Pratt & Whitney Company Records

Pratt & Whitney Company was founded in 1860 by Francis Pratt (1827-1902) and Amos Whitney (1832-1920), who met while working as machinists for the Phoenix Iron Works. The first products they produced included silk winders, guns, lathes, and drills. The company formally incorporated in 1869. By the end of the 1800s the company branched into the production of planters, screw machines, die sinkers, wrenches, gages, weighing machines, and more.

In 1879 the company hired Harvard professor William A. Rogers and Stevens Institute of Technology graduate George M. Bond to begin work to establish the standard inch. This led to the important development of the Rogers-Bond Comparator, accurate to one fifty-thousandth of an inch. This research helped Pratt & Whitney develop and promulgate the mass production of interchangeable parts.

In 1901 Pratt & Whitney Company was purchased by the Niles-Bement-Pond Company. At that time the company concentrated on the manufacture of machine tools, small tools, and gages. In 1925 the company began producing aircraft engines, but by 1929 had moved this operation to a plant in East Hartford, Connecticut. With the move the manufacture of engines became unaffiliated with the Pratt & Whitney Division of the Niles-Bement-Pond Company, but the company retained the rights to use the Pratt & Whitney name.

Due to its need for expansion the Pratt & Whitney Company relocated from its original offices on Capitol Avenue in Hartford to a 166-acre complex on Charter Oak Boulevard in West Hartford in 1939. The company became well known for the precision of its equipment, which was able to accurately measure to 5 millionths of an inch. By 1961 Pratt & Whitney had begun to produce numerically controlled measuring systems, which allowed for even greater accuracy.

In 1945 Niles-Bement-Pond Company was acquired by Chandler Evans. Chandler Evans merged with Penn-Texas Corporation in 1955. Penn-Texas Corporation was renamed in 1958 as Fairbanks Whitney Corporation after it merged with Fairbanks Morse & Company. By 1960 the Pratt & Whitney Division employed over 2500 workers and produced more than 2000 items.

In 1991 Moore Products Company assumed control of Pratt & Whitney Company and moved its headquarters to Plainville, Connecticut. Today the company is known as Pratt & Whitney Measurement Systems, Inc. and is located in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The company still upholds its tradition of accuracy as it continues to develop and manufacture measuring systems.