Swingline
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Swingline is a division of ACCO Brands that specializes in manufacturing staplers and hole punchers. The company was formerly located in Long Island City, New York, United States, but is now headquartered with its parent company ACCO in Linconshire, Illinois.
[edit] History
Swingline was founded in 1925 in New York City by Jack Linsky as the Parrot Speed Fastener Company, and opened its first manufacturing facility in Long Island City in 1931. In 1939, the company changed its name to Speed Products, and in 1956, became Swingline. It became a division of ACCO Brands (then a division of Fortune Brands) in 1987.
In the late 1990s, Swingline shut down production in Long Island City, and moved the production of premium staplers and staples to Mexico and began production of economy plastic staplers in China.
In 2005, Fortune Brands spun-off ACCO with its over 6,000 employees and merged it with General Binding Corporation, creating ACCO Brands, Inc. (ABD on the NYSE).
[edit] Popular culture
A Swingline product was featured in the 1999 cult-classic film Office Space wherein one employee "Milton" complains repeatedly that his red Swingline stapler was stolen and eventually sets fire to the office building in retaliation. At the time, Swingline had not manufactured red staplers for years. In 2004 they released a limited edition series as a result of customer interest. [1]
