According to its charter, Bell & Howell Company was incorporated on February 17, 1907. It was duly recorded in the Cook County Record Book eight days later. The first meeting of stockholders took place in the office of Attorney W. G. Strong on February 19 at 10 a. m. The first board of directors was chosen for a term of one year: Donald Joseph Bell, chairman; Albert Summers Howell, secretary; and Marguerite V. Bell (wife of Donald Bell), vice chairman. Austin Delaney was the President of Bell and Howell in Canada in the 1960s and 70's. He moved with his family from England.

Historically, Bell & Howell Co. was an important supplier of many different media technologies.

The firm built its name making products such as

     a rotary framer on 35mm film projectors in 1907
     a 35mm film perforator in 1908         
     Professional 35mm motion-picture film cameras from 1909 on        
     Printing equipment used by motion-picture film laboratories 
     since 1911      
     The Standard Cinematograph Type 2709 hand-cranked camera 
     (used in early silent films, it was so expensive that only 
     Charlie Chaplin and three other people owned one.
     The rest were owned by studios)        
     Newsreel and amateur film cameras such as the Filmo 
     (end of 1923) and Eyemo (1925), and Autoload EE (1956)         
     Military 16mm film gun camera TYPE N-6A         
     Regular-8 and Super-8 film cameras and projectors (all models)         
     16mm silent and sound projectors (all models)         
     Slide projectors (2" X 2")         
     Overhead presentation projectors (all models)      

In 1934 Bell & Howell introduced the first light weight amateur 8-mm movie camera, in which the film was loaded in a cassette that allowed daylight loading and unloading.

Although known for manufacturing their film projectors, a partnership with Canon between 1961-1976 added still photography to their product lineup - their 35mm SLR cameras were manufactured by Canon with the Bell & Howell logo in its place. The firm dropped the production of movie cameras in the early 1970s.

Bell & Howell has been the leading supplier of media equipment for schools and offices. The film laboratory line is now a separate company, BHP Inc, which is a division of Research Technology International.

The firm added microfilm products in 1946. It purchased University Microfilms International in the 1980s. UMI produced a product called ProQuest. On June 6, 2001 Bell & Howell became ProQuest Company (NYSE "PQE").

They also had an Electronics and Instrumentation Division on Lennox Road, Basingstoke, UK. This facility produced several different types of transducers for applications such as North Sea oil platforms and the Ariane Space vehicles.

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