Dudlo Manufacturing Company (Dudlo Wire Co.)

1911 – 1933

Founded: Formed 1911; Fort Wayne factory opened 1912. No incorporation record, directory listing or patent record was retrieved, so nothing here rests on a primary record. The concordant accounts: the Quest Club industry history and the History Center give formation in 1911 by George Jacobs with William Mossman and his son B. Paul Mossman (the News-Sentinel's Hawfield history names the Mossmans as forming the Dudlo Wire Co. in 1911); the Jacobs biography adds an unsuccessful first year in Cleveland in 1911, then the move to Fort Wayne, where Dudlo opened in a 50-by-100-foot shed on Wall Street in 1912 with a dozen employees (Leininger, News-Sentinel, 12 Dec 1981). Superior Essex's company history dating Dudlo's founding to 1912 appears to use the Fort Wayne opening, not the Cleveland formation. Two other dates are rejected for founding: 1914 (a News-Sentinel magnet-wire history and a photo caption — no other support; treated as not established for founding, possibly a building/photo date) and 1907 (Rea's timeline — that is the enamel-perfection year in the Jacobs biography, not a formation date). The name is: "Dud" from Dudley, Massachusetts, Jacobs's birthplace, + "lo" / Ohio, for the firm's first Ohio phase.

Founders: George A. Jacobs (1877–1945), inventor/founder — a chemist at GE's Fort Wayne Works from 1901 who left for Sherwin-Williams in Cleveland in 1905 and perfected a chemical enamel wire insulation in his own time (the perfection year itself conflicts: 1907 in his biography vs. 1911 in a 2024 Quest Club paper and the History Center — flagged, with the year in conflict); William E. Mossman, his father-in-law, owner of Mossman Yarnell hardware wholesalers, who bankrolled the firm on condition the couple return to Fort Wayne; and B. Paul Mossman, William's son — all. Ethel Mossman Jacobs, George's wife, worked with him at GE and helped test coatings in Cleveland — her experimental role is recorded, her formal founder status is not established.

What it did: Made magnet wire — copper/aluminum wire coated with a very thin enamel insulation, baked on in special ovens, replacing bulky cotton/fabric wrapping — for coils in motors, transformers, ignition coils, appliances, radios/telephones and automobiles. Its key early market was ignition coils for the Model T Ford and other automobiles; it also supplied GE, Westinghouse and Delco-Remy. A Leonic Division (1916/1916-17, tinsel production) is recorded thinly.

Course: Wall Street, Fort Wayne, from 1912 (south side, near Swinney Park); Dudlo began drawing its own wire in 1917. A contemporary Fort Wayne News and Sentinel headline of 30 August 1919 claimed "Twenty-Five Thousand Miles of Wire — Enameled Insulated Every Day" — as a contemporary claim, not an audited output figure. A New Haven branch plant opened 17 March 1920, initially employing 50–100 (contemporary News and Sentinel, 13 Mar 1920 — near-primary). By 1922 Dudlo was the world's leading/largest manufacturer of magnet wire, operating around the clock — ; Leininger gives at least 35 million pounds of enameled wire for 1912–1927 and 105 major accounts, as Ford's largest wire supplier. A claim that Dudlo "once employed 6,000" rests on a single News-Sentinel history and is a single-source figure — not printed as a peak figure. Dudlo made Fort Wayne the first of its magnet-wire firms and the city took the unofficial title "Magnet Wire Capital of the World" — as usage (History Center, Castaldi); period market-share claims (two-thirds, 90%) conflict by period and source and vary by period and source.

Fate: Dudlo itself ended in Fort Wayne in 1933 — and its successors are three separate lines, not one chain. The shorthand "Dudlo → Essex → Rea → Phelps Dodge" is not a corporate lineage and is not printed as one. (a) Corporate line: in 1927 Dudlo took part in a $50 million merger forming General Cable Corporation — (Rea timeline; Leininger; the number of merging companies conflicts — three others in one News-Sentinel account vs. about a dozen in General Cable's own history — so only "part of the 1927 merger" is asserted). General Cable closed Dudlo's Fort Wayne offices in 1930 and moved the remaining Fort Wayne manufacturing to Rome, New York, in 1933. (b) Jacobs line: Jacobs left General Cable in 1928 or 1929 — CONFLICT flagged — and founded Inca Manufacturing in Fort Wayne ; Phelps Dodge bought Inca in 1930 or 1931 — CONFLICT flagged (1930 in the Jacobs biography citing Schwantes's Phelps Dodge history, p.176; 1931 in the News-Sentinel), and Inca became the basis of Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire in Fort Wayne. Rea bought Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire North America, closing 14 February 2006, with plants in Fort Wayne and Monterrey. (c) People/plant lines: Victor Rea, with Dudlo almost from the start and its Works Manager by 1929, resigned in 1933 and formed Rea Magnet Wire in Fort Wayne — still operating today, headquartered in Fort Wayne, acquired by Elektrisola in 2023. Essex Wire, founded in Detroit in 1930 by Addison E. Holton (not a Dudlo spin-off), bought the vacant former Dudlo plant in 1936 and later moved its headquarters to Fort Wayne (1954 in the Superior Essex company history vs. c.1966 in a News-Sentinel account — flagged); Essex became part of Superior Essex in 1998/1999.

Sources:

1. Quest Club industry history (Steiner, summarising Richard, 1968) (founded 1911; world's greatest complex in ten years) — https://www.barrettlaw.com/history-trends-in-industry-allen-county
2. ACGSI / Allen INGenWeb, Dudlo page (History Center post; 1919 and 1920 newspaper extracts; Bates & Keller 1965) — https://www.acgsi.org/genweb/fort-wayne/dudlo-company-fort-wayne-indiana.html
3. Leininger, News-Sentinel, 12 Dec 1981, "Dudlo's Wire Enamel" (Wall Street 1912; 1922 world leader; $50M merger; Rome 1933; Essex 1936) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/scapes21.php
4. Frazier, News-Sentinel, "City's magnet wire industry started with Dudlo" (1914 claim flagged; General Cable; Inca 1931; Rea 1933) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/2000/1910/ind6.php
5. Castaldi, History Center, "The Magnet Wire Capital of the World," 10 Oct 2013 — https://historycenterfw.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-magnet-wire-capital-of-world.html
6. Rea Magnet Wire, official history timeline (1927 merger; Rea Works Manager 1929; Rea formed 1933; Phelps Dodge purchase 2006) — https://www.reawire.com/about/rea/
7. Superior Essex company history (Essex founded Detroit 1930; Dudlo plant 1936; HQ Fort Wayne 1954) — https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/85/Superior-Essex-Inc.html
8. Bates & Keller, History of the Dudlo Manufacturing Company (1965) (read in OCR-degraded extracts only; page-level verification still to come) — http://ia601609.us.archive.org/13/items/historyofdudloma00bate/historyofdudloma00bate.pdf