Raytheon Company: The First Sixty Years

Read the history of the Raytheon Company, which has played a big part in the growth of America and in WWII and the Cold War., as well as in consumer electronics.

Raytheon's history is one of the great American success stories. Launched in 1922, theCambridge-based company quickly moved to the forefront of innovation in the electronics industry. During World War II, thousands of Raytheon workers contributed to the war effort, supplying eighty percent of the magnetron tubes (vital components for U.S. and British radars), developing miniature tubes for the crucial proximity fuse in anti aircraft shells, and providing entire radar systems. Although government contracts slowed after World War II, Raytheon continued to develop military components, including leading-edge radars and missiles for America's defenses in the Cold War, but it also began to offer a host of civilian products: the famous RadaRange (the world's first microwave oven), televisions, marine radars, transistors, miniature hearing aids, and medical equipment.

Alan R. Earls, a technology and business writer, has covered high-technology stories since the early 1980s. Robert E. Edwards, a forty-three-year Raytheon veteran, was an engineering manager and is currently a volunteer at the Raytheon Archives.