From our earliest days, when Eaton invented, hand-manufactured and then sold some of the first truck axles in the industry, it has been a primary tenet of business that the company carries a responsibility to deliver breakthrough solutions to its customers. Innovative entrepreneurship continues to drive Eaton in the 21st century.
Joseph Oriel Eaton, Henning O. Taube, and Viggo V. Torbensen establish the Torbensen Gear and Axle Company, a small machine shop in Bloomfield, New Jersey, manufacturing heavy-duty truck axles.
Eaton acquires lockmaker Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company and Dole Valve Co., maker of appliance and automotive controls.
Electronics company Cutler-Hammer Inc. is acquired; the Yale lock and security business is divested.
Eaton acquires Westinghouse Electric Corporation's distribution and control unit for $1.1 billion.
The company's truck axle and brake business--its founding business--is sold to Dana Corporation.
Aeroquip-Vickers, Inc., producer of industrial hydraulic equipment, is acquired for $1.7 billion.
Eaton Corporation is a diversified industrial manufacturer whose operations are divided into four main groups: fluid power, electrical, automotive, and trucks. The company is a global leader in fluid power systems and services for industrial, mobile, and aircraft equipment; electrical systems and components for power quality, distribution, and control; automotive engine air management systems and power-train controls for fuel economy; and intelligent drive-train systems for fuel economy and safety in trucks. Among the brands that Eaton uses to market its products and services are Aeroquip, Airflex, Bill, Boston, Char-Lynn, Challenger, Durant, Eaton Electrical, Elek, Fuller, Golf Pride, Heinemann, Holec, Home Automation, Hydro-Line, MEM, Sterer, Tabula, Tedeco, Vickers, VORAD, and Weatherhead. Eaton generates business in more than 100 countries worldwide, with about one-third of revenues originating outside the United States--19 percent in Europe and about 6 percent each in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. The company's roots are in low-tech commodity parts for trucks and automobiles, but--particularly since the mid-1990s--Eaton has shifted focus to the manufacture of a variety of electronics-based products.
In 1911 Joseph Oriel Eaton established a small machine shop in Bloomfield, New Jersey, manufacturing heavy-duty truck axles for the expanding automotive industry. With the help of brother-in-law Henning O. Taube and Viggo V. Torbensen, who had patented an internal-gear rear truck axle in 1902, the Torbensen Gear and Axle Company built seven axles by hand in its first year. Three years later, the company's operations were moved to Cleveland, in order to be closer to the auto manufacturers there and in Detroit. Then in 1917, by which time production had soared to 33,000, the company was sold to Republic Motor Truck Co., the largest truck maker in the country.
In 1922 Eaton reentered the picture, buying back his original company from Republic Motor Truck Co. and renaming it one year later the Eaton Axle and Spring Co. Over the next several years, the company acquired several smaller auto parts manufacturers, including makers of chassis leaf springs, bumpers, engine valves and tappets, and coil springs. Diversification of its product line also included a new line of parts for aircraft engines.
The company weathered the Great Depression, acquiring several companies that were nearing bankruptcy. By the late 1930s industrial growth was stimulated by President Roosevelt's New Deal program, and demand for products from the Eaton Manufacturing Company--a name change registered in May 1932--increased slowly and steadily. When the United States became involved in World War II, Eaton, as a primary manufacturer of vehicle parts, produced a variety of items for the war effort.
In 1946 Eaton purchased the Dynamatic Corporation and one year later established a joint sales and engineering company
