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Whirlpool, the single largest home appliances company in the world, has a unique story. The Whirlpool Corporation celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. Here is a brief sketch of the major forces that have brought about the company's maturation from a pioneering producer of electric motor driven washing machines in the early 20th century, to its current position of leadership in the major home appliance global industry. The beginning of the 20th Century witnessed what many have characterised as the Second Industrial Revolution. Most notably, Henry Ford introduced mass production for automobile manufacture and George Westinghouse ushered in the age of readily available electricity for illumination and power. This dramatically and forever changed the prevailing ways of business, industry and domestic life. Its founders were Chicagoan Lou Upton, owner of a patent for a manually operated clothes washer that had never been produced and his uncle Emory Upton, a machine shop owner in the St. Joseph, Michigan area. The commitment to serve homemakers was in evidence even in those early days as Lou Upton challenged his uncle to power his washer electrically 'so the women of the country could be assisted in their washing chore'.
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