A Half-Century in the Works, 1979 - AT&T Archives - Baltimore Manufacturing History Western Electric

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Made for the Works' 50th Anniversary (1979), a history of Baltimore's Western Electric plant.

In 1979, Western Electric's Baltimore Works celebrated its 50th anniversary. This short film gives the history of the site and the factory, one of the largest in the Bell System.

Built in 1929 and occupied in 1930, the Works specialized in wire and cable manufacturing of all types.

Over the decades the shops and plants in the Works supplied a vast amount of cable and wire, especially during WWII, when this facility was the major supplier to the U.S. Military of communications gear and infrastructure. During the war, the Works made radar units and flight trainers as well as other wireless and wired communications gear taken into the field.

By 1959, the Works produced 1,100 types of telephone apparatus. The cable and wire specialization had produced 35 million cords (switchboard and telephone) alone. And the process by which large undersea communications cables were made at the plant can be seen in the film C.S. Long Lines, from 1965. In 1979, when this film was made, the Baltimore Works produced 60 billion feet of cable, and 8 billion feet of wire, plus 40 million cords.

The Works, which employed an average of 6,000 men and women, were large enough to merit their own employee magazine (The Pointer, published from 1930 to 1980), and W.E. employees established a very early credit union in 1935, the Point Breeze Credit Union, which opened membership to non-Western Electric employees in 1983.

Note: this film was originally in black/white and color; this copy has lost most of its color value.

Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ