A leading diversified technology, manufacturing, and services company, with sales of approximately $145 billion in 2003.
A century old, the General Electric Company today employs over 300,000 people worldwide. It operates in over 100 countries, with 250 manufacturing plants in 26 nations. The company traces its history to the famous inventor Thomas Alva Edison, who designed the first incandescent light-bulb in 1879. His company, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company, attracted the interest of banking tycoon J.P. Morgan, who helped finance an early electrical distribution system based on direct current. At the end of the 1880s, Morgan and railroad magnate Henry Villard helped Edison consolidate a number of electrical companies into the Edison General Electric Company.
In 1892, Morgan and Villard chartered the General Electric Company by combining Edison’s company with the Thomson-Houston Company, which employed different electrical systems. General Electric (GE), therefore, brought together in a single concern manufacturers of alternating and direct-current equipment, of arc and incandescent lighting, and of electric equipment for transportation purposes. With an expanded research staff and the superior managerial talents of the Thomson-Houston officials, GE was in a position possibly to dominate a growing industry. It still faced, however, stiff competition from the Westinghouse Corporation, and for several years the two competitors launched extensive patent litigation. Finally, in 1896 the two pooled their patents and agreed to pay royalties to the other if either exceeded sales quotas.
In the years that followed, GE’s research lab employed many scientists to create electrical products for daily use. Their record was impressive, including over the decades advances in such areas as air conditioning, radio, medical equipment, and air travel. Around their homes, Americans enjoyed improvements in such products as the electric fan, toaster, electric range, and refrigerator. The company prospered, rapidly extending its operations globally. Throughout the 1920s, GE invested heavily in Europe and even in the Soviet Union, which the United States had not yet recognized. With Westinghouse, GE formed the Radio Corporation of America. During the Great Depression, GE formed its own financing company, GE Capital, to assist people to purchase company products. By the 1960s, GE Capital had expanded into broader markets.
During World War II, GE played a pivotal role in supplying needed electrical equipment, but chaffed at federal regulations demanding that war industries bargain collectively with their employees. Worried that this regulation might encourage the American Federation of Labor to establish itself in its factories, GE established its own union, a tact that over 100 other large corporations soon adopted.
After the war, GE was an integral part of what President Dwight D. Eisenhower termed the “military-industrial complex.” The company’s innovations were important as each side struggled for technological advantage and, therefore, the company received much of its income from defense contracts. It even employed future president Ronald Reagan as its spokesman. In recent years, GE has sought to further diversify and globalize its operations, in terms of both raw materials and products.
Since its founding in the early twentieth century, the General Electric Company has been one of America’s leading manufacturers and exporters. Shown here are early twentieth-century workers receiving the technological training critical to the company’s innovations. (Library of Congress)
Brooks Flippen
See also: Electricity; Edison, Thomas Alva.
Aris, Stephen. Arnold Weinstock and the Making of GEC. London: Aurum, 1998.
Carlson, W. Bernard. Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870–1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.