what did american machine foundry (amf) give to the bowling world?

American Car and Foundry

4th and final logo, used from 1970–1985, still used by AMF Bowling and its successors
Trade proper name	AMF
Type	Private
Founded	Brooklyn, New York (1900; 122 years ago  (1900))
Founder	Rufus L. Patterson
Defunct	1985; 37 years ago  (1985)
Fate	Avails sold off to other companies
Successor	AMF Bowling AMF Bakery Systems[1] AMF Reece[2]

American Machine and Foundry (known subsequently 1970 as AMF, Inc.) was one of the United States' largest recreational equipment companies, with diversified products every bit disparate every bit garden equipment, atomic reactors, and yachts.

The company was founded in 1900 by Rufus Fifty. Patterson, inventor of the first automated cigarette manufacturing machine. Originally incorporated in New Jersey just operating in Brooklyn, the company began by manufacturing cigarette, blistering, and stitching machines.^[three] AMF moved into the bowling business concern after World War II, when AMF automated bowling equipment and bowling centers became assisting business organization ventures. Cycle production was added in 1950. The company was once a major manufacturer of products from lawn tennis racquets to research reactors for the US "Atoms for Peace" program.^[4] AMF became a major part of what would shortly be referred to by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower as "the military-industrial complex" later on Earth War Ii.

In the late 1950s, the visitor's vice-chairman was Walter Bedell Smith. He was formerly a United states of america major general, Eisenhower's wartime chief-of-staff, and Harry Truman'southward ambassador to the Soviet Union. Later on he became the fourth director of the Primal Intelligence Agency.

Until the mid-1980s, AMF's range of consumer appurtenances included powered model airplanes, snow skis, lawn and garden equipment, Ben Hogan golf clubs, Voit inflatable balls, exercycles and practice equipment, Hatteras Yachts, Alcort Sailboats, Nimble bicycles, motorized bicycles, mopeds, and scuba gear. For a time, AMF owned Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Aging production facilities and increasing quality control problems in some product lines acquired sales declines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company's vast diversified output proved difficult to efficiently manage and, after suffering a series of losses, the company sold off its operations.

Bowling pinsetters and nuclear reactors [edit]

In 1943, Rufus Patterson's son, Morehead Patterson, took over AMF. Later Globe War II ended, Patterson determined that the company had to "grow or dice".^[three] I of AMF'due south mail service-Earth War II ventures was AMF Atomics: a partitioning that made "depression-dose irradiation equipment" for "the Usa Army Quartermaster Corps' bulk-food irradiation program".^[five] In a masterstroke of height executive recruitment, Patterson hired top U.s.a. regime common cold warrior Walter Bedell Smith, whose leadership positions at the Pentagon, The states State Department and CIA made AMF one of the pillars of the The states military-industrial complex during the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1950s, the company won a contract for designing and constructing "a minor 1 MW swimming puddle-blazon reactor" at the Soreq Nuclear Research Heart in Israel, which for a short fourth dimension helped the Israelis conceal the fact that they were also edifice the Negev Nuclear Enquiry Centre for military purposes elsewhere in the state with French assistance.^[4]

Patterson encountered a prototype of an automatic bowling pin setter in the 1940s. To become the greenbacks to develop the invention, Patterson swapped AMF stock to acquire 8 pocket-size companies with fast-selling products. After incorporating fundamental features adult by Leslie Fifty. LeVeque,^[vi] the AMF Pinspotter, was perfected and put on the marketplace in 1952, and helped to turn bowling into the nearly popular Usa participative, competitive sport.^{[iii] [7]} AMF became a major manufacturer of pinsetters, bowling pins, bowling assurance, and other bowling equipment, and owned and operated numerous bowling centers. AMF Bowling Products maintained its headquarters in Shelby, Ohio, until 1988.

Bicycle production [edit]

In 1950, later purchasing the Roadmaster line of children's and youth bicycles from the Cleveland Welding Company, American Machine and Foundry entered the bicycle manufacturing business concern with its newly formed AMF Wheel Appurtenances Division. Afterward a prolonged labor strike in 1953, AMF moved bicycle manufacturing from a UAW-organized plant in Cleveland, Ohio, to a new facility in Petty Rock, Arkansas.^[8] The new establish was heavily automated and featured more than than a mile of conveyor belts in vi split up systems, including an electrostatic consecration painting operation.^[ix]

Taking advantage of the increase in its target markets in the aftermath of the baby boom, AMF was able to diversify its product line, calculation exercise equipment under the brand proper name Vitamaster in 1950. Equally demand for bicycles continued to aggrandize, the company needed a new manufacturing facility to keep upward with demand. In 1962, the company moved its operations to Olney, Illinois, where it congenital a new factory on a 122-acre (0.49 km²) site that would remain the company's principal bike manufacturing location until the 1990s.

After two decades of consistent growth, the AMF Wheel Goods Sectionalization stalled under the long-distance direction of a parent visitor bogged down in layers of corporate management and marginally assisting product lines. Manufacturing quality also equally the technical standards of the Roadmaster bicycle line - in one case the pride of the visitor - had fallen to an all-fourth dimension depression. Bicycles made at the Olney plant were manufactured so poorly that some Midwestern bike shops refused to repair them, claiming that the bikes would not stay fixed no affair how much labor and effort was put into them.^[10] The division's problems with quality and exterior contest were neatly summed upwardly in a 1979 American movie, Breaking Away, in which identical secondhand AMF Roadmaster rails bicycles were used past competitors in the Little 500 wheel race. Despite this product placement, the film's protagonist expressed a preference for his lightweight Italian Masi route racing bike, deriding the elderly Roadmaster as a "piece of junk".^[11]

In 1997, the Roadmaster cycle division was sold to the Brunswick Corporation. Notwithstanding, it became axiomatic that production of low-cost, mass-market bicycles in the US was not viable in the face of strange competition,^[12] and in 1999, all U.Southward. production of Roadmaster bicycles ceased. Brunswick sold its bicycle division and the Roadmaster brand to Pacific Wheel, which began distributing a new Roadmaster line of bicycles imported from Taiwan and the People'due south Republic of China. Pacific Cycle still uses the Olney facility for corporate offices and as a product inventory and distribution center.

New product lines [edit]

261 Madison Avenue, formerly the AMF Building

1975 AMF Harley-Davidson 250

1975 AMF Harley-Davidson 350

In 1949, American Machine and Foundry adult a pretzel bender, an automatic baked pretzel-twisting auto that rolled and tied them at the charge per unit of 50 a minute, more than twice as fast as skilled manus twisters. It then conveyed them through the baking and salting process.^[13] To expand its line of recreational equipment, AMF bought Due west. J. Voit Condom Corp. (tread rubber, scuba gear), Ben Hogan Co. (golfing equipment), and Wen-Mac Corp. (engine-powered toy airplanes).^[iii]

In 1954, the company acquired Potter and Brumfield, a manufacturer of electrical relays.^[xiv]

By 1961, AMF controlled and operated 42 plants and xix research facilities in 17 unlike countries, producing everything from remote-controlled toy airplanes to ICBM launching systems. AMF was the builder of the launching silos for the Titan and Atlas ICBMs, and also developed the rail-motorcar launching system for the solid-fueled Minuteman missile.

In the tardily 1950s and early 1960s, the company ran neck-and-neck with General Dynamics in the construction of nuclear ability reactors. AMF sold Pakistan and Iran their start nuclear reactors.^[iii] Peter Karter was amidst the engineers working on the reactors AMF congenital in Pakistan and Iran under the Atoms for Peace program.^{[15] [sixteen] [17]}

In 1953, company headquarters moved into a new International Way-role belfry at 261 Madison Avenue. Given naming rights, the AMF logo appeared in the Manhattan skyline. The bowling partitioning ultimately outgrew the space and in 1960 moved to Long Island (Westbury, New York); corporate headquarters was relocated in 1971 to White Plains, New York.

In the early 1960s, American Automobile and Foundry partnered with the French company SAFEGE to pattern, construct and market a monorail for American cities. The AMF Monorail was exhibited at the 1964 New York World's Fair, where it traversed a continuous elevated loop around the entertainment section of the off-white. Information technology was displayed every bit a practical form of time to come transportation.

In 1971, American Machine and Foundry was renamed AMF. For many years, the company produced a wide variety of sport and leisure equipment, including Roadmaster bicycles, Harley-Davidson motorcycles (1969–1981), Caput snow skis and tennis racquets (1969–1985), snowmobiles, lawn and garden equipment, (including manufacturing for Sears Craftsman. The models typically start with "536") Ben Hogan golf clubs (1960–1985), Voit inflatable balls, exercise equipment (including exercycles), motorized bicycles, mopeds, SlickCraft powerboats (1969–80), Alcort sailboats (including the Sunfish and the Hilu; 1969–86), Hatteras Yachts, and scuba gear.

In the late 1970s, in a reference to its numerous leisure production lines, the company began a Boob tube advertising campaign centered on the slogan "AMF, we brand weekends". For a short time, the company owned Dewalt Tools (1949–1960), and manufactured gymnastics equipment under the AMF brand. The gymnastics division was afterward spun off to grade American Athletic (AAI) which used the same logo every bit AMF simply with different text. New and improved exercycles, such equally the Computrim line, the first to contain an electronic heart monitor, were introduced. AMF also acquired a recreational motor home sectionalisation named Atlas Recreational Vehicles of Bricklayer City, Iowa, which was disbanded after heavy losses following the fuel crunch of the early 1970s.

For a while the company made time switches, taking over the UK company Venner in 1970.^[eighteen]

Decline [edit]

Past the belatedly 1970s, the company encountered difficulties. The absence of stable direction (the company had seven presidents betwixt 1972 and 1982), aging product facilities, rising labor costs, and the inability of AMF to operate efficiently and control its many production divisions from headquarters in White Plains, New York, contributed to a steady decline in sales and profits. Unlike large Japanese corporations such as Matsushita Electric Industrial, which had a standing corporate policy of discontinuing whatsoever product line or division in which they were not able to stay in showtime or 2nd place in total market place sales, AMF continued a practice of purchasing new companies in unfamiliar markets, while simultaneously failing to reorganize and modernize its cadre operations.^[19] As a result, during the belatedly 1970s and early 1980s, the visitor lost an boilerplate of $8 1000000 per yr. Some subsidiaries were sold, including Harley-Davidson in 1981.

For a time, the Italian scuba diving equipment manufacturer Mares was part of AMF, and was able to secure the rights to the MR-12 regulator, previously fabricated by Voit, and to continue manufacture of the regulator. Mares would revert to being an independent manufacturer after AMF was sold. It eventually became part of a worldwide consortium of sports equipment companies, including another one-time AMF division, Head.^[twenty]

In 1985, AMF was acquired through hostile takeover by Minstar Inc., a Minneapolis-based property company controlled by investor Irwin L. Jacobs, and Jacobs began selling off its various divisions.^[21] Democracy Ventures, a group of private investors in Richmond, Virginia, paid $225 meg to purchase AMF's bowling centers and bowling products divisions in 1985 to form AMF Bowling Companies, Inc. (after known as AMF Bowling Worldwide).^[22]

References [edit]

1. ^ "AMF Baker". Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
2. ^ "AMF Reece". Retrieved February 18, 2014.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Diversified Success", Time, May 19, 1961
4. ^ ^{a b} Cohen, Avner; Burr, William (April 15, 2015). "The Eisenhower Administration and the Discovery of Dimona: March 1958-January 1961". National Security Archive . Retrieved Apr 17, 2015.
5. ^ "AMF nuclear engineering science brings you advanced. ..Radiation Process Equipment". Mod Mechanix. May 1956. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
6. ^ "Development of the Automated Pinsetter". Onetime Bowling . Retrieved May 29, 2018.
7. ^ United states of america Demography Archived March 27, 2010, at the Wayback Auto Nigh popular sport
8. ^ Petty, Ross D., "Pedaling Schwinn Bicycles: Marketing Lessons for the Leading Postal service-World War II U.S. Bicycle Brand", Babson College, MA (2007), p. 5 Article Archived May 14, 2013, at the Wayback Motorcar
9. ^ Petty, Ross D., "Pedaling Schwinn Bicycles", p. five
10. ^ Vandewater, Judith, Vandewater, Judith, "Bike Maker Is on the Road Again", St. Louis Mail-Dispatch, July 7, 1985
11. ^ Breaking Away, Tesich, Steve (screenwriter), Yates, Peter (managing director), distributed by 20th Century Play tricks, released July thirteen, 1979
12. ^ Sands, David R., "Chinese Bikes Ruled No Threat To U.S. Makes", The Washington Times, June v, 1996
13. ^ "Car Speeds Pretzel Bending". Modern Mechanix. Feb vi, 2009. Retrieved Nov 28, 2013.
14. ^ "Potter & Brumfield Inc. History". FundingUniverse.
15. ^ Nucleonics, McGraw-Hill., vol. 21, 1963, p. xxx
16. ^ "How to Dispose of Radioactive Wastes", Peter Karter, Electric Light & Power, 1967, Folio 3
17. ^ "Mastermind of the MRF". Logsdon, Gene. BioCycle. Emmaus: Apr 1993. Vol. 34, Iss. 4; pg. 49, ff.
18. ^ "American Machine and Foundry Co". Grace's Guide . Retrieved July 17, 2016.
19. ^ Panasonic Bicycles Xanthous Bailiwick of jersey 2007
20. ^ "History of Caput N.V." FundingUniverse . Retrieved April 18, 2018.
21. ^ Daniels, Lee A. (June 15, 1985). "AMF Agrees to Offer Past Jacobs of $24 a Share". The New York Times . Retrieved July 27, 2011.
22. ^ "AMF Bowling, Inc. History". FundingUniverse . Retrieved May 29, 2018.

External links [edit]

• Evolution of the Automated Pinsetter
• nywf64.com (1964/1965 New York Earth's Fair Website) story of the AMF Monorail
• AMF Building in New York City
• Reprint of ad for AMF Atomics, Scientific American, May, 1956

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Machine_and_Foundry

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