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Lake Polan III's avatar

Polan Industries remained primarily a manufacturer of military materiel until its sale to Republic Corporation circa 1970. Its primary business was manufacture of military lenses, prisms and mirrors for bomb sights, tank periscopes, etc, and it expanded into manufacture of electronics associated with the prism and lens business, enabling fit to manufacture early generation of infra red sniper scopes and. starlight sights. Subsequently it successfully manufactured mine detectors and other military electronic devices, which had no optics. Post WW2 Polan tried to expand into the manufacture of civilian products, but it was never successful in doing so. You can find Polan Industries coffee pots for sale on eBay, for example. Later, it invested in an unsuccessful effort to manufacture color television tubes. As a result of its dependence on military work the company endured cycles of healthy sales during wars and military build-ups, followed by post war down cycles. Eventually the Polan brothers decided to sell the business. After its sale to Republic Corporation, the company's business crashed. Republic merged the remaining "Polan" optical manufacturing with that of another from its portfolio of companies, Wollensak, a manufacturer of tape recorders and optics. The Polan brothers subsequently bought back from Wollensak rights that Polan Industries had owned to manufacture the Compton Augur, a means of extracting coal from seams too small to be mined successfully otherwise. The augur business, operated primarily by John Einstein, continued for quite a few years.

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Sarah Einstein's avatar

Thank you, Lake, for clearing up a few things! I’ll start looking for those coffee makers under the name “Polan Industries,” because I’ve had a year’s long alert for them under the name “Zenith” and only ever found one, which at the time was priced beyond what I could pay for it.

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Lake Polan III's avatar

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was one of the premier anti Viet Nam War organizations during the 1960's. It

was founded, I think in 1962 with the publication of the Port Huron Statement. A radical organization, in addition to opposing the war, it opposed Capitalism as being innately imperialistic.

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Sarah Einstein's avatar

I’m so old I just assumed everyone knew was SDS was! Thanks for remembering that many people don’t remember or never knew.

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Lake Polan III's avatar

We’ll, math never was my strength. More of a Humanities person!

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Lake Polan III's avatar

But very 410 friendly

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Sarah Einstein's avatar

Lake! I'm shocked. Of all my cousins, I'd have expected you to know it's 420, not 410. :D

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Alice L. Downey-Hunter's avatar

🤣🤣🤣

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Lake Polan III's avatar

SDS framed the "struggle" in terms of class. Can't quite remember what class students would have represented... Intelligentsia-bourgeoisie? Certainly not workers. It lacked women, blacks, people with disabilities, LGBTQ- all the freedom movements that have blessed our society since then

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