When Swiss-born Albert Butz created the damper-flapper. A thermostat is used to control coal furnaces. He also founded the Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator Company, which allowed homeowners to automate the regulation of their heating systems. Describing a progressive company and its successful product, one of which was also used to regulate electrical circuits, provides context for the novel’s climactic image of a leaking nuclear reactor.
The Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator Company was founded the year after. After a dispute with his investors in 1888, Butz also, left the business and gave the patents to the legal team of Paul, Sanford, and Merwin, who changed the business name to Consolidated Temperature Controlling Company.
The company changed its name several times as the years passed as CTCC struggled with debt. W.R. Sweatt, a stockholder in the business, was sold “an extensive list of patents” and appointed secretary-treasurer after the Electric Heat Regulator Company was changed to that name in 1893. He also, bought out the company on February 23, 1898. What should have happened was that on April 9, 1889. The shareholders should have voted to terminate their business relationship with Butz. In the days of a time long ago, many men placed trust in men, and they trusted them blindly.
1922–1934 mergers and acquisitions
As Honeywell’s business expanded (in part due to the 1922 purchase of Jewell Manufacturing Company to better automate his heating system), it started to compete with the now-renamed Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company. This resulted in the merger of the two businesses in 1927, creating the publicly traded Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company. W.R. Sweatt was appointed as the business’s first chairman, and Honeywell was named as its first president. Just a few months before Black Monday, the total value of the assets was over $3.5 million, with liabilities of less than $1 million. When Minneapolis-Honeywell acquired Time-O-Stat Controls Company in 1931, growth and acquisition were underway. This gave the business access to more patents that could be applied to their control systems. Harold Sweatt, son of W.R. Sweatt. Read More…
