General Electric Company History

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GENERAL ELECTRIC Company Background General Electric, GE, is an American multinational company corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York, and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, in the United States. It was founded by Thomas Edison, Charles Coffin, Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston During 1889, Thomas Edison had business interests in many electricity-related companies: Edison Lamp Company, a lamp manufacturer in East Newark, New Jersey; Edison Machine Works, a manufacturer of dynamos and large electric motors inSchenectady, New York; Bergmann & Company, a manufacturer of electric lighting fixtures, sockets, and other electric lighting devices; and Edison Electric Light Company, the patent-holding company and the financial arm backed by J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family for Edison's lighting experiments. In 1889, Drexel, Morgan & Co., a company founded by J.P. Morgan andAnthony J. Drexel, financed Edison’s research and helped merge those companies under one corporation to form Edison General Electric Company which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1889. The new company also acquired Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year. At about the same time, Charles Coffin, leading Thomson-Houston Electric Company, acquired a number of competitors and gained access to their key patents. General Electric was formed by the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, with the help of Drexel, Morgan & Co. Jeffrey Immelt is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of GE. He was selected by GE's Board of Directors in 2000 to replace Jack Welch following his retirement. Previously, Immelt had headed GE's Medical Systems division (now GE Healthcare) as its President and CEO. GE's divisions include GE Capital, GE Power & Water, GE Oil

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