Robbins & Myers Mid-Century Electric Three-Speed Industrial style Table Fan

Robbins & Myers Mid-Century Electric Three-Speed Industrial style Table Fan, 1940s - 1950s. Made in USA

Size 46 x 36 x 29 cm with base

The company was originally established in 1878 by Chandler Robbins and James Myers in Springfield, Ohio, near Dayton. The founders brought varied experiences to the business. Robbins had worked as an astronomer and surveyor, while Myers had been a teacher and grocer. Robbins had invested $500 in a gray-iron foundry in 1876, and was joined two years later by Myers. The new owners changed the company name from Lever Wringer Company to The Robbins & Myers Company. The company namesakes initially manufactured castings for agricultural tools and machines, then broadened into bicycle parts when that industry boomed at the turn of the century.

The late Nineteenth-century development of direct-current generators freed electric motors from the big, heavy batteries to which they had been bound and opened up a new universe of electric appliances. Robbins & Myers entered this burgeoning new market in 1897, when the company began manufacturing electric desk, ceiling, oscillating and ventilating fans. Over the course of its history, Robbins & Myers developed into a full-line producer of electric fans, and later acquired the well-known Hunter brand of overhead fans.