Cooper Industries origins extend back more than 170 years to a small iron foundry in Mount Vernon, Ohio, started by brothers Charles and Elias Cooper in 1833. Today, Cooper Industries has become a leading worldwide manufacturer of electrical products and tools and hardware. For the first 125 years of its history, Cooper was primarily a one-market company, manufacturing power and compression equipment for the transmission of natural gas. In the 1960s, Cooper began to diversify, eventually broadening its product lines to include petroleum and industrial equipment, electrical products, electrical power equipment, automotive products, tools and hardware. Although diversification served Cooper well for approximately 30 years, the economic realities of the 1990s made it clear Cooper's strategy had to change. To thrive in today's increasingly competitive global marketplace, Cooper began to focus on becoming a larger player in selected markets, selling and spinning off a number of businesses to focus on two core business segments:Electrical Products and Tools.
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