During the next 70 years its industrial machinery filled countless mills, mines, and factories around the world, and its brand gained fame among consumers mostly from its farm equipment business's orange tractors and silver combine harvesters.

He observed that it "grew by acquiring and consolidating the innovations" of various smaller firms and building upon them; and he continued that "Metal work and machinery were the common background.

"[2] Whether or not it is literally true that Allis-Chalmers predated the sense of "conglomerate" meaning a widely diversified parent corporation, Buescher's point is valid: Allis-Chalmers, despite its common theme of machinery, was an amalgamation of disparate business lines, each with a unique marketplace, beginning in an era when consolidations within industries were fashionable but those across industries were not yet common.

Edward P. Allis was an entrepreneur who in 1860[3] bought a bankrupt firm at a sheriff's auction,[1] the Reliance Works of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which had been owned by James Decker and Charles Seville.

[1] Leffingwell said, "He set out to hire known experts: George Hinkley, who perfected the band saw; William Gray, who revolutionized the flour-milling process through roller milling; and Edwin Reynolds, who ran the Corliss Steam Engine works.

[7] By 1880 steam engines were part of the product line and by 1890, the firm had become one of the world's largest manufacturers of mining equipment.

Meanwhile, the Gates Iron Works, with Chalmers family involvement, had become a manufacturer of crushers, pulverizers, and other rock and cement milling equipment.

By 1901 the principals of the Edward P. Allis, Fraser & Chalmers, and Gates firms had decided to merge their companies.

It was renamed the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, and Otto Falk, a former Brigadier General of the Wisconsin National Guard, was appointed to turn it around.

Merritt had worked in the sales and marketing of various brands of farm and construction equipment, most recently Holt, when Falk hired him away.

"[14] Also in 1926, Allis-Chalmers acquired Nordyke Marmon & Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, a maker of flour-milling equipment.

In 1931, it acquired Advance-Rumely of La Porte, Indiana,[13] mostly because Merritt wanted the company's network of 24 branch houses and about 2,500 dealers, which would greatly increase Allis-Chalmers's marketing and sales power in the farm equipment business.

[19] The innovation quickly spread industry-wide, as (to many farmers' surprise) it improved tractive force and fuel economy in the range of 10% to 20%.

Within only 5 years, pneumatic rubber tires had displaced cleated steel wheels across roughly half of all tractors sold industry-wide.

Also in 1932, Allis-Chalmers acquired the Ryan Manufacturing Company, which added various grader models to its construction equipment line.

The action of Allis-Chalmers and others eventually resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court decision of June 18, 1945, that ended certain union practices that violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.

[27] The 1950s were a time of great demand for more power in farm tractors, as well as greater capability from their hydraulic and electrical systems.

Allis wanted Buda for its line of diesel engines,[28][29] because its previous supplier, Detroit Diesel, was a division of General Motors, whose recent acquisition of the Euclid heavy equipment company now made it a competitor of Allis-Chalmers for construction equipment business.

[28] However, the topic is multivariate and complex; elsewhere in his memoir,[34] Buescher presents a viewpoint in which investing in research and product development is an expensive move that often does not pay off for the innovator and mostly benefits competitor clones.

It charged 13 companies, including the largest in the industry (Westinghouse, General Electric, and Allis-Chalmers), with price fixing and bid rigging.

Although one motive for the forming of cartels is so that amply profitable firms can try to become obscenely profitable, it did not apply in this instance, according to Buescher; rather, his view of the attempt at a heavy-electrical cartel was that it was a desperate (and foolish) attempt to turn red ink to black ink among fierce competition.

Reasonable prosperity continued in the farm equipment line, but the economics of all the industries shifted toward greater uncertainty and brittler success for firms that didn't become number one or two in a field.

In the late 1960s, a trend of conglomeration flared, as mega-conglomerates like Ling-Temco-Vought, Gulf+Western, and White Consolidated Industries went on buying sprees.

[38] In 1974, Allis-Chalmers's construction equipment business was reorganized into a joint venture with Fiat SpA,[2][39] which bought a 65% majority stake at the outset.

[42] 1985 was a year of great dissolution for Allis-Chalmers—the year when it folded three of its main business lines: In 1988, Allis-Chalmers sold its American Air Filter filtration business (with 27 production facilities internationally and sales into 100-plus countries) for approximately $225 million to SnyderGeneral Corporation of Dallas, a leading global air quality control firm.

[44] In 1998, what remained of the Allis-Chalmers manufacturing businesses were divested, and in January 1999, the company officially closed its Milwaukee offices.

In 1959, a team led by Harry Ihrig built a 15kW fuel cell tractor for Allis-Chalmers which was demonstrated across the US at state fairs.

As early as the 1920s AC was manufacturing multi MVA hydro-electric generators and turbines, many of which remain in service (Louisville Gas & Electric Ohio Falls units 1–8, 8MW low head turbines and Kentucky Utilities Dix Dam units 1–3, 11MVA 300 RPM generators).

Allis Chalmers, during the period 1930–1965 and beyond, manufactured and marketed an extensive line of ore crushing equipment for the mining industry[49]

It is located in Queens, has an output of 1000 MW,[50] and remains operational.In the late 1960s and early 1970s AC expanded into lawn and out-door equipment.