Alas, the Hawthorn Works (Corners of Cicero Ave and 22nd Street (Cermak) in Cicero/ Chicago, is now a shopping center, that also is falling on hard times. The clock tower and quality philosophy remains. It is the "mecca of quality. Shewhart and other quality gurus practised here. It covered the 4 corners of this area, and at one time employeed in excess of 40,000 workers, In addition to Shewhart, Dr Deming worked there and they both postulated much of what we know of modern quality philosophy and methods.

I only live 3 miles from there and visit often

The person that told me about the Hawthorne effect circa 1984 explained that the act of paying attention to plant workers often results in improvement, but it is short-lived.  I was advised to keep this in mind when determining the effect of an implemented improvement and to follow up a month or two later to see if the improvement was sustained.  I've generally found the Hawthorne Effect (as I loosely defined it) is true in the very short run (hours to a few days), but it cannot be used for sustained process improvement. 

Whatever the above subject might mean, there's a growing claim that we don't need other heroes. Umberto Galimberti, an italian author, published in 2009 with Feltrinelli, a leading european publisher, his book titled "The Myths of our Time", that analyzes them and takes them down to reality. It's high time that scribblers look to masters like Einstein or Feynman, just to name a few; if not, let's call it with its name: quality gossip.