The story
Founded by W. H. Lawrence in 1886.1
In 1881, W. H. Boulton and Willis U. Masters founded the Boulton Carbon Company to make carbon points ("carbons") for arc lighting. Formally incorporated in 1883, it was taken over in 1886 by a group of investors led by Washington H. Lawrence, who reorganized the company as the National Carbon Company.
In 1894, the company began marketing Leclanché wet cells.
Menawhile, E. M. Jewett, who was working in the company's Lakewood plant on the west side of Cleveland under the direction of George Little, became interested in dry cells. In his free time, Jewett conducted experiments in the laboratory. He developed a paper-lined, 1.5-volt cylindrical dry cell which he showed to Lawrence, who gave Jewett and Little approval to begin manufacturing dry cells. The trademark "Columbia" was proposed by Nelson C. Cotabish, an NCC sales manager. In 1896, the company marketed the first battery intended for widespread consumer use: the sealed, six-inch, 1.5-volt Columbia. NCC was the first company to successfully manufacture and distribute sealed dry cell batteries on a large scale. The company introduced the first D-cell battery in 1898.
In 1899, the National Carbon Company merged with 10 other companies, subsuming "the entire active carbon industry of the United States and three-quarters of the carbon industry of the world". The firm "incorporated under New Jersey laws January 16, 1899 as a consolidation of the following companies engaged in the manufacture of lighting carbons, carbon brushes for generators and motors, carbon batteries, carbon diaphragms and back plates for telephones, carbons for electrolytic purposes and kindred products."
American Carbon Company, Noblesville, Indiana
Brush Carbon Works, Cleveland
Faraday Carbon Company, Jeannette, Pennsylvania
Globe Carbon Company, Ravenna, Ohio
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National Carbon Company, Cleveland
Partridge Carbon Company, Sandusky, Ohio
Phoenix Carbon & Manufacturing Company, St. Louis, Missouri
Solar Carbon & Manufacturing Company, Pittsburgh
The Standard Carbon Company, Cleveland
Thomson-Houston Carbon Company, Fremont, Ohio
The Washington Carbon Company, Pittsburgh
In 1906, National Carbon Company, which had been supplying Conrad Hubert's American Electrical Novelty & Manufacturing Company (maker of Ever Ready flashlights and batteries) with materials for batteries, bought half interest in the company for $200,000. The name was changed to The American Ever Ready Company and the trademark was shortened to Eveready. In 1914, National Carbon Company absorbed The American Ever Ready Company, forming a manufacturer that produced lighting products as wells as batteries.
Post-acquisition
In 1917, National Carbon Company was acquired by Union Carbide in a deal that also absorbed the Prest-O-lite Company and the Linde Air Products Company.
In 1940, the company supplied highly purified carbon for the role as nuclear graphite in nuclear fission experiments carried out by Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard.
Since its absorption, the company has been called the Carbon Products Division of Union Carbide, the UCAR Carbon Company, and UCAR International. In 2002, it was renamed GrafTech International.
Over the years, various companies have been spun off from the former National Carbon Company, including KEMET Laboratories (capacitor technologies), Cytec Industries' Engineered Materials group (carbon fiber products), Energizer Holdings (batteries), and National Specialty Products (carbon and graphite specialty products). A division spun off in 2017, NeoGraf Solutions, retains the original National Carbon factory in Lakewood, Ohio.
From Wikipedia’s article on National Carbon Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3