Did you know that Mary Follett - although oftentimes located in the 1940s - started her writings back in the late 19th century? This frequent perception error is caused by the fact that her most quoted works "Dynamic Administration" (1940) and "Freedom & Co-ordination" (1949) have been published posthumously. She published her two major monographs "Creative Experience" (1924) and "The New State" (1916) in her 50s. While "Creative Experience" contains insights that we might classify today as in the field of social psychology and close to the Gestalt school of thinking, "The New State" contains her wrestling with democracy, both on the level of group dynamics and in the political realm. Her first book "The Speaker of the House of Representatives" (1896), written in her late 20s, was the critical product of her intense inquiry into the political system of the United States of her time. It prompted quite a political debate and started her course as a female public person unafraid of voicing independent and inconvenient thinking. A thing quite unheard of back in that day.
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