The interesting story of Beam and Fluid drive:

How Electrolux Central Vacuum Systems became

the world's leading manufacturer of central vacuum systems...

Electrolux Central Vacuum Systems, headquartered in Webster City, Iowa, began operation as Beam Manufacturing Company, producing washing machines, dishwashers, and Beam "Doodlebug" scooters. The scooters became famous during World War II when gasoline rationing came into effect.

Here is a doodlebug scooter, 40,000 were sold-jc

You can’t see it on that side due to the faring but the doodlebug used the same fluid drive as the washers did!

Fluid Drive was invented by Ethel’s brother in law: H J Mertz.

Patent:

If you go to the link below and go to and to "parts sketches" on sketch #3 at the bottom right you will see the fluid drive used on the scooter is the same one used for EASY washers.

“Beam Manufacturing Co. made lots of parts for quite a few brands in the late 40's and early 50's. Pumps, transmissions, fluid drives, bearing housings, seals, and much more. Some of the brands were; Hotpoint, Speed Queen, AMC/Coronado, Easy, Firestone, Laundry Queen, One Minute, Marquette, Western-Auto Wizard. Sometime in the late 50's, Beam was bought out by Franklin Ind. which took over some of the designs and manufacturing from Beam. There is some murky history during this time as to whether Speed Queen owned by McGraw Edison bought the designs and manufacturing facilities from Beam or Franklin, but SQ continued with much of the orginal Beam designed machine (including the Fluid Drive) for years after the Beam-Franklin merger. Franklin continued to be a source for machines for some time until the early to mid 60's when it was merged with White Industries (White Sewing Machines) which Became White Consolidated Industries and continued to absorb brand names like Hupp Corp.(1967), Gibson, Kelvinator(1968), Westinghouse Appliance Div.(1975), Philco Appliance Div. (from Ford 1977) and Frigidaire (1979). WCI was bought out by Electrolux Home Products which is the company we know today. “

From their website:  Beam was sold in 1957:

“In 1957, Beam Manufacturing Company was sold and Beam Industries emerged with R.L. Sampson at the helm. The company focused solely on central vacuum systems. John Coghlan who retired in March of 2006, after 18 years as Beam Industries' president, lead Beam Industries to become the undisputed technology and market leader in the central vacuum industry.”

So there is some washer history, some vacuum history for the upcoming convention and some scooter history all intertwined.

What I want to parse out is how Speed Queen fit into this picture and how they got to make Beam machines until the 70’s and why didn’t WCI continue with the same design? Later on that one!

JC

if Speed Queen was SQ > then> McGraw Edison > then> Raytheon > then >Alliance?? How did that go?

When Seeger described the transmissions on early Hotpoints as 'beam' driven, is this what he meant?

precisely! I never understood them until I was forced to with the new ruby dial Easy, and they are a cool piece of 1940's Urban Harmonics for sure!

once I get the new boiler installed in the basement ( and believe me its taking forever!)  then I'm gonna have  a NE Wash In  for everybody in the area, so plan on the fall sometime and you can see the Beam/Easy in action!

[Its smoooooooth!]