The Clorox Company (formerly Clorox Chemical Company) is an American global manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products. As of 2020 the Oakland, California based company had approximately 8,800 employees worldwide. Net sales for 2020 fiscal year were US$6.7 billion. Ranked annually since 2000, Clorox was named number 474 on Fortune magazine's 2020 Fortune 500 list. Clorox products are sold primarily through mass merchandisers, retail outlets, e-commerce channels, distributors, and medical supply providers. Clorox brands include its namesake bleach and cleaning products, as well as Burt's Bees, Formula 409, Glad, Hidden Valley, Kingsford, Kitchen Bouquet, KC Masterpiece, Liquid-Plumr, Brita (in the Americas), Mistolin, Pine-Sol, Poett, Green Works Cleaning Products, Soy Vay, RenewLife, Rainbow Light, Natural Vitality, Neocell, Tilex, S.O.S., and Fresh Step, Scoop Away, and Ever Clean pet products. History 1913–1927 The Electro-Alkaline Company was founded on May 3, 1913, as the first commercial-scale liquid bleach manufacturer in the United States. Archibald Taft, a banker; Edward Hughes, a purveyor of wood and coal; Charles Husband, a bookkeeper; Rufus Myers, a lawyer; and William Hussey, a miner, each invested $100 to set up a factory on the east side of San Francisco Bay. The name of its original product, Clorox, was coined as a portmanteau of its two main ingredients, chlorine and sodium hydroxide. The original Clorox packaging featured a diamond-shaped logo, which has been used in one form or another in Clorox branding ever since. The public, however, was unfamiliar with liquid bleach. The company started slowly and was about to collapse when it was taken over by investor William Murray in 1916, who installed himself as general manager. His wife Annie prompted the creation of a less concentrated liquid bleach for home use, and built customer demand by giving away 15-ounce sample bottles at the family's grocery store in downtown Oakland. Word shortly began to spread, and in 1917 the company began shipping Clorox bleach to the East Coast via the Panama Canal. 1928–1960s On May 28, 1928, the company went public on the San Francisco stock exchange and changed its name to Clorox Chemical Company. Butch, an animated Clorox liquid bleach bottle, was used in its advertising and became well known, even surviving the 1941 transition from rubber-stoppered bottles to screw-off caps. Clorox was strong enough to survive the Great Depression during the 1930s, achieving national distribution of its bleach. Even though the bleach was a valuable