# Harvey Hubbell

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American inventor and industrialist

Harvey Hubbell II Harvey Hubbell II Born 1857 (1857) Connecticut, United States Died December 17, 1927(1927-12-17) (aged 69–70) Scientific career Fields Electrical engineering Institutions Harvey Hubbell, Incorporated

**Harvey Hubbell II** (1857–1927) was an American [inventor](/source/Inventor), [entrepreneur](/source/Entrepreneur), and [industrialist](/source/Industrialist). His best-known inventions are the U.S. [electrical plug](/source/Domestic_AC_power_plugs_and_sockets)[1] and the [pull-chain light socket](/source/Pull_switch).[2]

Hubbell was born in 1857, in [Connecticut](/source/Connecticut), [United States](/source/United_States). In 1888, at the age of 31, Hubbell quit his job as a manager of a manufacturing company and founded [Hubbell Incorporated](/source/Hubbell_Incorporated) in [Bridgeport, Connecticut](/source/Bridgeport%2C_Connecticut), a company which is still in business today, still headquartered near Bridgeport. Hubbell began manufacturing consumer products and, by necessity, inventing manufacturing equipment for his factory. Some of the equipment he designed included automatic [tapping](/source/Taps_and_dies) machines and progressive [dies](/source/Die_(manufacturing)) for blanking and [stamping](/source/Machine_press). One of his most important industrial inventions, still in use today, is the [thread](/source/Screw_thread) rolling machine. He quickly began selling his newly devised manufacturing equipment alongside his commercial products.

Hubbell received at least 45 [patents](/source/Patent),[3] most of which were for electric products. The pull-chain electrical light socket was patented in 1896, and his most famous invention, the U.S. electrical power plug, in 1904. It allowed the adoption in the U.S. of convenient, portable electrical devices, which Great Britain had enjoyed since the early 1880s.[4] In 1916, Hubbell was also granted a patent for a three-bladed power plug, including a [ground](/source/Ground_(electricity)) prong, which [Australian](/source/Australia) regulators and electrical accessory manufacturers adopted as the standard for that country in the 1930s. It was also adopted in [New Zealand](/source/New_Zealand), [Argentina](/source/Argentina), and (with a minor variation) in [China](/source/China).[5]

## See also

- [History of AC power plugs and sockets § Hubbell's inventions](/source/History_of_AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#Hubbell's_inventions)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [U.S. Patent #774,250, Separable Attachment Plug](https://patents.google.com/patent/US774250)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [U.S. Patent #565,541, Socket for Incandescent Lamps](https://patents.google.com/patent/US565541)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["Hubbell Sockets"](http://antiquesockets.com/hubbell.html). Antique Light Sockets. Retrieved 2010-07-10. Between 1896 and 1909 he was granted 45 patents on a wide variety of electrical products.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** John Mellanby, "The History of Electric Wiring" (1957), p165, London: Macdonald.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** ["Power plug & outlet Type I"](http://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/i/). *World Standards*. Retrieved 2017-10-10.

## External links

- [Hubbell.org bio](https://web.archive.org/web/20030507082941/http://www.hubbell.org/pioneers/CT.htm)

- [Company website history](https://www.hubbell.com/hubbell/en/about-hubbell)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Harvey Hubbell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Hubbell) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Hubbell?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.