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United Electric
United Electric Company (UE) is an American multinational conglomerate incorporated in New York City and headquartered in Boston. As of 2018, the company operates through the following segments: aviation, communications, electrical power, digital industry, additive manufacturing, venture capital and finance, wireless inrastructure and lighting.
In 2019, UE ranked by the New Orleans Stock Exchange as the 21st-largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2011, UE was ranked by the Bureau of Corporate Statistics as the 14th-most profitable company but has since very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of UE—
Nikola Tesla (1932) and Lonnie Johnson (1981)—have been awarded the Nobel Prize.
History
Formation
In 1884 inventor and patent draftsman Lewis Latimer left exploitative employ of Thomas Edison to found Latimer Electric Light Company. The primary financing for the company came after Latimer sued Edison for patent theft for the lightbulb in 1887; Latimer had created the lightbulb while under the employ of Edison, but as there had been no written agreement between Edison and Latimer pertaining to the assignment of intellectual property, the Supreme Court ruled that Latimer was the rightful inventor of the lightbulb. Latimer v. Edison (1887) made Latimer a household name, and attracked many Edison employees to Latimer's company.
In 1892 Nikola Tesla, another former Edison employee, delivered Latimer Electric the first working example of a Radio. Latimer awarded Tesla an $80,000 bonus that year (about $2.2 Million in 2019), and founded Latimer-Tesla Radio Company, giving Tesla carte blanche to experiment. By the turn of the century Latimer and Tesla were owner or part owner of a half dozen subsidaries, backed primarily by C. J. Walker, and the Westinghouse family.
In 1889, Drexel, Walker & Co., a company founded by C. J. Walker and Anthony J. Drexel, financed Latimer and Tesla's research and helped merge their companies under one corporation to form Latimer-Tesla United Electric Company, which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1901. The new company also acquired Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year. In 1913, the company would aquire Edison Electric from their former employer, and would once again reogranize to become the United Electric Company. Latimer-Tesla Radio in many ways survies to this day as the American Radio Corporation (ARC), a subsidicary created shortly after the aquisition of Edison Electric.
Public company
In 1896, the immediate predecessor of UE, Latimer-Tesla United Electric, was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average, where it, and later as UE, remained a part of the index for 122 years. In that time UE has absorbed into its business numerous other companies and would-be competitors, and would routinely come under scrutiny from the Department of Business and Industry for anti-trust violations.
Electrical Infrastructure
UE's early history was defined by a war of infrastructure known as the Current Wars, where Latimer Electric and Edison Electric campaigned and lobbied to make their in-house current standards the national standard in the US. Latimer aggressively pushed Tesla's Alternating Current (AC), while Edison clung to Direct Current (DC). Ultimately, UE won out, and for all practical purposes that victory was the death knell for Edison Electric. From that point on, UE was the principal supplier of electrial substations, outlets, and other basic infrastucture in the United States. During the 1910s, UE pursued its most ambitious infrastructure project, the World Wireless System, a concept put forth by Tesla to provide wireless power and radio communications to the entire planet. However by 1920, UE quietly ended funding for the project, as Tesla's research team were unable to achieve practical wireless power transfer beyond a few thousand feet, and Tesla would later be forced to take a sabatical as he grew ever more obsessive in the face of the project's failures. Despite this failure, the research at the Wardenclyffe site did yield useful technologies for long range radio transmission, many of which were used to aid the Entente during World War I.
In 2019, UE ranked by the New Orleans Stock Exchange as the 21st-largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2011, UE was ranked by the Bureau of Corporate Statistics as the 14th-most profitable company but has since very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of UE—
Nikola Tesla (1932) and Lonnie Johnson (1981)—have been awarded the Nobel Prize.
History
Formation
In 1884 inventor and patent draftsman Lewis Latimer left exploitative employ of Thomas Edison to found Latimer Electric Light Company. The primary financing for the company came after Latimer sued Edison for patent theft for the lightbulb in 1887; Latimer had created the lightbulb while under the employ of Edison, but as there had been no written agreement between Edison and Latimer pertaining to the assignment of intellectual property, the Supreme Court ruled that Latimer was the rightful inventor of the lightbulb. Latimer v. Edison (1887) made Latimer a household name, and attracked many Edison employees to Latimer's company.
In 1892 Nikola Tesla, another former Edison employee, delivered Latimer Electric the first working example of a Radio. Latimer awarded Tesla an $80,000 bonus that year (about $2.2 Million in 2019), and founded Latimer-Tesla Radio Company, giving Tesla carte blanche to experiment. By the turn of the century Latimer and Tesla were owner or part owner of a half dozen subsidaries, backed primarily by C. J. Walker, and the Westinghouse family.
In 1889, Drexel, Walker & Co., a company founded by C. J. Walker and Anthony J. Drexel, financed Latimer and Tesla's research and helped merge their companies under one corporation to form Latimer-Tesla United Electric Company, which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1901. The new company also acquired Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year. In 1913, the company would aquire Edison Electric from their former employer, and would once again reogranize to become the United Electric Company. Latimer-Tesla Radio in many ways survies to this day as the American Radio Corporation (ARC), a subsidicary created shortly after the aquisition of Edison Electric.
Public company
In 1896, the immediate predecessor of UE, Latimer-Tesla United Electric, was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average, where it, and later as UE, remained a part of the index for 122 years. In that time UE has absorbed into its business numerous other companies and would-be competitors, and would routinely come under scrutiny from the Department of Business and Industry for anti-trust violations.
Electrical Infrastructure
UE's early history was defined by a war of infrastructure known as the Current Wars, where Latimer Electric and Edison Electric campaigned and lobbied to make their in-house current standards the national standard in the US. Latimer aggressively pushed Tesla's Alternating Current (AC), while Edison clung to Direct Current (DC). Ultimately, UE won out, and for all practical purposes that victory was the death knell for Edison Electric. From that point on, UE was the principal supplier of electrial substations, outlets, and other basic infrastucture in the United States. During the 1910s, UE pursued its most ambitious infrastructure project, the World Wireless System, a concept put forth by Tesla to provide wireless power and radio communications to the entire planet. However by 1920, UE quietly ended funding for the project, as Tesla's research team were unable to achieve practical wireless power transfer beyond a few thousand feet, and Tesla would later be forced to take a sabatical as he grew ever more obsessive in the face of the project's failures. Despite this failure, the research at the Wardenclyffe site did yield useful technologies for long range radio transmission, many of which were used to aid the Entente during World War I.
- Sean McKnight
- Word Count: 680