Manuscripts Collection
In 1883 inventor Albert Butz developed the process of automatic temperature control, connecting a thermostat to a spring motor to operate home furnace dampers according to changes in air temperature. In 1885 he filed for his first temperature control patent, and formed the Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator Company. Butz's company was incorporated in 1886. In 1888 he sold his business, which was incorporated as the Consolidated Temperature Controlling Company. The firm was renamed the Electric Thermostat Company in 1892, and the Electric Heat Regulator Company in 1893.
William R. Sweatt arrived in Minneapolis from Fargo, North Dakota, in 1891. He started the Sweatt Manufacturing Company, building wooden wheelbarrows, grocery boxes, and wooden washing machines at a factory in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. Sweatt invested in the Consolidated Temperature Controlling Company at about this time, and was given a seat on its board of directors. In 1893 he was named secretary-treasurer of the firm, and the directors asked him to take over operation of the company. By 1902 Sweatt had bought out the original investors and had secured complete ownership of the firm. The company was renamed Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company in 1912.
Honeywell Heating Specialty Company was established in 1906 at Wabash, Indiana by Mark C. Honeywell, and manufactured water-heating equipment. The firm was reorganized and its name changed to Honeywell Heating Specialties Company in 1916, and it began to produce automatic temperature controls. In 1927 the Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company, then a manufacturer of automatic controls for coal-fired furnaces, and Honeywell Heating Specialties Company, a manufacturer of oil burner controls, merged to form the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company. The headquarters of the new firm was established in Minneapolis, with W.R. Sweatt chairman of the board and Mark C. Honeywell president. Manufacturing was continued in both Minneapolis and Wabash. The corporate name was changed in 1964 to Honeywell Inc.
Minneapolis-Honeywell became a defense contractor in 1940. Of particular note was its development of an electronic autopilot, which came to be used on all types of U.S. bombers during World War II. It also became a supplier of autopilots and other controls for civilian aircraft, and later was involved in the space program. In 1986 Honeywell increased its involvment in the aerospace industry with its purchase of Sperry Aerospace.
Honeywell entered the computer business via a 1955 joint venture with Raytheon Corp known as Datamatic Corporation. The company's first computer system, the D-1000, weighed 25 tons, took up 6,000 square feet, and cost $1.5 million. A 1970 merger agreement with General Electric Company resulted in the creation of Honeywell Information Systems, Inc., a new computer company combining the computer business of the two parent companies. Honeywell Information Systems manufactured mainframe computers. Honeywell later began to gradually exit the computer business, and by 1991 was completely out of it.
Honeywell Inc. merged with AlliedSignal Inc., of Morris Township, New Jersey, in the Fall of 1999. Headquarters of the combined company was established at Morris Township, and the firm carried the Honeywell name. The new company had operations in 95 countries and had 1998 sales of $8.4 billion. Lawrence A. Bossidy, chairman and CEO of AlliedSignal, became the new company's chairman, and Michael R. Bonsignore, chairman and CEO of Honeywell, was made the new company's CEO.
The collection relates primarily to Honeywell's control systems business, especially to thermostats and related controls for home heating plants, and to autopilots and related aeronautical equipment and devices for airplanes. A smaller portion of the collection is concerned with the company's information systems (computer) business. The records were reorganized in 2002 into fifteen record series based upon type of material and/or corporate function.
The collection includes alphabetically-ordered subject files; product catalogs and manuals; patent files; promotional and sales-related materials; product literature; and photographs of company buildings and facilities, executives, overseas offices and operations, and products. There are scrapbooks and portfolios featuring examples of Honeywell advertising, especially from the 1930s through the 1950s. The collection contains company-produced newsletters and journals, including four reels of microfilmed in-house newsletters (formerly cataloged separately). There are thirty-two reels of microfilmed engineering correspondence; audiotapes and videocassettes, motion pictures, and filmstrips; some financial and stockholder information; and material relating to Honeywell's overseas offices and operations. "Historical Files" consist largely of background information gathered in connection with Honeywell's observance of its centennial anniversary (1985), and also includes transcripts of oral history interviews conducted in 1973 in Wabash, Indiana. There are some photographs of and files relating to employees and employee activities, but there are no "personnel records," per se. There is information about Honeywell mergers and acquisitions, and a series of records of predecessor, subsidiary, and related companies.
Much of the material focuses on Honeywell's aerospace and defense work, including its development and marketing of autopilots to the United States Air Force and to private industry, and to its involvement in the space program (projects Gemini and Apollo). There are newspaper clippings and other materials related to the so-called "Honeywell Project," a Twin Cities-based protest effort which involved the periodic staging of demonstrations at Honeywell's corporate headquarters in protest of the company's work as a defense contractor.
These documents are organized into the following sections:
Annual reports, collective labor agreements, and a variety of other printed materials generated by Honeywell Inc. and its precedessors are in the Minnesota Historical Society library.
Other Honeywell corporate records are at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the
Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics,
persons or places should
Access to and use of reserve materials requires the curator's permission.
Quotation or publication, beyond the fair use provisions of the copyright law, requires written permission.
Accession number: 13,898; 14,466; 15,589; 15,674; 15,744; 15,811; 15,076; 15,674; 16,410; 16,502; 16,535; 16,761
Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project
grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Processed by: David B. Peterson, April 1989; additions June 1993 and August 2002; Alex Kent, additions February 2010; Shelby Edwards, October 2011
Catalog ID number: 001729443
A series of articles by Prof. John E. Arnold, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [M.I.T.].
Honeywell Project was an organization of anti-war/anti-nuclear weapons activists who staged demonstrations at Honeywell's general offices in Minneapolis over a period of some twenty years in protest of the company's defense contracting business.
See also Honeywell Control Systems Fact Books and Honeywell Information Systems Fact Books.
Concerns property on Broad Street, Philadelphia-Brown Instruments property.
This file contains clippings relating to Honeywell's overseas operations and facilities.
This publication bills itself as "A magine devoted to the interests of the automatic heating industry; published by Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company"
Published by the Residential Technology/Quality Assurance Group.
Published for the heating and cooling industry.
Prepared by Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulatory Corporation engineers in its New York offices (801 - 2nd Avenue until 1942, then 221 - 4th Avenue until 1945); its Beacon Street, Boston, office (1945-1946), and its Hartford Office (35 Webster Street, later 865 Wethersfield Avenue) thereafter.
The diagrams were prepared for projects in southern New England showing how Honeywell temperature controls and other regulatory devices were integrated into full projects. Many of the drawings contain a narrative "Statement of Operations" describing how the various component parts work together.
Drawn at Honeywell's Wabash (Indiana) Commercial Facility.
These are typewritten literary manuscripts for publication in Honeywell magazines and newsletters, trade journals, and newspapers, and as stand-alone publications. Many of the articles concern residential heating, cooling, and humidification. There are biographical sketches of Honeywell executives, and there is information about the company's W.R. Sweatt Historical Library.
Original manuscript of Bill Nessell's book on heating the home.
Original manuscript by Bill Nessell.
This was a decision-making exercise for service personnel; suitable for use in meeting settings to educate accounts on using step-by-step methods of trouble shooting.
The 1971 report is in French.
Computer Control Company, Incorporated, of Framingham, Massachusetts and Los Angeles, California, was acquired by Honeywell in 1966, creating a new operating unit of the company, the Computer Control Division.
These materials describe the operation, installation, verification, and use of digital computers made by Honeywell and the Computer Control Company.
Includes DDP-516.
Issued by various units of Honeywell.
Numbered M-76 to M-2113 (with many gaps); small bulletins relate to many of the above systems. Some units of this same series appear with manuals listed above.
The file consists mainly of
This newsletter was apparently succeeded by
This newsletter apparently succeeded
Newsletter for managers at Waltham, Massachusetts.
Oversize albums of advertisements that appeared in trade journals and consumer magazines; include advertisements for thermostats and other products manufactured by Honeywell and related and predecessor companies.
Includes some Brown Instruments calendars, circa 1939-1950.
These are also variously titled as
These are monthly bound collections of Honeywell magazine advertising. Much of it appeared in industry and trade journals. Some months are missing.
See additional Honeywell calendars, above.
These are direct mail items pasted into a scrapbook.
Includes magazine and newspaper advertisements for thermostats, pyrometers, sensors, electronic data processing systems, and other products and systems.
"Aeronautical publications: Flight control sheets - Wallet #2, from RG7020A Auto-Approach Coupler to end."
Includes
Orin B. Johnston was Assistant to the Minneapolis-Honeywell Vice President of Engineering in 1945. Stephen F. Keating was Aeronautical Division Contract Administrator in 1950.
McDonald (possibly Thomas McDonald) was evidently a Chicago-based Honeywell vice president.
This newsletter was published monthly by and for the employees of the Aero Division, Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company, Chicago, Ill.
Includes some issues of
This item was formerly cataloged separately in the Minnesota Historical Society library.
This newsletter was published by the Product Support/Logistics Department.
This newsletter was published for Avionics Division personnel. Some issues apparently targeted specifically toward employees at Clearwater, Florida.
Includes AA, AC, AD, MH, TR, and W1 series.
This was a course offered by the Minneapolis-Honeywell School of Aeronautical Electronics. File includes syllabus and schematic electrical drawings.
This airplane was used by Honeywell for flight testing of aeronautical devices created and developed for the United States Army Air Forces.
This newsletter was published by Service Engineering Department, Minneapolis.
Includes materials relating to Honeywell's autopilot.
DES. 82,316.
DES. 85,552.
DES. 86,681.
DES. 129,962.
DES. 133,641.
DES. 136,210.
DES. 145,702.
DES. 151,905.
DES. 157,687.
DES. 159,555.
DES. 175,675.
DES. 176,843.
DES. 179,067.
DES. 179,068.
DES. 179,069.
DES. 179,561.
DES. 179,562.
DES. 176,657.
DES. 179,684.
DES. 180,443.
DES. 181,650.
DES. 182,017.
DES. 185,598.
DES. 185,631.
DES. 189,060.
DES. 189,889.
RE. 15,531.
RE. 16,087.
RE. 17,993
RE. 18,361.
RE. 18,503.
RE. 18,771.
RE. 19,091.
RE. 19,235.
RE. 21,154.
RE. 21,620.
RE. 21,765.
RE. 21,997.
RE. 22,068.
RE. 22,508.
RE. 22,760.
RE. 22,998.
RE. 22,998.
RE. 23,275.
RE. 23,844.
RE. 23,913.
C-1 autopilot.
Richard L. Guion.
Signed by both Gus (Virgil I.) Grissom and John Young, Project Gemini astronauts. They thank Honeywell for its contributions as a "critical parts supplier" and discuss the success of their spaceflight.
Digital version
This is information about some motion pictures produced by Mark C. Honeywell in the 1930s and 1940s. The file does not include the films themselves, which are said to be in the possession of the Honeywell Foundation, Wabash, Indiana.
This file includes examples of early advertising.
This is a special issue of
This is a publication of the Residential Division.
This is the story of Honeywell Limited on the occasion of its fiftieth year of operation in Canada.
This file includes copies of Patent No. 90,815 awarded to Edward Brown, Philadelphia, for a pyrometer (1869); a memorial resolution upon the death of W. R. Sweatt (1937); and a Minneapolis-Honeywell organizational chart (1944).
This newsletter was published by the Honeywell European Distribution Center, which was located in the Netherlands.
In English and Japanese.
The following are files related to STERCH, a Honeywell joint venture with the Soviet Ministry of Mineral Fertilzers (MMF) to provide process controls for Soviet industry.
Note: Divisional and departmental newsletters, and newsletters of subsidiary and related companies, are found in the Honeywell Control Systems General Files series, above, and in the Predecessor, Subsidiary, and Related Companies series.
These are mostly volumes, some of which were formerly cataloged separately in the Minnesota Historical Society library; some issues are missing.
This issue is bound with
These issues are bound with
Name of publication was shortened to Circulator on January 1, 1973.
These volumes were retained to supplement and fill gaps in the first bound set and gaps in the microfilmed edition of this publication; titles vary slightly.
Some issues are missing in 1961-1962 and 1976.
These volumes were retained to supplement and fill gaps in the microfilmed edition of this publication.
9 volumes.
The March 1988 issue was "the first issue of the new Honeywell World," a monthly publication replacing the heretofore twice-monthly publication.
Published monthly for Honeywell employees worldwide.
Published quarterly for Honeywell employees, retirees and their families worldwide.
Mimeographed newsletter featuring transcriptions of letters from Honeywell employees serving on active duty during World War II.
Scattered numbered photographs seem to correspond to similarly-numbered photographs in Corporate Photograph File, below.
This file includes some photos numbered 1401-1407.
This file includes some photographs numbered 1001-1011.
This file includes some photographs numbered 1501-1506.
These are drawings of what apparently was Honeywell's first building, a small frame structure located in Indiana.
These photographs document individual departmental, divisional, and subsidiary celebrations marking the Honeywell centennial (1985). Accompanying paper files have been removed and included in the Historical Files record series, above.
Some numbered photographs are found in the Buildings and Facilities section, above.
See also Netherlands photographs.
These files also include some photographs from the 1910s-1940s.
Cramblet Engineering Corporation was merged into the Time-O-Stat Controls Company in 1928.
This Honeywell predecessor company was originally known as the Consolidated Temperature Controlling Company. The name of the firm was changed in 1892 to Electric Thermostat Company, to Electric Heat Regulator Company in 1893, and to Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company in 1912.
This company was established in 1836. It was purchased by the Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company in 1949.
This firm was known until circa 1916 as Honeywell Heating Specialty Company.
This firm was established in 1906 by Mark C. Honeywell. Its name was changed to Honeywell Heating Specialties Company around 1916.
Honeywell Heating Specialty Company purchased the temperature regulating business of Jewell Manufacturing Company, Auburn, New York, in 1912.
This item was possibly an instructional tool for salesmen.
Micro Switch Company was founded in Freeport, Illinois, in 1937, and was a manufacturer of snap-action electric switches. It was purchased by Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company in 1950, becoming MHRC's Micro Switch Division.
The company was known as the Electric Heat Regulator Company until 1912, when its name was changed to Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company. It merged with Honeywell Heating Specialties Company in 1927 to form Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company. The name of that firm was shortened in 1964 to Honeywell, Inc.
Scrapbook of newspaper clippings about the Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company.
This company was established in 1901. It was purchased in 1937 by the Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company.
This division was established in 1966 with the acquisition of Electro Instruments, Inc.
Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company purchased Rubicon Company, Philadelphia, in 1957.
Absolute Con-Tac-Tor Corporation, Time-O-Stat Corporation, Leachwood Company, and Cramblet Engineering Corporation merged in 1928 to form Time-O-Stat Controls Company, which was in turn acquired by Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator Company in 1930.
This newsletter was published monthly for the Minneapolis-Honeywell Field Organization.
The
See also records of predecessor, subsidiary, and related companies for promotional and product literature for those companies' products.
This newsletter was published for field sales, service and support employees in the United States and Canada.
This was a monthly 30-minute news service report inaugurated in January 1982 by the Aerospace and Defense Group (ADG) Management Development Center (MDC) to provide top-level managers a quick way to get a monthly summary of news from the fields of business, management, science and technology, and social issues.
All are 7-inch reels unless otherwise noted.
This is a motion picture, narrated by Lowell Thomas, about the first Honeywell computer.
This motion picture includes Honeywell footage: Al Butz shop (Konner) and assorted assembly pictures, and pictures of Puerto Rico and Tuna fishing.
This includes 14 television commercials on one reel of movie film.
A label on the side of the canister reads: Color print (lip sync) on the value of advertising--used by Bissell in 1950-51 sales meetings--includes footage of Mark Honeywell.
These are 12-inch 33-1/3 r.p.m. vinyl LP records.
Includes Honeywell Showboat (main portion); Honeywell Showboat (final portion); Krick Winter Weather Show; Krick Summer Weather Show (commercials only); and Minneapolis Honeywell Showboat Song.
This record was produced for Honeywell in Canada, and features music composed by Claman and Morris. Its jacket states that the record "Promotes modern 'home comfort' in language that the homeowner, and his wife, can understand."
Two 17" x 22-1/2" x 2" handled cases containing phonograph records and various film strips which may or may not accompany the records.
The filmstrips document Honeywell advertising, buildings and facilities, products (heating and cooling devices and systems, autopilots, etc.), the Wabash (Ind.) plant, and Honeywell's Diamond Jubilee. One filmstrip was produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The phonograph records apparently relate to World War II and perhaps to Honeywell's role as a defense contractor, to Honeywell's receipt of the "E" award (Aug. 17, 1942), and to various other topics.
The filmstrips in this case seem to relate primarily to Moduflow sales. Many of the records in this case apparently also relate to Moduflow sales, as well as to the company's receipt of the "E" award (Aug. 17, 1942). Several of the records contain a recorded speech or presentation by one Gordon Volkenant, of the Denver Chamber of Commerce (May 7, 1947). There is also a speech by Henry Deaver along with remarks (?) by "John Freedom."
University Club, Boston, Mass.