section_path: History/19th century
section_name: 19th century
paragraph_text: 19th century
  
  Classical economists such as Adam Smith (1723–1790) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) provided a theoretical background to resource allocation, production (economics), and pricing issues. About the same time, innovators like Eli Whitney (1765–1825), James Watt (1736–1819), and Matthew Boulton (1728–1809) developed elements of technical production such as standardization, quality-control procedures, cost-accounting, interchangeability of parts, and work-planning. Many of these aspects of management existed in the pre-1861 slave-based sector of the US economy. That environment saw 4 million people, as the contemporary usages had it, "managed" in profitable quasi- mass production before wage slavery eclipsed chattel slavery.
  
  Salaried managers as an identifiable group first became prominent in the late 19th century. As large corporations began to overshadow small family businesses the need for personnel management positions became more necessary. Businesses grew into large corporations and the need for clerks, bookkeepers, secretaries and managers expanded. The demand for trained managers led college and university administrators to consider and move forward with plans to create the first schools of business on their campuses.