Automatic Electric Telephone Company
1889 - 1983
Automatic Electric was founded as Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Co. by Kansas City resident Almon Strowger, who invented the first automatic (dial) telephone switch in 1889.
Automatic Electric Co. was the leading provider of automated telephony, serving many local telephone companies as well as the Bell system. It expanded to Europe as well in the 1920s. Starting in 1919, the company was woned by Theodore Gary Co. of Kansas City. By the 1950s, Automatic had more than 8000 employees.
Starting in the mid-1950s, the company experienced changes in ownership that first led it to be part of the General Telephone & Electronics Corp., or GT&E, which eventually stopped using the Automatic Electric Co. name in the early 1980s. After further ownership changes through the 1980s and 1990s, the remnants of the company became part of Lucent Technologies, the manufacturing arm of AT&T in 1996.
Automatic Electric Co. was the leading provider of automated telephony, serving many local telephone companies as well as the Bell system. It expanded to Europe as well in the 1920s. Starting in 1919, the company was woned by Theodore Gary Co. of Kansas City. By the 1950s, Automatic had more than 8000 employees.
Starting in the mid-1950s, the company experienced changes in ownership that first led it to be part of the General Telephone & Electronics Corp., or GT&E, which eventually stopped using the Automatic Electric Co. name in the early 1980s. After further ownership changes through the 1980s and 1990s, the remnants of the company became part of Lucent Technologies, the manufacturing arm of AT&T in 1996.
Terms
"About Automatic Electric," telephonearchive.com,http://www.telephonearchive.com/phones/makers/automatic-electric.html (accessed 08/20/2014) [unvetted]
Excerpted from "Automatic Electric Co.," Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2559.html (accessed 08/20/2014)