Westinghouse Electric (1886)
Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997. George Westinghouse had previously founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company.
The company pioneered long-distance power transmission and high-voltage transmission. Westinghouse Electric received the rights for the first patent for alternating-current transmission from Nikola Tesla and unveiled the technology for lighting in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
In addition to George Westinghouse, engineers working for the company included William Stanley, Nikola Tesla, Oliver B. Shallenberger, Benjamin Garver Lamme and his sister Bertha Lamme. The company was historically the rival to General Electric which was founded by George Westinghouse's arch-rival, Thomas Edison (see War of the Currents).
The company is also known for its time capsule contributions during the 1939 New York World's Fair and 1964 New York World's Fair.
Westinghouse produced the first operational American turbojet, but fumbled on the disastrous J40 project. It not only severely hampered a generation of U.S. Navy jets when the project had to be abandoned, but led to leaving the aircraft engine business in the 1950s.
Timeline of company evolution
1880s
- Starting years
- 1886 – Founded Westinghouse Electric Company
- 1889 – renames itself the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company
1890s
- Alternating currents promoter
1900s to 1920s
- Growth and change
1930s and 1940s
- 1937 – builds first "industrial atom smasher", a 5 MeV Van de Graaff electrostatic nuclear accelerator[1]
- 1940s – enters aviation with airborne radar (defense electronics sold 1996), jet engine propulsion, and ground based airport lighting, gets defense contract from U.S. military to produce plastic helmet liners for the M1 Helmet
- 1941 – after years of resistance to the unionization efforts of its employees and to the National Labor Relations Act,[2] signs a national labor agreement with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America after a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the Act.[3]
- 1943 – purchased the lamp division of Kentucky-Radio Corporation (Ken-Rad) in Owensboro Kentucky from Roy Burlew in exchange of 35,000 shares of Westinghouse stock valued at $1,600,000.
- 1945 – renames itself the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and makes first automatic elevator.
- Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division (AGT) started in 1945
1950s to 1970s
- Enters finance
- Westinghouse Credit Corporation
- 1954 – leaves railroad (locomotive and mass transit) propulsion equipment business.
- 1955 – Westinghouse J40 engine failure causes all F3H fighters using the engine to be grounded, and all other jets using it to switch to other engines. Westinghouse forced out of aircraft engine business.
- 1960s – acquires ThermoKing, begins automated mass transit (sold 1988); adopts "You Can Be Sure If It's Westinghouse" as advertising slogan for home appliances
- 1970s – sells well-known home appliance division to White Consolidated Industries which becomes White-Westinghouse
- 1979 – withdraws from all oil related projects in the Middle East after Iranian Revolution
1980s
- 1981 – acquires cable television operator TelePrompter (sold 1985)
- 1982 – acquires robot maker Unimation
- 1982 – sells street light division to Cooper Lighting
- 1983 – sells electric lamp division to Philips
- 1988 – sells elevator/escalator division to Schindler Group
- 1988 – Enters into joint venture with Taiwan Electric to build Electric motors; Taiwan Electric eventually becomes sole owner of business as TECO Motor Company
- 1988 - spins Industrial and Government Tube Division off as Imaging and Sensing Technologies Corporation.
- 1988 – closes the East Pittsburgh plant, which had once been the primary Westinghouse manufacturing facility
- 1989 – sells transmission and distribution business to Asea Brown Boveri Group (ABB)
1990s to 2000s
See also
Notes
External links