Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Towson, Black & Decker developed the world’s first portable electric drill in 1916.
Though they originally marketed their invention to factory owners, company founders Alonzo Decker and Duncan Black realized that a wider market existed when the drills began disappearing from workplaces. Black & Decker responded by releasing its Home Utility Line in 1946 and has remained synonymous with power tools ever since. To learn more about Black & Decker’s impact on manufacturing and home improvement, please visit the BMI’s Maryland Milestones Wall.
“View of a woman assembling power tools at the Black and Decker Plant in Hampstead,”
“Ad for original drill”
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