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Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was a U.S. electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995 . It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management. more...

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It also served as the purchasing agent for the member companies of the Bell system.

In 1856, George Shawk, purchased an electrical engineering business in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1869, he became partners with Enos N. Barton and, later the same year, sold his share to inventor Elisha Gray. In 1872 Barton and Gray moved the business to Clinton Street, Chicago, Illinois and incorporated it as the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. They manufactured a variety of electrical products including typewriters, alarms and lighting and had a close relationship with the telegraph company Western Union to whom they supplied relays and other equipment.

In 1875, Gray sold his interests to Western Union, including the caveat that he had filed against Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for the telephone. The ensuing legal battle over patent rights, between Western Union and the Bell Telephone Company, ended in 1879 with the former company withdrawing from the telephone market and the latter acquiring Western Electric in 1881.

Western Electric Company was the first company to join in a Japanese joint venture with foreign capital. It invested in Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. in 1899, now known as NEC Corporation. Western Electric held 54% of NEC at the time. Their representative in Japan was Walter Tenney Carleton.

Despite the existence of 1300 Independent telephone companies, the Bell System, popularly known as Ma Bell, had a monopoly on long distance service from 1881 until its nearly the time of its break-up in 1984, and monopolies in local service for most regions during that same period. AT&T secured all urban areas in the early 20th century. The independent companies were left to serve less-profitable outlying areas and vast stretches of rural America.

The bulk of AT&T revenue came from the Bell System -- regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs), such as The New York Telephone Co., The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. and Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.. Other divisions of AT&T and parts of the Bell System included Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. (Bell Labs), AT&T Long Lines and Western Electric, the manufacturing arm.

All telephones in areas where AT&T subsidiaries provided local service, all components of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), and all devices connected to the network were made by Western Electric and no other devices were allowed to be connected to AT&T's network.

Until 1983, Western Electric telephones were leased by subscribers and never sold, and so had to be repaired at no charge if they failed. This led Western Electric to pursue extreme reliability and durability in design. In particular, the work of Walter A. Shewhart, who developed new techniques for statistical quality control in the 1920s, helped lead to the legendary quality of manufacture of Western Electric telephones. In 1983, Western Electric telephones began being sold to the public through the newly created American Bell subsidiary of AT&T, under the American Bell brand name. Prior to Judge Greene prohibiting AT&T from using the Bell name after January 1, 1984, the plan was to market products and services under the American Bell name, accompanied by the now familiar AT&T globe logo.

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