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Western Electric was a US electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of the Bell Telephone Company from 1881 to 1995 . It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial
management.
History
In 1856, George Shawk, purchased an electrical engineering business in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1869, he became partners with Enos N. Barton and, later the same
year, sold his share to inventor Elisha Gray. In 1872 Barton and
Gray moved the business to Clinton Street, Chicago, Illinois and incorporated it as the Western Electric
Manufacturing Company. They manufactured a variety of electrical products including typewriters, alarms and lighting and had a close relationship with the telegraph company Western Union to whom they supplied
relays and other equipment.
In 1875, Gray sold his interests to
Western Union, including the caveat that he had filed against Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for the telephone. The ensuing legal battle over
patent rights, between Western
Union and the Bell Telephone Company, ended in 1879 with the former company
withdrawing from the telephone market and the latter acquiring Western Electric in 1881.
From this time, well into the 1970s, all telephones and telephone networks in the United States with the exception of a few areas, were owned directly or
indirectly by American
Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) popularly known as Ma Bell. AT&T was composed of regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs),
such as Pacific
Telephone and New
York Telephone. Other divisions of AT&T and parts of the Bell
System included Bell Laboratories (Bell Labs), AT&T
Long Lines and Western
Electric, the manufacturing arm.
All telephones, all components of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), and all devices connected to the network were
made by Western Electric and no other devices were allowed to be connected to the network.
Western Electric telephones were leased by subscribers and never sold, and so had to be repaired at no charge if they
failed. This led Western Electric to pursue extreme reliability and durable in design. In particular, the work of
Walter A. Shewhart, who developed new techniques for
statistical quality control in the 1920s, helped lead to the legendary quality of
manufacture of Western Electric telephones.
AT&T's only serious competitor in providing phone service was General Telephone and Electronics (GTE), which operated its own manufacturing arm,
Automatic Electric.
In 1905 the company began construction of the Hawthorne Works on the outskirts of
Chicago and which, by 1914 had absorbed all
manufacturing work from Clinton Street and Western Electric's other plant in New York.
Western Electric came to an end in 1995 when the American Telephone and
Telegraph Company was restructured following an antitrust lawsuit.
In addition to being a supplier for AT&T, Western Electric also played a major role in the development and production of
professional sound recording and reproducing equipment, notably the Vitaphone
system which brought sound to the movies, the Westrex optical sound that succeeded it, and the Westrex cutter and system for recording stereophonic sound in a single-groove LP record that was compatible
with monophonic equipment.
Technological innovations
Western Electric innovations included the Princess and Trimline
telephones of the 1960s, and the development of touch-tone dialing as a
replacement for rotary dialing.
Management innovations
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Legacy
Since the demise of Western Electric, telephones and telephone equipment have been made by numerous manufacturers. As
a result of increased competition, modern telephones are now less expensive
than were Western Electric models.
Some people never purchased telephones after the AT&T breakup and continue to lease their existing Western
Electric models from their RBOC. Such people have paid for their telephones ten times over.
See also:
External links
Bibliography
- Adams, S B. & Butler, R V (2000) Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric ISBN 0521651182
- Fagen, M D (ed.) (1975) A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: The Early Years (1875-1925)
- Fagen, M D (ed.) (1978) A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: National Service in War and Peace
(1925-1975) ISBN 0932764002
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