 Westinghouse logo (designed by Paul Rand) |
|
| Industry | Electronics, etc. |
|---|---|
| Fate | Sold |
| Successor | Viacom, Inc. (after 1997 renaming to CBS Corporation) |
| Founded | as Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company (1886) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Defunct | 1999 |
| Headquarters | Monroeville, PA |
| Key people | George Westinghouse, Founder |
Westinghouse Electric was an American power 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. It 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 American turbojet to run, but fumbled on the disastrous J40 project. It not only severely hampered a generation of US Navy jets when the project had to be abandoned, but led to leaving the aircraft engine business in the 1950s.
Contents |
Timeline of company evolution
1880s
- Starting years
- 1886 - Founded Westinghouse Electric Company
- 1889 - renames itself the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company
1890s
- Alternating currents promoter
- 1891 - build world's first commercial AC system (Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant)
- 1893 - supplies electric lights and power for Chicago World Fair
- 1895 - installs hydropower AC generators at Niagara Falls which supplied power to Buffalo, NY
- 1899 - founds British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company
1900s to 1920s
- Growth and change
- 1901 - acquires Bryant Electric Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which continues operation as a subsidiary
- 1909 - ousts George Westinghouse as chairman during bankruptcy reorganization
- 1914 - acquires Copeman Electric Stove Company in Flint, Michigan from Lloyd Groff Copeman, moves it to Mansfield, Ohio and enters the home appliance market (sold in 1974 to White Consolidated Industries)
- 1915 - New England Westinghouse Company opens for business. First product: Mosin-Nagant rifles for the Czar's army.
- 1916 - share of British Westinghouse purchased by a British holding company, which becomes Metropolitan-Vickers
- 1920s - enters the broadcasting industry, with stations like KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and WBZ (AM) in Massachusetts
1930s and 1940s
- Enters the nuclear age
- Industrial atom smasher
- 1934 - opens its Home of Tomorrow in Mansfield, Ohio, to demonstrate Westinghouse home appliances
- 1935 - completes longest continuous electric steel annealing furnace in the world at Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Michigan
- 1930s - funds invention of the magnetohydrodynamic generator
- 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,[1] signs a national labor agreement with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America after a US Supreme Court decision that upheld the Act.[2]
- 1945 - renames itself the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and makes first automatic elevator.
- Aviation Gas Turbine Division (AGT) started in 1945
1950s to 1970s
- Enters finance
- Westinghouse Credit Corporation
- 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 - 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
- 1994 - sells electric power distribution and control business unit to Eaton Corporation for $1 billion
- 199x - separates IT and phone service sales into Westinghouse Communications division
- 1995 - buys CBS for US$5.4 billion.
- 1996 - buys Infinity Broadcasting
- 1996 - sells Westinghouse Electronic Systems defense business to Northrop Grumman for $3 billion, becoming Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems.
- 1997 - sells most non-broadcast operations; renames itself CBS Corporation
- 1998 - sells remaining manufacturing asset, its nuclear energy business, to BNFL which sold it to Toshiba in 2006 which still operates it as Westinghouse Electric Company today.
- 1998 - CBS Corporation creates a new subsidiary called Westinghouse Electric Corporation to manage the Westinghouse brand.
- 1999 - sells itself to Viacom, Inc.
- 2005 - Viacom renamed itself CBS Corporation
See also
- For other companies named Westinghouse see Westinghouse.
- For the spinoff nuclear energy company see Westinghouse Electric Company.
- Westinghouse Works, 1904
- Westinghouse Broadcasting, also known as Group W
- Siemens Westinghouse, also known as Siemens Power Generation, Inc.
- List of Westinghouse locomotives
- The Westinghouse sign
Notes
- ^ Feurer R (2006). Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950. University of Illinois Press.
- ^ "Heartland of UE Struggle". UE. September 2002. http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_0902_distrone.html. Retrieved 2008-04-20.
External links
- Timeline of Westinghouse historical events
- "Who Killed Westinghouse?" - Contemporary Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article detailing Westinghouse's history and break-up
- "What Happened to Westinghouse?". Pittsburgh Technology Council. March 1999. http://news.pghtech.org/teq/teqstory.cfm?id=229.
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