"A Century's Progress"
|Blotter number 214; image number: LAR_B214.
Text on blotter reads:
"Edison Mazda Lamps. Shining with a Century's Progress."
This blotter from the mid-1920s shows the continued
reduction in size of the Sun's Rival
logo. The familiar General Electric script logo became equal in size to
the older trademark. Light bulbs had become familiar devices by this time
and the original comparison to the Sun lost appeal for a new generation
of consumers. The sales-pitch changed focus from light to the research
that lay behind improvements to the lamp.
GE shifted the target of the advertising from
defeated competitors such as gas lighting companies to active competitorsindependent
lamp makers. GE could point to its strong innovative tradition.
Here Edison is flanked by two laboratory scientists and linked to
Benjamin Franklin. The figure reflected in the light bulb may
be Irving Langmuir, who received a Nobel Prize for work done in
the GE Laboratory. The identity of the other figure is less certain.
Such a lineup conveyed a powerful message to a generation committed
to the idea of social progress through technical advancement. And
that message of "Progress" is explicit in the text of the blotter.
Notice also the portrayal of Edison as an older man
rather than the young inventor
seen earlier. His carbon lamp no longer represented the forefront of modern
technology and he himself had moved on to other inventions. Edison's status
as an American icon carried weight, however, and GE made this pitch using
his name and his fame.
For additional information about lighting
in the early 20th century see:
Arthur A. Bright, Jr., The Electric-Lamp
Industry: Technological Change and Economic Development from 1800 to 1947
(New York: MacMillan Co., 1949)
Leonard S. Reich, "Lighting the Path to
Profit: GE's Control of the Electric Lamp Industry, 1892-1941," in Business
History Review 66 (Summer 1992), pp. 305-34.
For more about Edison's later life and
work see the Smithsonian online exhibition Edison