Article: 100th Anniversary of Westinghouse in Mansfield

[moparwash]

Great article on a sad ending..the entire company should of, and could of still existed today as it once was as it's demise was completely self-inflicted.

https://www.richlandsource.com/area...cle_bf3c7714-4701-11e8-a2f5-0bdef652a680.html

 

[norgeway]

I will take

That whole row of appliances brand new thank you!

 

[electronicontrl]

Interesting read

I want to go through the House Of Tomorrow!
I wonder how many years the Westinghouse refrigerator was made in Columbus, OH.And I did not know White Consolidated was Cleveland based.

 

[corvairgeek]

WCI Columbus

I believe the last thing assembled in the Columbus plant was dishwashers, but I could be wrong. I recall at least some sort of small WCI presence in the plant for many years.
I recall in the strike around '69 that the name WESTINGHOUSE, that was spelled out in big letters at ground level in front of the Columbus plant, had some of the letters broken off during the picketing / protest.

 

[arbilab]

Makes me wistful.  We were a W family.  Westinghouse was the first long word I could spell.  Dad worked there (apparatus) straight out of WW2 until he retired from nuclear in the 80s.

 

Westinghouse pritmuch invented employee benefits, starting with the 6-- later 5-- day workweek.  They took care of their own.  Only a regional sales manager, Dad sent 4 kids to college, cash, and stepmom still lives on the sale of W stock. 

 

This is why it galls me so when legacy brands get diluted, defamed, destroyed by "new-age" management or whatever the expletive they call themselves.  It undermines the very structure that made us the economic, productivity, world-standard powerhouse we were. 

 

Some compense that I got to see/live it, countered by appreciation for the depth of loss.  Who killed Westinghouse?  Here's a multi-chapter article titled exactly that, from Pittsburgh Post Gazette.  If they're still in business that is. 

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/westinghouse/beginning.asp

 

[electronicontrl]

WCI

@corvairgeek - I'm from a small town near Pittsburgh and left to go to school in Columbus. (DeVry 1981 - 1985). The apartment building I lived in had shaded harvest gold Westinghouse appliances. The electric range was BOL.The dishwasher was POS. You had to virtually wash the dishes before placing them in the DW. The refrigerator won me over. It was very well built. I wanted to take it with me when I left.

@arbilab - "step mom still lives off the sale of W stock". Damn I'm envious. But regarding historic appliance brands, nothing stays the same. What are we to do? (Assemble vintage appliance museums in our basements.... I suppose)...

 

[moparwash]

That Post-Gazette article was really sad but true. We were a W family too.

 

[golittlesport]

we were a Westinghouse family too

Grew up in Pittsburgh where Dad worked at Westinghouse's Bettis plant as an engineer. He received a nice discount on Westinghouse appliances and so just about everything in the house was Westinghouse. There were a few exceptions, mostly gifted items - like the Electrolux vacuum that was a wedding present. My mom's parents were General Motors all the way, cars or appliances, so our dishwasher and clothes dryer were Frigidaire - gifts from them. When the Frigidaire dryer expired, it was replaced with a Westinghouse.

Dad stayed with Westinghouse his whole career, ending up in New Mexico working on storing nuclear waste in the salt caverns.

When Westinghouse sold their appliance division and there were no more discounts on appliances for employees, there were no more Westinghouse (or White-Westinghouse I should say)appliance purchases for us. Mom's next refrigerator was General Electric and she turned to Kenmore for laundry appliances.

A few years ago Mom remodeled her kitchen and the contractor put in a Frigidaire dishwasher and stove. She was excited about having Frigidaire, considering them a premium brand in the day. I didn't have the heart to correct her impression. (Although I have had favorable experience with Electrolux/Frigidaire front load laundry appliances. My son and daughter-in-law still use the 2006 set I gave them.)

 

[norgeway]

Westinghouse

And Frigidaire were considered top shelf products in NC where I grew up, The most expensive stores in town sold them, Funny, I never thought of GE or Hotpoint being anything but cheap stuff because in our town all the cheaper homes had them, but Frigidaire and Westinghouse stuff you saw in the high dollar neighborhoods

 

[corvairgeek]

My WCI

I can't recall if any of the WCI products actually said Columbus, or if they all said Dublin, OH. I checked our BOL garage unit that replaced our beloved '50 Westinghouse, but it says Dublin too.

We had a MOL WCI dishwasher about the same vintage that was awful.

 

[justjunque]

Springfield, MA

Sorry. I don't know what they did there, or when it closed, but Westinghouse had a big factory complex in Springfield MA.
The only thing remaining is the brick building that was the offices.
The rest of the complex was torn down, and they built one big factory where a Chinese company builds train cars.

Barry

 

[jeb]

Westinghouse strike

The 50's strike what a major event , that got very violent. Cars were overturned, property was damaged and you could be visited in the middle of the night and threaten if you didn't support the strike. Families were going without food (most were a one paycheck household). My grandmother, worked in administration , said there was a line worker who had to bring his lunch and hang his coat in the executive rooms for years after the strike because he crossed the picket line. He said his family needed food. After the strike he found "things" in his lunch and coat(I heard dead animals) and he was afraid he would be poisoned. My grandmother had a little side business hanging wallpaper and that's how they made it through.

 

[arbilab]

Does anyone know the motive for the strike?  Sometimes unions were necessary as employees were being bullied to the point of inhumane; Ford comes to mind, once his megalomania took hold.  Other times unions WERE the bullies.

 

[launderess]

"Does anyone know the motive for the strike"

Apparently what it always comes down to; management wanted (and or needed)to save labor costs, and the union said "not on our members backs you won't".

https://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu/cgi-bin/vassar?a=d&d=miscellany19560516-01.2.21

http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/?a=d&d=CDS19551018.2.7&

https://www.leagle.com/decision/1955680383pa2971629

http://russenzor.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-strike-at-sixty.html

In a basic nutshell Westinghouse wanted to conduct a limited time study to see if worker costs could be brought down. Unions feared (likely rightly) that Westinghouse would use any results of said study to further automate plants and thus reduce workers.

As others have stated the 1955 strike was bitter, nasty and harmed both Westinghouse and employees/union.

 

[arbilab]

...harmed both...

Two more victims of human greed and folly.  [Pphr from Morbius in Forbidden Planet]  Primate posturing. [Running theme in 2001 ASO]

 

Folly all the more egregious looking at where we are now, a figurative pile of bricks.  Done is done, but given to wonder if we learned anything.

 

[combo52]

Around 1955 Was The Turning Point For WH Major Appliances

After this time quality and reliability just got worse and worse, I can't think of one really good appliance that they produced after this time, which is a real shame because they did have some great designs and styling.

 

WH rapidly started losing the builder business to GE, FD and WP and by the mid 60s few builders would take a chance putting WH appliances in their new homes, so the major appliance sales dwindled away.

 

John L.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

All my thoughts! Human progress...

And although still I’m impressed with everything I have read, for all that time and workmanship, Union strikes, labor strife, and all the while making decent appliances, of which if only THAT tradition could continue through today...

— Dave

 

[moparwash]

During the 1956 strike, Mom was working at the East Pittsburgh plant in the Power Generation Business office, since they were not on strike and were working on advance contracts for utility companies, her office boarded a PRR train in nearby Wilmerding to the East Pittsburgh station, which was practically on W property, snuck into the plant, got their work and office equipment, re-boarded the train to nearby Wilkinsburg, where they worked in the Penn-Lincoln Hotel until the strike was over. But back to Imperial content...we always had Kenmore appliances, even with Dad's W discount because she believed the quality in the 60's and 70's wasn't what it once was.

 

[norgeway]

I disagree

I thought Westinghouse was at their very best in the late 50s thru about 65 or so, My 59 Range tells me that, Its as heavy and well insulated as anything I ever used, I DO agree that the late 60s saw a sharp decline in quality.,But it did for many manufacturers.

 

[wringer]

This is

my home town area. I remember so much about this Mansfield Plant. Now it is all gone and a bit cleaned up. In 1949 we moved into a new home and the entire home was Westinghouse except the wringer which was Speed Queen. My parents bought anything that was Westinghouse it seems. Fond Memories and knew many people who worked there.

 

[firedome]

Westinghouse

was big in Baltimore, they had Defense Electronics, Electric Motor, and Aerospace Fabrication (Sykesville) divisions, a total of 3 or 4 facilities there. My wife's step-Dad was a lawyer for Defense Electronics doing contracts with the Navy, her uncle was an EE at the same D E Division (and he's still alive at 93). The next door neighbor was an EE at the Motor Division on Taylor Ave. and everything in their house was Westinghouse.

My impression matches John's: laundry, ranges, fridges, fans, &c peaked in the mid-'50s but by early '60s quality was going downhill fast, sadly. By 1974 our neighbor at my own first house worked at the AF division doing satellite and defense fabrication. He always called it Wasteinghouse due to the numerous times they'd make something, blueprints would be changed, the structure thrown away and re-started from scratch, sometimes many times. No wonder they went broke.

 

[firedome]

Pertinent to the preceeding...

my wife's parents had a top-freezer WH fridge, around 14 cu ft, bought on the employee discount plan around 1966. By the time we met in 1970 it was not keeping temp in the freezer compartment, and even after several repairs it was not right, and had to be replaced by 1971, at 5 yrs old, this time on my recommendation by a Frigidaire that was still going strong in 1994 when the house was sold...not a good performance by WH!

 

[jamiel]

Separately, going on in Mansfield in 1962 was a bit of a scandal which I'd never heard of before.

https://www.richlandsource.com/area...cle_16b1c4d2-c503-11e5-890c-6360a850aa28.html

 

[norgeway]

Of course...

My experience with Westinghouse WAS limited, We had a 55 slant front dryer that ran just about forever,I never saw but a few Laundromats, which made them all the more interesting to me, I do think the WH stoves and fridges were much better than most of the competition, we had a 50 Westy fridge until the 70s when my well meaning uncle bought us a GE Which I hated,,lol, I have tried to like GE stoves but never had any more luck with them than I have had with Maytag washers,,which is NO luck at all...lol, GE stoves to me as a kid were a cheap brand, I thought this because everyone I knew who had lots of money had Westinghouse or Frigidaire, small builder grade or starter houses all had GE , I know this because I went on tons of service calls with my Uncle who was a electrical contractor and was in all kinds of houses from mill houses on Cotton Mill Hill to large mansions on Hibriten street, where all the lawyers and doctors lived..Iguess it all depended on where you lived, in Lenoir NC, the most expensive stores in town sold Westinghouse, Amana and Frigidaire, The cheapest stores sold GE, and Philco and Norge.

 

[washerlover]

Never Really Saw Westinghouse in NorCal...

Only thing I remember seeing as a kid in the very late 60s and early 70s were those Pearl Bailey ads...never laid eyes on a real Westinghouse set. Where we lived only saw Frigidaire, GE, Norge/Wards, Kenmore/Whirlpool, Speed Queen and Maytag. Still a delightful and diverse selection, for sure!

 

[jeb]

The scandel in the park

My mom told me about the restrooms in central park.When they were first build they were pretty up scale but by the late fifties were getting rundown. All shopping was done "downtown" so that's why the city installed them. By the mid fifties suburban shopping centers were springing up on all sides of town, drawing major retailers ( Sears, Penney's, Oneil's, Wards ect)which left the downtown some what abandoned. Because of the bad press they were filled in and bull dosed over. Some boot leg copies of the films can be found on the internet if you look hard enough for them (supposedly a few gay cops-probably the ones operating the camera- made secret copies of the originals which surfaced a few years ago. I looked them up but can't remember were I found them, I think Tearoom or Teahouse was in the title. Some of the first "spy" porn !

 

[tolivac]

I briefly knew someone that worked in one of the Westinghouse Baltimore sites.Are these still in use-He could not say what he worked on-one of those types of places.

 

[circlew]

The Westinghouse products in our house consisted of the following: 1953 range, 1953 refrigerator, 1955 washer, 1958 or 59 dehumidifier, 1962 dryer, 1964 FL washer, circa 1969 window air conditioner, circa 1980 dehumidifier. The range is the only thing I still have. The refrigerator was replaced in '62 by a Frigidaire of larger capacity, and the washer and dryer by Maytag's in '73. Air conditioner given away when we got central air in '74, and the second dehumidifier lasted until the 90's.
While the '62 dryer seemed to be good quality, the '64 washer didn't hold up well at all.

We didn't have any Westinghouse small appliances, but occasionally bought their light bulbs, including Christmas. My mom talked about getting one of the roaster ovens, but never did.

The store that the range and refrigerator were purchased from (Snyder's) stopped selling Westinghouse by 1956. The dehumidifiers and AC were bought at Swallen's, and the laundry equipment was bought through one of my dad's friends. He was an electrician who bought from a supply place that was also a Westinghouse distributor.

 

[arbilab]

Our 64 FL didn't hold up either.  Kept breaking.  Mom kicked it out of the house before the warranty expired.  I was mostly out of the house by then too so I don't know exactly what kept going wrong with it.

 

[firedome]

Westinghouse Baltimore today...

Rex - the Electronic Systems Division at the airport (now BWI, it'll always be Friendship Airport to me!) was absorbed by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems group in the '90s when Westinghouse dissolved. Essentially it's still there in that form. Both the wife's step-Father and Uncle worked there for 30+ years.