Louis D. Brandeis and standard cost accounting: A study of the construction of historical agency

Abstract

During a 1910 Interstate Commerce Commission hearing Louis D. Brandeis argued that U.S. railroads could save a million dollars a day if they introduced scientific management (in particular, standard costing) into their operations. Brandeis' claim received widespread press attention and helped set into motion four years of public preoccupation with the ideas of efficiency. In this paper we examine the construction of Brandeis' agency and note that Brandeis' extensive publicity campaign on behalf of scientific management provided significant impetus to the spread of standard costing.