General Electric

General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energy, digital industry, additive manufacturing and venture capital and finance, but has since divested from several areas, now primarily consisting of the first four segments.

In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of GE – Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973) – have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

On November 9, 2021, the company announced it would divide itself into three investment-grade public companies. On July 18, 2022, GE unveiled the brand names of the companies it will create through its planned separation: GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare and GE Vernova. The new companies will be focused on aerospace, healthcare, and energy (renewable energy, power, and digital). The first spin-off of GE HealthCare is planned for the first week of January 2023, to be followed by the spin-off of GE's portfolio of energy businesses which plan to become GE Vernova in 2024. Following these transactions, GE will be an aviation-focused company, renaming itself as GE Aerospace, and will be the legal successor of the original GE.

History

Formation

During 1889, Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) had business interests in many electricity-related companies, including Edison Lamp Company, a lamp manufacturer in East Newark, New Jersey; Edison Machine Works, a manufacturer of dynamos and large electric motors in Schenectady, New York; Bergmann & Company, a manufacturer of electric lighting fixtures, sockets, and other electric lighting devices; and ''Edison Electric Light Company'', the patent-holding company and the financial arm backed by J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) and the Vanderbilt family for Edison's lighting experiments.

In 1889, Drexel, Morgan & Co., a company founded by J.P. Morgan and Anthony J. Drexel, financed Edison's research and helped merge those companies under one corporation to form Edison General Electric Company, which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1889. The new company also acquired Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year. The consolidation did not involve all of the companies established by Edison; notably, the Edison Illuminating Company, which would later become Consolidated Edison, was not part of the merger.

In 1880, Gerald Waldo Hart formed the American Electric Company of New Britain, Connecticut, which merged a few years later with Thomson-Houston Electric Company, led by Charles Coffin. In 1887, Hart left to become superintendent of the Edison Electric Company of Kansas City, Missouri. General Electric was formed through the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, with the support of Drexel, Morgan & Co. Both plants continue to operate under the GE banner to this day. The company was incorporated in New York, with the Schenectady plant used as headquarters for many years thereafter. Around the same time, General Electric's Canadian counterpart, Canadian General Electric, was formed.

In 1893, General Electric bought the business of Rudolf Eickemeyer in Yonkers, New York, along with all of its patents and designs. One of the employees was Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Only recently arrived in the United States, Steinmetz was already publishing in the field of magnetic hysteresis and had earned worldwide professional recognition. Led by Steinmetz, Eickemeyer's firm had developed transformers for use in the transmission of electrical power among many other mechanical and electrical devices. Steinmetz quickly became known as the engineering wizard in GE's engineering community.

Public company

In 1896, General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly formed Dow Jones Industrial Average, where it remained a part of the index for 122 years, though not continuously.

In 1911, General Electric absorbed the National Electric Lamp Association (NELA) into its lighting business. GE established its lighting division headquarters at Nela Park in East Cleveland, Ohio. The lighting division has since remained in the same location.

RCA and NBC

Owen D. Young, through GE, founded the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919, after purchasing the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. He aimed to expand international radio communications. GE used RCA as its retail arm for radio sales. In 1926, RCA co-founded the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), which built two radio broadcasting networks. In 1930, General Electric was charged with antitrust violations and was ordered to divest itself of RCA.

Television

In 1927, Ernst Alexanderson of GE made the first demonstration of television broadcast reception at his General Electric Realty Plot home at 1132 Adams Rd, Schenectady, New York. On January 13, 1928, he made what was said to be the first broadcast to the public in the United States on GE's W2XAD: the pictures were picked up on 1.5 square inch (9.7 square centimeter) screens in the homes of four GE executives. The sound was broadcast on GE's WGY (AM).

Experimental television station W2XAD evolved into the station WRGB which, along with WGY and WGFM (now WRVE), was owned and operated by General Electric until 1983. In 1965, the company expanded into cable with the launch of a franchise, which was awarded to a non-exclusive franchise in Schenectady through subsidiary General Electric Cablevision Corporation. On February 15, 1965, General Electric expanded its holdings in order to acquire more television stations to meet the maximum limit of the FCC, and more cable holdings through subsidiaries General Electric Broadcasting Company and General Electric Cablevision Corporation.

The company also owned television stations such as KOA-TV (now KCNC-TV) in Denver and WSIX-TV (later WNGE-TV, now WKRN) in Nashville, but like WRGB, General Electric sold off most of its broadcasting holdings, but held on to the Denver television station until in 1986, when General Electric bought out RCA and made it into an owned-and-operated station by NBC. It even stayed on until 1995 when it was transferred to a joint venture between CBS and Group W in a swap deal, alongside KUTV in Salt Lake City for longtime CBS O&O in Philadelphia, WCAU-TV.

Former General Electric-owned stations

Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and city of license.

Radio stations

Power generation

Led by Sanford Alexander Moss, GE moved into the new field of aircraft turbo superchargers. This technology also led to the development of industrial gas turbine engines used for power production. GE introduced the first set of superchargers during World War I, and continued to develop them during the interwar period. Superchargers became indispensable in the years immediately prior to W