Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933)

Mary Parker Follett was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to a wealthy Quaker family of English-Scottish and Welsh descent. She attended Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts. In 1888, she enrolled in the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women in Cambridge, sponsored by Harvard -- later known as Radcliffe College. Before graduating summa cum laude a decade later, she spent the year 1890–1891 at Newnham College in Cambridge, England; taught at a private school in Boston; and published her first book, based on her Radcliffe thesis, The Speaker of the House of Representatives (1896).
She became a pioneer in the study of interpersonal relations and personnel management.
Her numerous books, essays, scholarly papers, and popular lectures had a lasting influence on the field of organizational behavior. One of her major works was Creative Experience (1924), which contained her ideas about the creative interactions that take place between people in group processes. Follett was one of the first women ever invited to address the London School of Economics. Later she was sought out by President Theodore Roosevelt as his personal consultant on organizational management. In 1995, a compilation of her writings, edited by Pauline Graham, was published as Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management.