This business was established in 1937. In the middle of the twentieth century they made bench grinders, which qualifies them for listing on this site. In 1966, Dayton's longtime distributor, W. W. Grainger, Inc., purchased the remaining shares of Dayton that the did not already own. Dayton then offered a full line of portable power tools. Dayton Electric Manufacturing Co. still does business under that name but their products are now available only through W. W. Grainger.

Dayton made other products, such as sump pumps and arc welders, that are not within the scope of this web site. Beyond noting their existence, we cannot provide any information on them.

Information Sources

• More information is available in the Wiki, including an article on rewiring a Dayton bench grinder.
• A web search turned up the 2003 decision, 191 CA 02-01350, of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, in Felle v. W. W. Grainger, Inc. Grainger was "doing business as Dayton Electric Manufacturing Co.", and, under that banner, made a bench grinder that was used by the plaintiff. The plaintiff was injured in a mishap but the Appellate Court ruled that the lawsuit should have been summarily dismissed because the bench grinder in question had been extensively modified by the plaintiff's employer to "defeat or remove key safety features built into the product by defendants".
• An earlier product liability case, Keener v. Dayton Elec. Mfg. Co., 445 S.W.2d 362 (1969), was decided by the Supreme Court of Missouri. In this case, Dayton had manufactured a sump pump that had no provision for grounding. The plaintiff's husband was killed by an electric shock, and successfully sued. On appeal, the court found that the jury had been improperly instructed and ordered a retrial. The case does not mention Grainger, presumably because the sump pump was manufactured before the acquisition by Grainger.
• International Directory of Company Histories: Volume 5, by Adele Hast and Thomas Derdak, 1992, has the following:

  In 1966 Grainger acquired those shares of Dayton Electric Manufacturing Company that it did not already own...

• Dayton's current list of products includes a wide variety of HVAC and material handling equipment, plus pneumatic and power tools and tablesaws. The tablesaws, at least, are manufactured off-shore and are thus outside the scope of this website.
• A patent search turned up numerous mentions of this company (as a supplier of components or examples of prior art) but no patents were assigned to Dayton Electric Manufacturing Co. A search under the W. W. Grainger name turned up several 2007 patent related to online catalogs and online ordering, but nothing related to bench grinders or other products coming out of the Dayton Electric Manufacturing Co.
• An email correspondent reports, "Dayton Electrical Manufacturing must also have made arc welders because we have an old one labeled 'Dayton Arc Welder Model 1Z89, Dayton Electrical Manufacturing Co., 748 West Adams Street, Chicago 6, IL'."