Westinghouse Appliances Australia history

These ideas evolved into the Union Switch and Signal Company, founded in Pittsburgh in 1881.

His firm faith in the alternating-current system led to the founding of the Westinghouse Electric Company in 1886, which was in bold opposition to the well-entrenched backers of the direct-current system, led by Thomas Edison.

The Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company was founded by George Westinghouse in 1889.

With additional features added to the design, the air brake became widely accepted, and the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893 made air brakes compulsory on all American trains.

Historical information from "The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company" webpage (https://www.loc.gov/collections/films-of-westinghouse-works-1904/articles-and-essays/the-westinghouse-world/the-westinghouse-electric-and-manufacturing-company/).

In 1907 the company was forced to reorganize to avoid insolvency, and George Westinghouse was subsequently relieved of his chairmanship.

Westinghouse's association with the company that he founded ended in 1910.

Under the direction of the enterprising Paley as the network’s longtime chairman, CBS made media history beginning in the late 1920s.

The company was incorporated in 1927 as United Independent Broadcasters, Inc.

From 22 stations in 1928, the network grew to 114 stations in a decade.

The company offered a variety of products, from electric ranges to smaller household appliances. It introduced a line of electric refrigerators in 1930 and later added washing machines to its repertoire.

By 1932 it was posting an annual profit of $3 million.

Press releases and photographs relating to the 200-inch telescope, 1938.

During the war years, Westinghouse grew at a frenetic pace and its defense business became so large that CEO A. W. Robertson hired banker Gwilym Price in 1943 just to handle financial negotiations on military contracts.

In 1945, it was renamed the Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

Price succeeded Robertson as CEO in 1946.

Peter Goldmark of CBS laboratories invented high-fidelity long-playing records, and the Columbia record label introduced them to the public in 1948.

Under the plan, each of the participants agreed beforehand on the amount of each bid and on who would win the contract. As a result of that price war those three companies, along with 26 smaller manufacturers who did business with electrical utilities, entered into a bid-rigging scheme in 1955 in hopes of securing their profit margins.

In 1957 the Justice Department began to investigate possible violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and two years later a grand jury was called into session after the Tennessee Valley Authority complained of collusion among the manufacturers.

In the wake of the scandal Mark Cresap, who had succeeded Gwilym Price as CEO in 1958, announced that a section of the company's legal department would devote itself solely to compliance with antitrust laws.

In 1964 Westinghouse recorded record sales of $2.1 billion, but profits were sharply lower than in the previous year because of continued depressed prices in its major product lines.

One of its most unusual ventures was Urban Systems Development Corporation, which Westinghouse set up in 1968 to respond to the need for low-cost housing by building pre-fabricated residential units.

And although some of the unfamiliar businesses into which Westinghouse diversified turned a profit, like the Seven-Up Bottling Company of Los Angeles (purchased in 1969), many others did not.

The acquisition of Longines-Wittenauer Watch Company, undertaken in 1970 mainly for its mail-order record operations, turned sour immediately, as discount record shops began to give mail-order businesses unwelcome competition.

Wall Street analysts continued to downgrade the company, despite the fact that in April, 1974 it received an order for twelve nuclear power systems from France's state-run nuclear power agency, with options for four more units--the largest single order for nuclear equipment in history.

By the time Westinghouse divested its mail-order business in 1975 it had lost $65 million after taxes.

Oral history interview with Russell S. Ohl, 1976 August 19 and 20.

Westinghouse settled the last of these lawsuits in 1980, having paid a total of $950 million in damages, and managed to recoup some of those losses by suing a number of foreign and domestic uranium producers, charging that they had formed a cartel to drive up uranium prices unfairly.

Westinghouse Broadcasting also expanded its cable television operations, acquiring cable giant Teleprompter Corporation in 1981 in the largest merger between communications companies in U. S. history.

In 1982, a proposed joint cable venture with the Walt Disney Company fell through, but Westinghouse did join with NLT Corporation, a Nashville-based entertainment concern, to form The Nashville Network.

Douglas Danforth succeeded Robert Kirby as CEO in 1983.

In 1984 it formed a joint venture, subsequently dissolved, with Toshiba to manufacture high-resolution color picture tubes for computers and televisions.

In 1985 the Wall Street Journal ranked Westinghouse as the nation's 13th-largest defense contractor.

Westinghouse sold its cable television operations in 1986 to a consortium of cable companies for $1.7 billion as part of a major restructuring program.

And in 1988 Westinghouse's electronic systems business, which is comprised almost entirely of military projects, accounted for roughly one-fifth of sales.

In early 1989, Westinghouse also sold off two of its businesses to Swiss concerns: its elevator operations were acquired by Schindler Holdings and, after several years of disappointing performance, Unimation was purchased by Staubli International.

In 1993, Westinghouse sold its electric distribution and control unit to Eaton Corp. for $1.1 billion.

In an effort to focus on broadcasting, the company purchased CBS Inc., a major television network, in 1995.

The company also made radar and other electronic systems used in military aircraft, submarines, and munitions until it sold its defense electronics unit to Northrop Grumman Corporation in 1996.

Abandoning its own well-known corporate name, Westinghouse in 1997 renamed itself the CBS Corporation.

First industrial 2000 HP, W21 gas turbine installed at the Mississippi River Fuel Corp in Wilmar, Arkansas

The CW television network, which debuted in 2006, is a joint venture of CBS Corporation and Warner Brothers Entertainment.