Charles Jeremiah Smith opens a machine shop in Milwaukee to make baby carriage parts.
C.J. Smith and Sons is the largest maker of steel bicycle parts in the United States.
Company is sold to Federal Bicycle Corporation and operates as the Smith Parts branch.
Company has grown to become the largest auto frame maker in North America.
Company's frame production process is automated through the construction of the Mechanical Marvel.
Company diversifies into electric motors through the purchase of Sawyer Electrical Manufacturing Company.
A.O. Smith establishes glass fiber division, which begins making fiberglass pipe and fittings.
UPPCO, Incorporated, maker of electric motors, is acquired; automotive products business is sold to Tower Automotive Inc.
A.O. Smith acquires the domestic compressor motor business of General Electric Company.
Company sells its storage tank unit to CST Industries, Inc. A.O. Smith now concentrates solely on electric motors and water heaters.
A.O. Smith Corporation is a manufacturer specializing in electric motors, water heaters, and boilers. The company's Electrical Products unit accounts for more than two-thirds of revenues and makes motors for air conditioners, refrigerators, furnaces, garage door openers, and pumps used in home water systems, swimming pools, and hot tubs. The remaining sales are generated by the Water Products unit, which makes both residential and commercial water heaters, as well as large-volume copper-tube boilers. Over its long history, A.O. Smith has evolved from a small bicycle parts factory to a specialized manufacturer of motors and water heating products. For a long period the company was a much more diversified manufacturer, with such additional product lines as automotive structural components, fiberglass piping systems, livestock feed storage systems, and storage tanks. Most of these businesses were divested in the late 20th century.
Although A.O. Smith was founded in 1904, the company traces its history back to the mid-19th century, when Charles Jeremiah (C. J.) Smith emigrated from England to the United States. The journeyman metal tradesman ventured all the way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and, after being self-employed for a decade, went to work for the Milwaukee Railroad Shop. As a highly skilled workman, he made a good living, but went back into business for himself in 1874, when he opened a machine shop and began manufacturing baby carriage parts. Two of Smith's four sons, Charles S. and George H., joined the family firm in the mid-1880s.
As bicycles became popular in the last decade of the century, C.J. Smith and Sons branched out. By 1895, it was the largest manufacturer of steel bicycle parts in the United States. The patriarch called in his eldest son, Arthur O. (A. O.), an architectural engineer specializing in large buildings, to help build a five-story factory for the growing family business. After two years of close work with his father, A.O. decided to join the company permanently as treasurer. By then, C.J. Smith and Sons had declared itself the largest manufacturer of component bicycle parts in the world.
Increasing overcapacity in that industry and the advent of the automobile brought another change to C.J. Smith and Sons. In 1899 the family sold its business to the Federal Bicycle Corporation of America, a then-legal monopoly known as the 'Bicycle Trust.' A.O. retained management of the Milwaukee (or 'Smith Parts') Branch of the Trust. Arthur Smith indulged his personal interest in the composition and manufacture of automobile frames with two years of 'tinkering' that culminated in the sale of his first automotive frame to the Peerless Motor Car Co. in 1902. Word of his frame, which was lighter, stronger, more flexible, and cheaper than conventional ones, spread quickly: by the following year, Smith had contracts with six major automobile manufacturers.
In April 1906, Henry Ford contracted with A.O. Smith for frames. At the time, the company was
