The Whirlpool Corporation is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, headquartered in Benton Charter Township, Michigan, United States. The Fortune 500 company has annual revenue of approximately $21 billion, 78,000 employees, and more than 70 manufacturing and technology research centers globally. The company markets its namesake flagship brand Whirlpool, alongside other brands as well including Maytag, KitchenAid, JennAir, Amana, Gladiator GarageWorks, Inglis, Estate, Brastemp, Bauknecht, Ignis, Indesit, Consul, and, in Europe, Hotpoint (in the Americas, the Hotpoint brand is controlled by Haier). In its domestic, United States, market Whirlpool has nine manufacturing facilities: Amana, Iowa; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Cleveland, Tennessee; Clyde, Ohio; Findlay, Ohio; Greenville, Ohio; Marion, Ohio; Ottawa, Ohio; and Fall River, Massachusetts. Together, these American manufacturing facilities account for at least 5% of the company's employees. History Founding and first customers On November 11, 1911, Louis Upton (1886–1952), who worked as an insurance salesman, and his uncle, Emory Upton, who owned a machine shop, founded the Upton Machine Company. Following a failed business venture, Lou acquired a patent to a manual clothes washer. He approached Emory to determine if he could add an electric motor to the design. With the aid of a $5,000 investment from retailing executive Lowell Bassford, they began producing electric motor-driven wringer washers. Soon after its founding, Lou's younger brother Fred joined the company. Their first customer, the Federal Electric division of Commonwealth Edison, ordered 100 machines, but a fault in the gear transmission led the customer to threaten their return. After the machines were recalled and repaired, Federal Electric doubled the order. They remained a customer for three years, then they began producing their own washers. The loss of Federal Electric forced Upton to diversify until, in 1916, they landed Sears, Roebuck & Co. as a customer. Sears began selling two types of Upton wringer washers under the "Allen" brand, one for $54.75 and a deluxe model for $95. Sales grew quickly and in 1921, Sears appointed Upton as their sole supplier of washers. To avoid becoming over-reliant on Sears, Upton began marketing a washer under their own brand name. The increasing volume of sales led Upton to merge with the Nineteen Hundred Washer Company of Binghamton, New York in 1929, adopting the name Nineteen Hundred Corporation. The company was relatively unaffected by the Great Depression. During WWII, its factories were converted to armament production. In 1947, it introduced an automatic,