Frigidaire Appliance Company is the American consumer and commercial home appliances brand subsidiary of multinational company Electrolux.
Frigidaire was founded as the Guardian Frigerator Company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and developed the first self-contained refrigerator, invented by Nathaniel B. Wales and Alfred Mellowes in 1916. In 1918, William C. Durant, a founder of General Motors, personally invested in the company and in 1919, it adopted the name Frigidaire.
The brand was so well known in the refrigeration field in the early-to-mid-1900s, that many Americans called any refrigerator a Frigidaire regardless of brand. In France, Canada, and some other French-speaking countries or areas, the word Frigidaire is often in use as a synonym today, and in transcribed form in Serbocroatian also. Although the alliterative names Frigidaire or its antecedent Frigerator suggest an origin of the widely used English word fridge, it is simply a contraction of refrigerator, a word in use since 1611.
From 1919 to 1979, the company was owned by General Motors. During that period, it was first a subsidiary of Delco-Light and was later an independent division based in Dayton, Ohio. The division also manufactured air conditioning compressors for GM cars. While the company was owned by General Motors, its logo featured the phrase "Product of General Motors", and later renamed to "Home Environment Division of General Motors".
Frigidaire was sold to the White Consolidated Industries in 1979, which in 1986 was purchased by Electrolux, its current parent.
The company claims firsts including:
