Birth of the Replicant

Something strange happened in America at the turn of the 20th century: a society based on individualism began to celebrate identical, replicable people. This episode tells the story of two men who drove this profound change in American culture. One was a business consultant named Frederick Winslow Taylor. The other was an artist named Charles Dana Gibson. Each created an identical human being, a replicant who would serve the needs of the economy. Taylor's replicant was Schmidt, a worker who could be "scientifically managed" for limitless productivity. Gibson's was the Gibson Girl, a woman who would be liberated by consuming products. Together, the replicants would change forever the way Americans thought about their place in a society based on limitless consumption.

You can listen to Birth of the Replicant online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Birth of the Replicant is an episode from Inward Empire by Inward Empire.

This episode is 59:14 long.

This episode was published on Sep 1, 2025.

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