2009 Assembly Joint Resolution 67
ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION
Relating to: commending MAG Giddings and Lewis on its sesquicentennial.
Whereas, the company now known as MAG Giddings & Lewis was founded in 1859 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, as a small machine shop that produced parts and provided repairs for Wisconsin's sawmills and gristmills; and
Whereas, over time, the business expanded its shop to include a gray iron foundry, the first in Wisconsin, and became the Novelty Iron Works, with a continued emphasis on sawmill machinery; and
Whereas, in the 1870s and 1880s, the Novelty Iron Works continued its expansion into manufacturing industrial steam engines for clients across the United States; and
Whereas, in the 1870s and 1880s, changes in ownership brought the Novelty Iron Works under a partnership of Colonel C. H. DeGroat, George Giddings, and O. F. Lewis, leading to a new name, DeGroat, Giddings & Lewis; and
Whereas, in 1895, DeGroat sold his interest in the partnership to Giddings and Lewis, and the company was incorporated as the Giddings & Lewis Manufacturing Company, commonly known as Giddings & Lewis; and
Whereas, as Wisconsin's lumber industry began to decline in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Giddings & Lewis began to concentrate on manufacturing machine tools, including lathes, gear cutting equipment, shapers, planers, drills, grinders, and even shell lathes for the British Ministry of Munitions during World War I; and
Whereas, Giddings & Lewis entered into a sweeping modernization program during the 1920s and 1930s, went public in 1934, and, during World War II, operated an emergency plant facility under the Department of War; and
Whereas, in 1955, Giddings & Lewis built and demonstrated the first numerical control machine tool, the result of a joint research venture with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that also produced other numerical control devices; and
Whereas, in 2005, MAG Industrial Automation Systems purchased Giddings & Lewis, and Giddings & Lewis is now MAG Giddings & Lewis; and
Whereas, MAG Giddings & Lewis is celebrating 150 years as an important industrial manufacturer and employer in the Fond du Lac area; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the
assembly, the senate concurring, That the members of the Wisconsin legislature congratulate MAG Giddings & Lewis on its sesquicentennial.
