Litton Industries

Named after inventor Charles Litton Sr., Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States, bought by the Northrop Grumman Corporation in 2001.

Litton started in 1953 as an electronics company building navigation, communications and electronic warfare equipment. They diversified and became a much bigger business, with major shipyards, etc, and even manufacturing microwave ovens.

In the early 1990s, Litton Industries split into separate military and commercial companies. The $2 billion commercial business, which included Litton's oilfield services, business and automated assembly line operations, was named Western Atlas Inc.

Their famous logo, used from the 1960s to the 90s was a stylized "li", followed by the division's name in an all caps sans-serif font. For much of the 1990s, "li SWEDA" was a common sight on cash registers, and "li COLE" can still be found on many filing cabinets.

Criticism

Famous 1982 bombing of a Litton Industries plant In 1982, Ann Hansen was sentenced to life in prison for bombing a production plant which made components for American cruise missiles, but was released after eight years. Hansen wrote of her experiences in her 2002 book, Direct Action: Memoirs Of An Urban Guerrilla. She now works as a freelance writer in Ontario.

Divisions

• Litton Guidance and Control Systems
• Litton Aero Products
• Litton Data Systems
• Litton Space Systems
• Litton Integrated Systems
• Litton Ship Systems
• Avondale Shipyards
• Ingalls Shipyards
• Litton Marine Systems
• Sperry Marine
• C.Plath
• Decca Radar (formerly a division of Racal)
• Decca Navigator, a historical VLF navigation system
• Litton Systems Canada
• Litton Italia
• LITEF
• TELDIX
• Litton Kester
• Litton Advanced Systems (formerly Litton Amecom)
• Litton Western (Formerly Western Electric, audio providers for the film industry. Credits notable, for example, on Yellow Submarine.)

Consumer and office products:

• Litton Cole (filing cabinets and office furniture)
• Litton Moffat (major appliances)
• Litton Sweda (cash registers)
• Litton Monroe (adding machines/calculators)
• Litton Royal (typewriters)
• Litton Adler (typewriters)

References

• Robert Sobel The Money Manias: The Eras of Great Speculation in America, 1770-1970 (1973) reprinted (2000).

External links

• Northrop Grumman Website

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Tuesday March 04, 2008 at 17:08:43 PST (GMT -0800)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation