United

United Manufacturing Company was a Chicago-based producer of pinball machines and coin-operated amusements active from the 1930s through the early 1960s. Operating from facilities on Diversey Avenue and later other Chicago locations, United built a catalog of over one hundred Electromechanical games that found steady placement in arcades, taverns, and bowling alleys across the United States.

United occupied a distinctive niche in the postwar amusement market, producing not only conventional pinball machines but also a significant line of pitch-and-bat baseball games and bingo-style payout machines — categories that generated substantial operator revenue during the 1940s and 1950s. Designers Gordon Horlick and Iggy Wolverton contributed to a catalog that prioritized reliable earning potential over design innovation, a strategy that served United’s operator customer base well during the industry’s middle decades.

The company ceased production in the early 1960s as the pinball market consolidated around Gottlieb, Bally, Williams, and Chicago Coin. United’s machines are less celebrated individually than those of its larger competitors, but the company’s sustained output across three decades — from Bank-A-Ball in 1933 through late-era titles like Bonus Baseball (1962) — represents a significant thread in the story of Chicago’s mid-century amusement industry.