American Standard Inc.

Product Details

Historical Context

American Standard was created from the 1929 merger of the American Radiator Company and the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company. The Company was then known as American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corporation. It changed its name to "American Standard" in 1967 to reflect the Company's familiar plumbing products brand name. American Standard is the world's largest producer of bathroom and kitchen fixtures and fittings and one of the world's largest producers of air conditioning and heating systems. It is also the leading producer of braking systems and electronic controls for heavy-duty buses and trucks in Europe.

Three of the Company's business segments trace their origins to four major, pioneering companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: American Radiator Company, Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company, the Westinghouse Air Brake Company and the Trane Company.

Standard Sanitary was formed in 1899 in a merger of several companies manufacturing enameled-cast iron sanitaryware. Standard Sanitary pioneered many of the plumbing product improvements introduced in the early part of this century including the once piece toilet, built-in tubs, combination faucets and tarnish-proof, corrosion-proof chrome finishes for brass fittings.

Tracing its origins to 1881, American Radiator Company manufactured radiator and other heating equipment The "Ideal" brand name used on many American Standard products outside of the United States came from an 1897 American Radiator acquisition, Ideal Boiler Company. American Radiator was an international pioneer establishing European manufacturing operations by 1910. None of American Radiator's product lines are now manufactured.

WABCO, formed in Pittsburgh in 1869, was the first of 72 companies founded by American inventor, George Westinghouse. The company's initial product was the railway air brake. WABCO built plants throughout Europe before world War I, and the company manufactured its first pneumatic brakes from commercial vehicles in 1921.

In 1913, James Trane and his son, Reuben, incorporated The Trane Company to produce a new type of low-pressure steam heating. The company became a pioneer in an entirely new field-air conditioning-with the development of the Trane Unit Cooler in 1931. American Standard and its 35 joint ventures operate 106 manufacturing facilities in 35 countries, employing 44,000. 1996 sales from the company's three business segments totaled $5.8 billion.

Here are a couple of interesting tidbits:

In 1951, the company introduced Sanistand, a woman's urinal. It is placed in public restrooms across the country in a pilot program. It didn't last.

In 1968, Phil Donahue teams up with American Standard and a wholesaler to dedicate one of his local Dayton, Ohio shows to the topic of plumbing fixtures. TV's first frank toilet talk generated more than 2,000 phoned-in questions from viewers.

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