: ''For the radioactive mineral, see

Cleveite Cleveite is an impure radioactive variety of uraninite containing uranium, found in Norway. It has the composition UO2 with about 10% of the uranium substituted by rare-earth elements. It was named after Swedish chemist Per Teodor Cleve. Cleveit ...

.'' Clevite, Inc. was a

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

based manufacturing company, founded as the Cleveland Graphite Bronze Company. The company was a leading producer of Babbit bearings and a significant US government defense contractor. The bearings were licensed in Britain to Vandervell Products Ltd;

W. A. Robotham William Arthur Robotham (26 November 1899 - 1980) was a Rolls-Royce executive involved in the development of Rolls-Royce cars, during World War II of tanks and tank engines, and post-war of Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars complete with bodies and th ...

of Rolls-Royce said that "it was an exceedingly difficult task for

Tony Vandervell Guy Anthony "Tony" Vandervell (8 September 1898 – 10 March 1967) was a British industrialist, motor racing financier, and founder of the Vanwall Formula One racing team. Motorsport Vandervell was the son of Charles Vandervell, founder of CAV, l ...

... knowing the American company well". In 1952 the Cleveland Graphite Bronze Company absorbed the

Brush Development Company Brush Development Company was a manufacturer of Audio equipment, audio, phonographic products and magnetic recording technologies located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was absorbed into Clevite in 1952. History The business was founded in 1919 by Alfred ...

and Brush Labs in a merger. In 1953 it acquired 51% of Transistor Products Inc., and with other acquisitions such as the German ''Intermetall'' in 1955 (a company founded in 1952 by pioneering German physicist and developer of the first "European"

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...

Herbert Mataré Herbert Franz Mataré (22 September 1912 – 2 September 2011) was a German physicist. The focus of his research was the field of semiconductor research. His best-known work is the first functional European transistor, which he developed and paten ...

, and subsequently sold to

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

giant ITT in 1965) developed a

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

division. By 1959, over one-third of Clevite's sales were in electronics, split over four units: Clevite Transistor Prods.; Brush Instruments; Clevite Electronic Components; and Clevite Ordnance. Clevite won defense contracts for some of its products and opened a new ordnance plant in 1967.Clevite Corp., ''Encyclopedia of Cleveland History'', Case-Western Reserve University
/ref> Clevite purchased

Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology company in what came to be known as Silicon Valley to wo ...

in 1960 and continued operating it until selling it (again to ITT is it had done with Intermetall) in 1968. In 1969, Clevite was acquired by Gould-National Batteries,History of Cleveland Graphite Bronze
/ref> a firm one-quarter its size. It adopted the Gould name in the hopes of having better brand recognition in the marketplace.

References

External links

Company history from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland
{{manufacturing-company-stub Manufacturing companies based in Cleveland