As EC&M celebrates 125 years of editorial excellence and serving its readers as the leading technical authority for the electrical industry, the editorial staff wanted to highlight the transformation it has made throughout the years — from November 1901 to November 2026.

From its inception until April 1918, the magazine was first dubbed The National Electrical Contractor. It was the official trade journal of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), which also celebrated its 125th anniversary this year. The cover art on our 125th anniversary issue reflects the earliest version of our magazine, and it was also displayed at the most recent NECA show in Las Vegas in their own anniversary exhibit.

The name then changed to the Electrical Contractor-Dealer for a short period from 1918 to 1921 and was the official journal of the National Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers. Adding “Dealer” to the magazine’s title reflected the desire to unite both contractors and merchandisers within the industry.

Two more short name change periods occurred for the magazine afterward. First, in November 1921, it changed to the National Electragist and then again in June 1923 to simply The Electragist. Why the term “electragist”? The word replaced “electrical contractor-dealer” to coincide with another name change for the Association — this time to the Association of Electragists International at its 1922 annual meeting.

In November 1928, the magazine became independent from the Association after being sold to the Electrical Trade Publishing Co. of Chicago, prompting another name change. It became Electrical Contracting, which reflected an editorial shift back toward its original audience of electrical contractors and away from dealers. Around this time, other trade magazines (like our sister publication Electrical Wholesaling, originally founded in 1920 as The Jobber’s Salesman) began to focus solely on dealers/wholesalers in the electrical industry.

McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. of New York purchased Electrical Contracting in July 1936, but the title remained the same until March 1947 when it officially became Electrical Construction and Maintenance (EC&M) — the name we’re familiar with today. This final name change represented the magazine’s shift to serve a broader audience of all electrical professionals who maintain, design, and construct electrical systems, including electrical contractors, electrical engineers and designers, and plant facility personnel — all of whom we continue to serve today.