TRW, Inc. was established in 1900, in Cleveland, Ohio, as the Cleveland Cap Screw Company. It began producing automotive parts and underwent several reorganizations, becoming the Electric Welding Products Company (1908), the Steel Products Company (1915), and Thompson Products Inc. (1926). It expanded to include branch plants and the production of aircraft parts, and fostered a company union, the Automotive and Aircraft Workers Alliance (later the Aircraft Workers Alliance). It grew during World War II due to defense contracts. After the war it entered the jet and aerospace industries. It merged in 1958 with Ramo Wooldridge Corporation to become TRW Inc. Outside activities include the National Air Races and the Crawford Auto-Aviation Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society. The collection consists of photographs that relate primarily to TRW's predecessor company, Thompson Products, but views from Ramo Wooldridge and TRW are also included. Consists of individual and group portraits of company personnel and management, and views of interior and exterior plant buildings in Cleveland and Euclid, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Bell, California; St. Louis, Missouri; and St. Catharines, Ontario. Product photographs include automotive valves, pistons, generators, fuel pumps, jet engine parts, and electronic and industrial equipment. Product ads include company logos, advertisements for trade shows, parts stores and machine shops; as well as individual products and displays of manuals and catalogs. Portraits of management figures include Frederick C. Crawford, Tom O. Duggan, and J. L. Coolidge, and photographs of workers in both work and social settings are also included.
