General Electric Demonstration Fluorescent Lamp
date: label: Date made
content: 1936
name: label: maker
content: General Electric Company
notes: label: Description
content: In the late 1920s and early 1930s, reports began reaching GE and Westinghouse of French experiments with neon tubes coated with phosphors. A phosphor is a material that absorbs one type of light and radiates another. American scientist Arthur Compton, a consultant to GE, reported seeing a green French lamp giving 30 lumens per watt in 1934, and his report sparked an intensive, cooperative research program to make a fluorescent lamp. In 1936, this tube using low pressure mercury vapor and a coating of phosphors was quietly demonstrated to the Illuminating Engineering Society and the U.S. Navy.
label: Description
content: In 1939, GE and Westinghouse publicly introduced fluorescent lamps at both the New York World's Fair and the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. Other lamp makers like Sylvania and Duro-Test soon followed. The need for efficient lighting in wartime factories brought rapid adoption of fluorescent lighting and by 1951 industry sources reported that more light in the United States was being produced by fluorescent lamps than by incandescent lamps.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Ohio, East Cleveland, Nela Park
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Energy & Power
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from General Electric Large Lamp Department, thru Alston Rodgers
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.318197
label: catalog number
content: 318197
label: accession number
content: 232822
objectType: label: Object Name
content: fluorescent tube
label: Object Name
content: fluorescent lamp
label: Other Terms
content: fluorescent tube; Lighting Devices
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: tungsten (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (part material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 17 3/4 in x 1 in; 45.085 cm x 2.54 cm