Leviton History

During our earliest years in business, the population of New York City began to increase dramatically. As homes, apartment buildings, skyscrapers, offices and factories quickly rose, Leviton supplied the switches, outlets, light sockets and other electrical parts for them, helping families and businesses redefine a modern standard of living and working for the 20th century.

By the end of the 1920s, we offered more than 550 different electrical devices in our product catalog and outgrew our facilities in Manhattan’s Bowery, relocating to larger quarters in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We also began acquiring other businesses to add a pool of skilled employees to our workforce and increase our production capacity.

In 1937, we acquired American Insulated Wire Company, adding wire, cable and cord products to our offering. Two prestigious New York area landmarks showcased our products: the 102-story Empire State Building and the World’s Fair site in Flushing Meadows Park. During the 1940s, Leviton also helped manufacture parts for machinery used to win World War II and helped produce the bead-chain used in American GI’s ID tags.

In 1950, we purchased the Deal Electric Company and three years later, Hale Brothers, which we renamed Leviton Canada. We expanded our OEM offering to include fluorescent lighting products, and then with the introduction of reliable solid-state circuitry in the ‘60s, we brought this new technology to the market through our GFCI and dimmer products.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s our product offering expanded significantly, and our growth necessitated our relocation to larger facilities in Little Neck, New York. Our Decora® designer devices had become a household name for rocker style switches and outlet, establishing a new industry benchmark for design and performance.

With the advent of computer technology, we introduced safer, more reliable ways to stay connected through our line of surge protective devices, and we brought high-speed communications to commercial data centers with our telephony voice and data line. We also launched our home automation business with the introduction of our Decora Home Controls® product offering.

In the ‘90s, we forged inroads into the commercial lighting systems market. Our acquisition of Macro Electronics Corporation and NSI Corporation fueled the expansion of our business into the architectural and theatrical lighting systems markets. Recognizing that homes need efficient connectivity and communications technology, we introduced our residential networking products in 2000, known today as Leviton Connected Home products.

With the demand for data, smartphones and automation rising around the world, our purchase of Fiber Connect added to our strength in the commercial data center space, and our purchase of ControlThink expanded our capabilities in PC-, CE- and mobile phone-based solutions for intelligent home control. We continued to stay on top of the latest in home automation, enhancing our product features and compatibility with key players such as Apple, Samsung, LG and Amazon. We also made significant acquisitions to bolster and expand our lighting divisions, welcoming JCC, Contech, Intense and Birchwood to our Leviton family. 

Investment in innovation and expansion of capabilities continue to be our hallmarks. Recent product developments such as Decora Smart™, Wi-Fi and Apple HomeKit product lines, Decora® Digital Controls, the industry’s first SmartlockPro® Dual Function AFCI/GFCI outlet and the Atlas X-1 Category 8 Cabling System showcase our commitment to helping customers and contractors enhance spaces through functionality and efficiency.

Coupled with recent acquisitions, we are poised for even greater success as we deliver smarter, safer, more reliable products to a rapidly changing world.