Admiral is an American appliance brand currently manufactured by Whirlpool Corporation. The brand is sold at The Home Depot

The Home Depot

The Home Depot is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services.The Home Depot operates 2,248 big-box format stores across the United States , Canada , Mexico and China, with a 12-store chain...

.

Ross Siragusa founded Continental Radio and Television Corp. as a maker of consumer electronics (radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

s and phonograph

Phonograph

The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

s) in Chicago during 1934. This later became Admiral Corp. Its annual sales were about $2 million. Admiral supplied the U.S. military with electronic equipment during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and was one of the major television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 manufacturers in the early era of that medium. In 1950, for instance, Admiral was selling a line of seven TV sets, with four models having a 12.5 in (31.8 cm) tube size (between $179.95 and $379.95, equivalent to to today), a 16 in (40.6 cm) model at $299.95 , and two 19 in (48.3 cm) models (at $495 and $695, equivalent to and ).

Success in television sales enabled the company to branch out into major appliances such as refrigerator

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

s by the 1950s. During World War II, Admiral was the weekly sponsor of the CBS Radio Network

CBS Radio Network

The CBS Radio Network provides news, sports and other programming to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by CBS Corporation, and operated by CBS Radio ....

 Sunday news program, "World News Today", and Admiral used the promotional slogan "America's Smart Set". Admiral was also one of the first major advertisers on television, sponsoring Sid Caesar

Sid Caesar

Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...

’s Show of Shows, Lights Out, Bishop Fulton Sheen, and Notre Dame

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the football team of the University of Notre Dame. The team is currently coached by Brian Kelly.Notre Dame competes as an Independent at the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision level, and is a founding member of the Bowl Championship Series coalition. It is an...

 football games. Annual sales approached $300 million and the company employed 8,500 people by the early 1960s.

The various divisions were sold to other companies by the mid-1970s due in part to competition from imported consumer electronic goods from Japan. Rockwell International

Rockwell International

Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate in the latter half of the 20th century, involved in aircraft, the space industry, both defense-oriented and commercial electronics, automotive and truck components, printing presses, valves and meters, and industrial automation....

 acquired the company in 1973, selling the appliance operations to Magic Chef

Magic Chef

Magic Chef, Inc. is an appliance brand owned by Whirlpool Corporation.In the 1850s, a immigrant to the United States John Ringen began a tinshop in St. Louis, Missouri. His business prospered and in 1870, he took in a partner, George August Kahle, who had immigrated to America in 1867...

 which was sold to Maytag

Maytag

Maytag Corporation is an American home and commercial appliance company, headquartered in Newton, Iowa, that is a division of the Whirlpool Corporation.-Company history:...

 which was acquired by Whirlpool.

The Milwaukee Admirals

Milwaukee Admirals

The Milwaukee Admirals are a professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. They play in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA at the Bradley Center.-History:...

 hockey team derives its name from Admiral appliances. In 1971 when the team was sold by its original owner to a group of investors, one of the investors, Edwin J. Merar, owned an appliance store. The team was renamed the "Admirals" after the Admiral refrigerators sold in his store.

In 1991, Maytag contracted with Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...

 & Co. for the exclusive use of the Admiral brand on its consumer electronic goods. Montgomery Ward later went bankrupt and closed all stores. After Maytag's sale to Whirlpool, the brand became exclusive to The Home Depot

The Home Depot

The Home Depot is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services.The Home Depot operates 2,248 big-box format stores across the United States , Canada , Mexico and China, with a 12-store chain...

. During the 1990s, the Admiral brand name was being used on Zenith

Zenith Electronics

Zenith Electronics Corporation is a brand of the South Korean company LG Electronics. The company was previously an American manufacturer of televisions and other consumer electronics, and was headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois. LG Electronics acquired a controlling share of Zenith in 1995...

 products.

The Television business continues with AOC International

AOC International

AOC International is the house brand of TPV Technology Limited , the world’s largest manufacturer of computer monitors. TPV Technology Limited is a Taiwan-based company. The group designs and produces a full range of CRT and TFT LCD monitors as well as LCD TVs for distribution...

. AOC (originally Admiral Overseas Corporation) is an international brand of LCD and HDTV display devices.