Up until the 1940's, household light switches were of the push-button type. You pushed the top button in to turn on the light, which pushed the bottom button out. You reversed the procedure to turn off the light. The switches required heavy pressure, sometimes got stuck when pushed in, and weren't easy to use in the dark. So, someone came up with the idea of the toggle switch that we use today. This particular switch is marked AH&H, and even has the logo stamped on the end of one button! It stood for Arrow-Hart & Hegeman, a company formed in 1927 with the merger of the Arrow Electric Company and the Hart & Hegeman Manufacturing Company. The company exists to this day as the Arrow Hart division of Cooper Industries, which was bought by Eaton Corp. in 2012 for $11.8 billion.
AH&H was the electrical supplier to DeWalt Products Co. for many years, supplying starters, contactors, switches and other wiring devices.
I house was built in 1910. It still has a few of these push button H&H switches in use today in 2023.
ReplyDelete