The Sears Handshake” and Moving East — the Company Expands

After surviving a post-war economic downturn, the Upton Machine Company continued to leverage its relationship with Sears to expand its business. By the mid 1920s, the Upton Machine Co. had become the exclusive supplier for Sears electric and gasoline powered washing machines.

Louis Upton and General Robert E. Wood, a president and later chairman of the board at Sears, sealed this mutually beneficial agreement with a friendly handshake. The companies' relationship continues to thrive today.

Eventually, Sears asked the Upton Machine Co. to expand its business to the east, where most of the nation's people lived and worked. In 1929, Upton Machine merged with the Nineteen Hundred Washer Company of Binghamton, New York. In a decade, the company led the nation in the production of washing machines.

By 1936, the Nineteen Hundred Corp. began inching its way into the lucrative global marketplace. “Sears International” and a relationship with the American Steel Export Co. brought the company's washers to Europe and Asia.  One washer even traveled over the Khyber Pass on the back of a camel to its final destination at the British consul in India.