Franklin washers/dryers
There is quite a lot of information on the Franklin - Beam - WCI progression in the archives.
----------
Beam Design
Beam Manufacturing Co. made lots of parts for quite a few brands in the late 40's and early 50's. Pumps, transmissions, fluid drives, bearing housings, seals, and much more. Some of the brands were; Hotpoint, Speed Queen, AMC/Coronado, Easy, Firestone, Laundry Queen, One Minute, Marquette, Western-Auto Wizard. Sometime in the late 50's, Beam was bought out by Franklin Ind. which took over some of the designs and manufacturing from Beam. There is some murky history during this time as to whether Speed Queen owned by McGraw Edison bought the designs and manufacturing facilities from Beam or Franklin, but SQ continued with much of the orginal Beam designed machine (including the Fluid Drive) for years after the Beam-Franklin merger. Franklin continued to be a source for machines for some time until the early to mid 60's when it was merged with White Industries (White Sewing Machines) which Became White Consolidated Industries and continued to absorb brand names like Hupp Corp.(1967), Gibson, Kelvinator(1968), Westinghouse Appliance Div.(1975), Philco Appliance Div. (from Ford 1977) and Frigidaire (1979). WCI was bought out by Electrolux Home Products which is the company we know today.
I'm estimating some of the merger dates based on what I've been able to find in company historical summaries and literature from this time, the White-Franklin merger could have happened as early as the late 50's as White Sewing Machine Co. began to diversify in 1956. If anyone can clear up some of the murky areas, please chime in!
------
This is a quote from a short history of Cudell, Ohio that gives some good dating info for appliance companies - the link to the entire article is below.
"White Sewing Machine Co. diversified in 1956 and bought small appliance companies, including Standard Sewing (1965), the Hupp Corp. (1967), the Kelvintor Appliance Div. of American Motors (1968), and the appliance division of Westinghouse (1975).
The company's name was changed to White Consolidated Industries in 1964, reflecting its holdings of machinery, tools, household appliances, and valves.
White Consoldiated purchased numerous other major appliance competitors during the 1970s, including Philco, the Ford appliance division in 1977 and Frigidaire from General Motors in 1979."
Gibson was a pioneer in the refrigeration industry, formed in 1877 and bought out by the Hupp Corp. in 1956 who later merged with White Consolidated in 1967. I have never seen any literature for laundry machines predating the WCI time so they would have been Beam/Franklin/WCI from that point on. (The Hupp Corp also owned the easy Easy brand name, formerly owned by the Murray Corp and was swallowed by WCI as well.)
There was some odd brand out-sourcing going on at Kelvinator around 1968 or so, after the sale of Kelvinator by AMC, some Kelvi branded laundry stuff from that era was made by Norge and not WCI... Very strange, muddled history!
