll on my

road. Your trip is on the house."

At the end of the book the father, Frank is called for work in

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