Tuesday 2 April 2013

B&D History – Did you know?


Black & Decker completed a 100 years of existence in 2010 and we have come a long way from our humble beginnings. We have a blog post about the major milestones here. In this post, we try to bring you some other interesting details about this journey:

1910: When Duncan S. Black and Alonzo G. Decker founded The Company in a small shed in Baltimore, Maryland, the first devices they worked on were a bottle-capping machine and a candy-dipping device.

1916-17: Black & Decker patented its first portable electric drill, and the device was related to a portable air-compressor that was also patented.

1921: We were pioneers in the use of media, and this was the year that full-page advertisements for Black & Decker started appearing in the newspapers.

1946: The son of one of the founders, Alonzo G. Decker Jr. noticed that workers were borrowing the industrial power drills for their home repairs, and here began the idea of the home utility drills and the DIY revolution.

1954: The famous billowing skirt photo of Marilyn Monroe was shot with the help of a primitive version of the Black & Decker leaf blower. (Source article here)

1968: The next time you use a cordless drill from B&D, do remember the thrilling fact that an earlier model has been used to drill and take samples on the moon during the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions.

1984: The Statue of Liberty and nearby buildings underwent a major restoration and Black & Decker were the official supplier of power tools for this major event.

1992: The original drill from 1916 was presented this year to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. to be preserved and displayed for posterity.

Sources:

We hope you enjoyed that compilation. For a look at our present-day tools, please do check out our website: http://www.blackanddeckerindia.in

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