The Resistible Creation of a Work Laboratory

Résumé 0

At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the last one, urged by the demands of the labour for the eight hours day and the problem of fatigue, but also with the concern to contribute to the social peace by “scientifically” arbitrating conflicts between employers and workers and by putting, still “scientifically”, the right man in the right place and, so, to help to his happiness, some scientists applied themselves to the study of the professional work. This study was the fact of a very small number of them, with techniques at their disposal, but very little means, hence the idea to have recourse to the State for creating a big laboratory of work.This article follows the meanders of this plan, introduced by a politician, but also a physician, Édouard Vaillant, approached by Édouard Toulouse and Armand Imbert, whom Édouard Vaillant will support, plan on which others will graft themselves and be substituted for it, like the modification of the activities or the Marey Institute, the creation of a laboratory, or even a professorship of psychotechnics in the CNAM, a professorship of physiology of work in the Collège de France, the organization of a committee of work, etc., with new comers, J.-M. Lahy, Jules Amar, Henri Laugier. The First World War will mark time to what we may consider as a kind of utopia.