Automatic Electric Company (AE) was the largest of the manufacturing units of the Automatic Electric Group and started in Chicago, Ill. in 1901 By the founder Almon B. Strowger for building telephone gear - but made also US Navy Deck Talker during WW2.

Wikipedia:
 

In 1889, Almon Strowger, of Kansas City, Missouri, was inspired by the idea of manufacturing automatic telephone exchanges that would not require switchboard operators. He founded the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company in 1891, which held the first patents for the automatic telephone exchange. Subsequently, in 1901, Strowger helped form the Automatic Electric Company to which he leased his patents exclusively.

Automatic switches proliferated in independent telephone companies in the 1910s and 1920s, well before the Bell System started deployment of Panel switch technology in the 1920s. In 1919 the Bell System was impacted considerably by organized operator strikes and the leadership abandoned its rejection of automatic switching equipment. As a result, Automatic Electric became a long-term supplier of step-by-step switching equipment to the Bell System.

General Telephone and Electronics (GT&E) acquired Automatic Electric through a merger with Theodore Gary & Company in 1955, and continued operating the unit into the 1980s. Lenkurt, a manufacturer of carrier equipment, was purchased by GT&E in 1959, and held separately from Automatic Electric.

In 1983, GTE merged Automatic Electric and Lenkurt into GTE Network Systems, which was quickly renamed GTE Communication Systems when AT&T announced the renaming of Western Electric as AT&T Network Systems. In 1989, the assets of the company were placed into a joint venture between AT&T and GTE called AG Communication Systems (the A and G respectively standing for the partners' names). At the same time, GTE Communications systems spun off their interconnect business to a joint venture called Fujitsu GTE, later to be renamed as Fujitsu Business Communication systems, Inc. AG Communication Systems ceased separate existence in 2004, and became fully incorporated into Lucent, subsequently Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent also owned many of the assets of the Western Electric Company, Automatic Electric's former rival and Bell System counterpart.