DONGAN Electric Company

OUR COMPANY

Dongan Electric Manufacturing Company is a manufacturer of high-quality transformers, inductors and other power quality equipment. We have been in business since 1909, with corporate headquarters located in Metropolitan Detroit, Michigan.

Dongan was established in Albany, New York in 1909 as the Dongan Electric Instrument Company, named for Governor Thomas Dongan, the first colonial governor of the Territory of New York. Our first products were ammeters and voltmeters for the growing automotive business. Dongan was acquired by Lyle J. Hicks, then an electrical engineer for General Electric in Schenectady, NY, in 1909. The company moved to Detroit in 1911 and was renamed Dongan Electric Manufacturing Company.

Dongan quickly began manufacturing low voltage bell-ringing transformers. Some of the company’s first UL approvals are dated February 10, 1911, covering door bell transformers with secondary outputs of 6, 12 and 18 volts. Success in the transformer industry led Dongan to focus its manufacturing efforts on transformers, the principal product in which the company specializes to this day.

The Roaring 20s ushered in popular, and more affordable, console radios originally powered by dry-cell B batteries. During this time, Dongan introduced radio voltmeters, amplifier transformers, filament heating transformers and chokes compatible with Raytheon, R.C.A. and Cunningham radio tubes.

The 1920s also marked the emergence of electric toys, including trains. The subsequent demand for transformers to operate trains manufactured by Lionel, American Flyer, Ives and Bing was met with a series of various sized transformer products from Dongan.