Sunbeam Products

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Sunbeam Products is an American company that has produced electric home appliances since 1910. Their products have included the Mixmaster mixer, the Sunbeam CG waffle iron, Coffeemaster (1938-1964)[1] and the long-lived fully-automatic T20 toaster (with no levers to push) (see photo attesting to its legendary longevity)[2].

[edit] Early Business

Sunbeam was started in Chicago as the Chicago Flexible Shaft Co. in the early 1890s by John K. Stewart and Thomas J. Clark, who made mechanical horse clippers and sheep shearers. Between 1908 and 1936, Chicago Flexible Shaft operated as a subsidiary of Wm. Cooper & Nephews, an English company. During this time, the company began to manufacture a variety of electrical appliances, including irons, mixers, coffeemakers, and toasters. Its plant on West Roosevelt Road employed about 500 people. In 1946, ten years after Cooper sold the company, it became known as the Sunbeam Corporation, with annual sales of about $15 million. After World War II, when it continued to introduce new appliances, Sunbeam employed over 1,000 people at the West Roosevelt Road plant. A controlling interest was acquired in the firm of John Oster in 1960.

[edit] Expansion, Bankruptcy and Resurrection

Meanwhile, Sunbeam continued to expand outside of Chicago. By the end of the 1970s, as the leading American manufacturer of small appliances, Sunbeam enjoyed about $1.3 billion in annual sales and employed nearly 30,000 people worldwide. In 1981, after Sunbeam was bought by Allegheny International Inc. of Pittsburgh, its Chicago-area factories were closed and the headquarters moved from the Chicago region.

Under the management of Albert J. Dunlap, Sunbeam went into decline through the 1990s. Dunlap was fired and the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001. The next year it emerged as a private company under the name American Household, Inc. (AHI). Its former household products division became the subsidiary Sunbeam Products, Inc. [3]

AHI was purchased in September 2004 by the Jarden Corporation, of which it is now a subsidiary [4].