The Hawthorne works

摘要

At one time, Cicero, IL, was famous for two things that had absolutely nothing in common: Al Capone and Western Electric. The blue-collar town on the West Side of Chicago served as headquarters for the notorious gangster. But, Cicero also was home to a sprawling manufacturing complex called the Hawthorne Works, which produced some of the most technically advanced products in the world. Western Electric served as the manufacturing arm of the Bell System for more than 100 years. It produced many of the breakthrough technologies developed by scientists at Bell Laboratories. In addition to telephone and telegraph equipment, Western Electric assembled typewriters, sewing machines, electric fans, vacuum cleaners, microphones, mimeographs, vacuum tubes, radios, motion picture sound systems, radar equipment and transistors.