The Hawthorne Works complex was built at the intersection of
Cicero Avenue and
Cermak Road and was opened in 1905. Hawthorne Works was named for Hawthorne, Illinois, a small town that was later incorporated as Cicero. The facility consisted of several buildings and contained a private railroad,
Manufacturers' Junction Railway, to move shipments through the plant to the nearby
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad freight depot. In the first decades, the factory complex was significantly expanded. The Hawthorne Works produced a large output of telephone equipment. In addition, Western Electric produced a wide variety of consumer products and electrical equipment, such as refrigerators. The works employed up to 45,000 employees at the height of operations. Workers regularly used bicycles for transit within the plant. The Hawthorne Works was in operation until 1983, when it was closed as a result of the divestiture of
AT&T and the
breakup of the Bell System. It was purchased in the mid-1980s by the late Donald L. Shoemaker and replaced with a shopping center. One of the original towers remained at the corner of 22nd Street and Cicero Ave. Due to its significance in industrial manufacturing in the United States, the Hawthorne Works was the site of well-known industrial studies. The
Hawthorne effect is named for the works. North American
Quality pioneer
Joseph Juran referred to the Hawthorne Works as "the seed bed of the Quality Revolution". The career arcs of other notable quality professionals such as
Walter Shewhart and
W. Edwards Deming also intersected at the Hawthorne Works.
Paul Mattick, the
Marxist theorist, worked here as a mechanic from 1928/29 until 1932. 220 employees of the Hawthorne works, many of them Czech immigrants, were among those killed in the capsizing of the in Chicago on July 24, 1915; they were preparing to depart on a company-sponsored excursion at the time.
Hawthorne effect The term "Hawthorne effect" refers to the type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed. It was first observed in data from the Hawthorne Works collected by psychologist
Elton Mayo and later reinterpreted by Henry A. Landsberger, who coined the term. ==Hawthorne Works Museum==