MARY B. GILSON has held posts with dull names-welfare worker, employment superintendent, economics professor. She is an expert on subjects that would draw a yawn from most people-unemployment insurance, scientific management, wage and promotion systems. But in this exciting story of her life, all these things come alive.

Born into the great American boom town of the 1890's, Pittsburgh, and educated at Wellesley, she made an important place for herself in industry before the World War broke out. The story of her twelve years as "employment superintendent" at the Clothcraft Shops in Cleveland is an engrossing study in human relations. Handling those thousands of workers in that plant was like playing an intricate, many-stringed instrument. Mary Gilson lost herself in the task of introducing scientific management in those shops, and succeeded in making them a standout example of good industrial relations. This is a job, she shows clearly, that is never finished. It is not a question of setting up a good system and then just letting it run. Every day brings up new problems that must be settled in a spirit of tolerance and sympathy. No wonder Mary Gilson was good at this job.

Her success carried her on to research work in Hawaii and in England, where she tramped the cold, dark streets of the terrible British Black Country, gathering figures, discussing endlessly. From there she went to Geneva, where in 1929 the International Labor Office was digging into its huge work with such high hopes.

When Mary Gilson entered industry, unionization was not far advanced in this country. Her achievement in Cleveland was in the "company union" tradition. In effect, she was the union leader and the management representative rolled into one. But as the years progressed, she proved that her mind was cast in no set mold. As unions gradually gained strength, she came to see in them the hope of labor, and recognized that her kind of work could now be carried on more effectively in cooperation with them. But for the future, the lessons she learned at Cleveland will always hold good. Even the most iron-bound collective bargaining contract cannot by itself insure good labor relations. The human elements too important. Mary Gilsons will always be in demand as long as there are employers and employees.