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 • 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. ==Legacy==