Brush Development Company

Brush Development Company was a manufacturer of audio, phonographic products and magnetic recording technologies located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was absorbed into Clevite in 1952.

History
The business was founded in 1919 by Alfred L. Williams as Brush Labs to develop products that used piezoelectric crystals. Associates spun off the Brush Development Company in 1930 with piezoelectric phonograph pickups as its main product. Later it began manufacturing wire recorders, microphones, and speakers.

During World War II, Vice President for Research Dr. Semi Joseph Begun was awarded a contract from the US National Defense Research Council for research on a substitute for stainless steel wire used in wire recorders by the military.

Post-war, Brush manufactured a dictation recorder in 1946, and released the first USA built tape recorder in 1947 with the Brush Soundmirror. In 1950, Brush built the Model BL-206 and BL-216 Multichannel Oscillographs, and associated Model BL-932 DC Amplifiers.

In 1952 Brush Development Company merged with the original Brush Labs and the Cleveland Graphite Bronze company to create Clevite. Audio products continued to be sold under the Brush trademark until 1960.

The Clevite company was absorbed by Gould-National Batteries in 1969.