Western Electric
Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated
WE and
WECo) was a
U.S. electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of
AT&T from
1881 to
1995 . It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management. It also served as the purchasing agent for the member companies of the Bell system.
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.
Western Electric Company was the first company to join in a Japanese joint venture with foreign capital. It invested in Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. in
1899, now known as
NEC Corporation. Western Electric held 54% of NEC at the time. Their representative in Japan was
Walter Tenney Carleton.
Despite the existence of 1300
Independent telephone companies, the
Bell System, popularly known as
Ma Bell, had a monopoly on long distance service from
1881 until its nearly the time of its break-up in 1984, and monopolies in local service for most regions during that same period. AT&T secured all urban areas in the early 20th century. The independent companies were left to serve less-profitable outlying areas and vast stretches of rural America.
The bulk of AT&T revenue came from the Bell System --
regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs), such as
The New York Telephone Co.,
The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. and
Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.. Other divisions of AT&T and parts of the
Bell System included
Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. (Bell Labs),
AT&T Long Lines and
Western Electric, the manufacturing arm.
All telephones in areas where AT&T subsidiaries provided local service, 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 AT&T's network.
Until
1983,
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 durability 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. In 1983, Western Electric telephones began being sold to the public through the newly created American Bell subsidiary of AT&T, under the American Bell brand name. Prior to Judge Greene prohibiting AT&T from using the Bell name after January 1, 1984, the plan was to market products and services under the American Bell name, accompanied by the now familiar AT&T globe logo.
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 AT&T 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.
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
gramophone record that was compatible with monophonic equipment.
In
1928, Western Electric issued the first telephone with a single handset, having both the transmitter and receiver placed thereon (previous telephones had been of the "
candlestick" type). This telephone was known as the
"102" phone, and had a round base; it was succeeded in
1930 by the
"202" phone, which was identical except for the shape of the base, which was oval.
The next significant upgrade came in
1937 with the introduction of the
"302" phone. Designed by the noted industrial designer
Henry Dreyfuss, this telephone included the ringer within its rectangular housing; previous models (including the candlestick) had required a separate "bell box." The 302 was followed by the
"500" phone; initially released in
1949 and modified in
1954, the Western Electric Model 500 Phone would become the most extensively-produced telephone model in the industry's history.
Later innovations included the
Princess telephones of the
1950s and
Trimline telephones of the
1960s, and the development of
touch-tone dialing as a replacement for rotary dialing.
In 1929 they were also a big player in early cimema sound systems. They created the Western Electric Universal Base. A device by which early silent cimema projectors could be adapted to screen sound films. They also designed a wide audio range horn speaker for cinemas. This was estimated to be nearly 50% efficient thus allowing a cinema to be filled with sound from a 3 Watt amplifier. This was an important breakthrough in 1929 because high powered audio valves were not generally available then.
Western Electric were pioneers of the
scientific management of
Frederick Winslow Taylor.
*
Walter A. Shewhart developed the
control chart at the
Hawthorne Works in
1924.
Western Electric was the location of the
Hawthorne experiments in industrial
productivity from
1924 to
1936.
For more information, see AT&T Technologies.On
January 1,
1984, Western Electric Co. was assumed under the corporate charter of the new
AT&T Technologies, Inc. Western Electric was then split up into several divisions, each focusing on a particular type of customer (e.g. AT&T Technology Systems, AT&T Network Systems). Telephones made by Western Electric prior to the breakup continued to be manfactured and continued to be marked "Western Electric", with the Bell logo absent, or "hidden" by metal filler. Insides of all telephone housings and most components, including new electronic
integrated circuits with the famous "WE" initials.
Cost-cutting measures resulted in the
Trimline being redesigned and "modernized" in
1985, as well as more plastic being used in place of metal on the 500 & 2500 series phones, as well as the Princess. In
1986, the
Indianapolis Works telephone plant closed, and US production of AT&T single line home phones ended. Business telephones and systems continued production in the
Shreveport Works plant until
2001. Home telephones were redesigned and production was moved overseas to
Hong Kong,
Singapore, and
Bangkok. Western Electric no longer marked housings of telephones with "WE", but continued to mark the modular plugs of telephone cords with "WE".
Western Electric came to a total end in
1995 when
AT&T changed the name of AT&T Technologies to
Lucent Technologies, in preparation for its spinoff. All modular telephone plugs were now marked with "HHE" enclosed in an oval. Lucent would become independent in
1996, and sold/spun off more assets into
Advanced American Telephones,
Agere Systems,
Avaya, and
Consumer Phone Services.
The assets once part of one Western Electric Co. now are in the hands of more than 5 companies.
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 made in Asia using less expensive components. Since few people keep a phone more than a few years, today's models are often viewed as disposable commodities, as compared to long-lived
Western Electric models.
Some people never purchased telephones after the AT&T breakup and continue to lease their existing
Western Electric models from
AT&T Consumer Lease Services. Such people have paid for their telephones ten or more times over, but the phones are perceived by some users to be superior to telephones commonly made today in aspects of durability and sound quality. Today many of these Western Electric telephones have become collector's items, renowned for their reliability.
* Adams, Stephen B., and Orville R. Butler.
Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0521651182.
*Fagen, M. D., ed.
A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Volume 1 The Early Years (1875-1925). New York: The [Bell Telephone] Laboratories, 1975. ISBN ?.
*Fagen, M. D., ed.
A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Volume 2 National Service in War and Peace (1925-1975). New York: The [Bell Telephone] Laboratories, 1978. ISBN 0932764002.
See also:
*
AT&T*
Lucent Technologies*
Bell System*
Western Electric brand audio vacuum tubes* http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/westernelectric_history.html
