Featured Article Summary #201

Carlisle & Finch is a nautical equipment company started in 1893 or 1894 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where it still has its headquarters. For most of its early history, it specialized in marine searchlights, and some of its designs were also used for navigation beacons at airports and lighthouses. The company is also often credited as being the first in the United States to make electric toy trains, using the rails to carry electrical power to the cars. While other companies made trains, Carlisle & Finch was the first to produce and sell them in large quantities for roughly the first 20 years, and its sets are now prized by collectors. It also produced other electrical items, including small electric generators and later larger ones, plus gasoline-powered marine engines under the Clifton Motor Works name, and electric clothes dryers. Since World War I began, the company has mainly focused on high-power lighting. Carlisle & Finch began in Cincinnati in the early 1890s as a branch office of General Electric, where Robert Sterett Finch and Morten Carlisle worked as electrical engineers. They bought the shop from GE in the 1890s, incorporated in 1897, and soon produced items like carbon-arc searchlights and toy trains, expanding their reach to several major US cities. Over time the company faced challenges such as a 1901 strike, a destructive fire in 1950, and layoffs during the early 1980s recession, while gradually shifting focus toward lighting—especially searchlights—after World War I. One of C&F’s earliest products was electric toy trains, which began in Europe with simple British and German designs before larger American models appeared in the late 1800s. C&F’s key improvement was using the two rails as electrical conductors, and later producing more “revolutionary” designs such as a dry-cell battery–powered set. Around 1897, they sold wood-and-metal train sets on 2-gauge metal track, including detailed locomotive and coal-car sets, and they were later credited with inventing or mass-producing electric toy trains. Besides toy trains, Carlisle & Finch made other electric battery toys, including an automobile and a torpedo boat introduced in 1899. The line ended when World War I began. The 10-inch automobile cost $3.50, ran up to an hour on a rechargeable bichromate battery, and had pivoting front wheels controlled by a steering lever, while the 24-inch copper torpedo boat cost $6.00, ran up to two hours, and had watertight compartments plus an adjustable rudder to steer in straight lines or circles. In 1906, C&F published a 58-page booklet called Miniature Electric Railway Construction, aimed at “wide-awake boys” interested in electricity and model railways, which it said were the best way to learn practical electrical workings. The book had seven chapters covering subjects like track building, curves, signalling, switches, motor theory, and how to deliver power to the cars, including what parts could be made at home versus bought ready-made. It was later recommended by several major libraries and reading lists, including those in Brookline, New York Public Library, and San Francisco.