Autocall

Autocall was founded in 1908 by two businessmen from Shelby Electric Company after they witnessed a demonstration of a unique telegraph system in use at a plant for employee communication while on a business trip. Seeing the need for such a system at their own company, the two designed an automatic version of this system and founded Autocall. Soon after, the company produced their first 120VAC coded fire alarm system. In 1920, an advertisement centered on the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire helped to gain the company significant business and began to establish them as a serious competitor in the industry. In 1922, the company created an automatic punch recorder designed to record system status changes by punching holes in ticker tape. In 1933, Autocall purchased the Howe Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois and used their proprietary transmitter design to produce the Autocall-Howe system, a high-end fire alarm system targeted at large institutions and industrial plants. By the 1960s, Autocall-Howe systems were installed in many of the United States' largest factories, airports, and universities.