United States Army Officer Personnel Reforms and the Decline of Rank Flexibility, 1890s-1920s

: The contemporary United States Army officer corps is the legacy of progressive era reforms that discarded the decentralized and personal system of managing talent in favor of a centralized system based on scientific organization and efficiency. At the turn of the twentieth century, in response to institutional, cultural, and strategic conditions, the Army underwent a transition in the way it administered its officers, fundamentally transforming the emphasis of it officer management. Structurally, the Army went from a traditional decentralized and intimate activity built on individual effectiveness into centralized, industrial process in the pursuit of optimizing organizational efficiency. Influenced by a managerial revolution and progressive thought, Army advocates for change at all levels sought professionalization reforms based in the managerial and organizational skills of its officers rather than trust in loosely defined heroism and military genius. Progressive-inspired reforms allowed the institution to adapt for the new era of industrial war. The Army designed its professional Army officer of the twentieth century to reflect predictability, standardization, order, and efficiency. This analysis focuses on the history of the early reforms in order to grasp the fundamental shift in the focus of officer talent management and explain the origin of the modern personnel system. Rather than aggregating individual causes looking for the principal reason for change, this paper examines the individual, institutional, cultural, and contextual factors present at many levels in order to link and bind actions and decisions that collectively generated a refocused officer system. An appreciation of the way the military organization functioned before and after the transition allows for a better understanding for those who still experience it, study it, and try to explain it. A retrospective understanding of the officer talent management crisis the Army confronted at the turn