Brown Instrument Company.

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Brown Instrument Company.

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Brown Instrument Company.

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1925

active 1925

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1960

active 1960

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Biographical History

The Brown Instrument Company was organized on April 19, 1890 in Philadelphia, Pa. in order to manufacture electrical measuring instruments. During the next two decades it became one of the nation's largest producers of industrial thermometers and thermostats. Large steel firms were Brown's most important customers as it developed a number of sophisticated devices to regulate blast furnace temperatures. In 1934 Brown merged with Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company, which was then the leading producer of automatic heat regulating and temperature control equipment. After the merger, the company began to develop industrial control systems designed to measure and adjust temperature, pressure, and the flow rates of liquids and gases. Brown's instruments brought the principles of feedback control, perfected by Elmer Sperry, to the factory floor. Its devices were particularly useful in the oil and chemical industries where the production process required careful monitoring and adjustment. In the years before World War II, the Brown Instrument Company developed a series of complex electromechanical devices incorporating a wide array of sensors, thermostats, and effectors in the automation of factory operations.

During the early 1950s, the Brown Instrument Company began to experiment with analog computers and designed industrial control systems which were much more powerful than the electromechanical models developed in the 1930s and early 1940s. The computer, a central component of the system, performed all required calculations automatically and it was, therefore, no longer necessary to pause and wait for human intervention in the production process. Production could, as a result, take place on a continuous basis and be controlled by the push of a button.

From the description of Records, 1925-1960. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122393261

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Analog computers

Analog electronic systems

Automatic control

Automatic control equipment industry

Automation

Chemical industry

Computer industry

Continuous casting

Cybernetics

Electric utilities

Electronic analog computers

Electronic data processing

Feedback control systems

Industrial engineering

Industrial relations

Iron industry and trade

Laboratory notebooks

Liquor industry

Machine-tools

Manufacturing processes

Manufacturing processes

Manufacturing processes

Measuring instruments industry

Nuclear power plants

Petroleum industry and trade

Process control

Process control equipment industry

Production engineering

Remote control

Scientific management

Servomechanisms

Steel industry and trade

Temperature control

Temperature measurements

Thermoelectric apparatus and appliances

Thermometers

Thermostat

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