AMF Bowling
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| AMF | |
| Private | |
| Fate | Assets sold off to other companies |
| Successor |
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| Founded | Brooklyn, United States 1900 |
| Founder | Rufus L. Patterson |
| Headquarters | Mechanicsville, Virginia, United States |
| Website | amf |
American Machine and Foundry (known after 1970 as AMF, Inc.) is an operator of bowling centers, with over 240 in the United States. It was once one of the nation's largest recreational equipment companies, and diversified into products as disparate as garden equipment, atomic reactors, and yachts.
The company was founded in 1900 by Rufus L. Patterson, inventor of the first automated cigarette manufacturing machine. Originally incorporated in New Jersey but operating in Brooklyn, the company began by manufacturing cigarette, baking, and stitching machines. AMF moved into the bowling business after World War II, when AMF automated bowling equipment and bowling centers became profitable business ventures. Bicycle production was added in 1950. The company was once a major manufacturer of products from tennis racquets to research reactors for the US' "Atoms for Peace" program. AMF became a major part of what would soon be called by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower as "the military-industrial complex" after World War II.
In the late 1950s, the company's vice-chairman was Walter Bedell Smith. He was formerly a US major general, Eisenhower's wartime chief-of-staff, and Harry Truman's Ambassador to the Soviet Union. He later became the fourth Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Until the mid-1980s, AMF's range of consumer goods included powered model airplanes, snow skis, lawn and garden equipment, Ben Hogan golf clubs, Voit inflatable balls, exercycles and exercise equipment, Hatteras Yachts, Alcort Sailboats, Nimble bicycles, motorized bicycles, mopeds, and SCUBA gear. For a time, AMF owned Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Aging production facilities and increasing quality control problems in some product lines caused sales declines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company's vast diversified output proved difficult to efficiently manage, and after suffering a series of losses, the company began to sell off most of its manufacturing operations.
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