ELECTRIC LANE, BRIXTON

Windrush
Square
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Brixton
Railway
Station
Brixton
Village
Brixton Road
Acre Lane
Brixton Hill
Effra Road
Rushcroft Rd
Saltoun Rd
Atlantic Rd
Electric Av
Porden Road
Electric La
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Coldharbour Lane
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Brixton
Tube Station
BRIXTON
Start at Tate Library , built in 1892 in Victorian
Classical style. It was funded by Henry Tate of
Tate & Lyle, the sugar merchants.
Tate invented the sugar cube.
Find his bust in front of the Library.
By the library is the Sharpeville Monument .
It was built to commemorate black people killed on
21 March 1960 when police opened fire on a peaceful
protest in the South African township of Sharpeville.
Walk on into Windrush Square , created to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the arrival of SS Windrush from
the Caribbean in 1948 with 492 West Indians on board.
Many of them settled in Brixton. On the south-east corner
of the square is the Maidenhair Tree , Gingko biloba,
one of the oldest tree species in the world. There is an
old-fashioned Bovril advertisement
painted on the side of a building to the east.
Look out for other signs like this.
There’s one in Electric Lane,
near Atlantic Avenue.
Cross Effra Road and turn right toward the junction and
the Budd Memorial . This was erected in 1825 by
Henry Budd in memory of his father Richard Budd, ‘a
respected parent’, who was born in Brixton in 1748.
The serpent eating its tail is
the symbol for eternal life.
Can you find it?
Walk through the gardens to
St. Matthew’s Church . Built in
1822, it was one of four ‘Waterloo’ churches built in South
London in the early 19th century. The road opposite,
Porden Road, is named after its architect, C.F. Porden.
Turn right down Brixton Hill passing The Fridge on
your left. One of London’s most famous music venues,
it was built in 1914 and used to be the Palladium Cinema.
Can you see the fridge doors that
decorate the front?
On the corner of Acre Lane is Lambeth Town Hall ,
built in 1908 with red brick and stone decoration.
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The four figures around the tower
represent Justice, Science, Art, Literature.
Which one is Justice and
how can you tell?
Cross the road to Coldharbour Lane. The Ritzy Cinema
, opened in 1911 as the ‘Electric Pavilion Cinema’, is
the second oldest cinema in London.
Can you find the angels
holding up the letters E and P
for Electric Pavillion?
In front of the Ritzy is the London Plane
Tree , Acer Platanus x acerifolia,
ideal for London streets as it is not harmed by pollution.
Also here is the Foundation Stone of
the Old Brixton Theatre ,
bombed during World War II. It was
laid by the famous actor Henry Irving.
Can you find the
architect’s name?
You are now walking down Coldharbour Lane , once
a winding country lane connecting Brixton to Camberwell.
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There’s a lot to see and do right
on your doorstep. One of the best
ways to explore is to take a
Lambeth Walk. This walk has been
put together by Lambeth Council
to help you discover more about
Brixton and the surrounding areas
of Herne Hill and Ruskin Park.
Brixton is right at the heart of Lambeth. Here, you’ll find
the market, the town hall, the Ritzy cinema and a huge
number of other things to see and do. As you walk, you’ll
pass through two of Lambeth’s most popular parks and
see some of the wildlife on offer.
The walk starts at the Brixton Tate Library and ends
further along Coldharbour Lane, just past Loughborough
Junction Station. To make the walk circular
you can head back along Coldharbour
Lane on foot (about 10 minutes) or take
the bus. The walk is expected to take
about 2 hours.
Brixton to
Ruskin Park
Walk
You’ll be able to learn about local history and
architecture, and some of the colourful
characters that have lived and died here. There’s
something to interest the whole family, and some very
particular activities and questions to keep the children
entertained. Some of the things you find out about can
be used to complete the quiz elsewhere in the pack.

ART IS BLACK

Produced by the
Guardian in association
with decibel
ART IS
BLACK
CULTURALLY
DIVERSE ARTISTS
ON SHOW
02 ART IS BLACK
ALJIT BALROW IS THE FACE OF HAPPYclappy,
off-the-peg multiculturalism.
Literally. Her cute face modelling Indian
wedding jewellery and painted with the
British flag proves there IS some “Black
in the Union Jack” and embodies the
celebratory agenda of the Channel 4 Self
Portrait UK campaign. It’s always
captioned, “My parents see me as Indian,
but my friends see me as British. I see
myself as both British and Indian.” Very
melting pot.
But Balrow originally produced the
self-portrait as one in a series of shots,
the paint vanishing one colour per frame
to reveal the Indian face beneath,
representing a rejection of British
jingoistic flag-wavers alongside that
more defiantly celebratory vibe. Balrow
engages with her Sikh heritage
artistically because “it’s the same kind of
relationship you have with your artwork
as with your identity”.
But she distinguishes between a
useful internal dialogue and the banal
terms in which ethnic identity is framed
in the public domain. Since taking part in
a British Council sponsored tour of India
with a random bunch of other British
Asian artists, she’s no longer Asianartist-
for-hire because it eclipses her
specialism as a portraitist. She is now
teaming up with artists she met in India
in a joint exhibition but explains, “It’s not
Asian artists’ work, it’s artwork by artists
who happen to be Asian.”
Black and Asian artists working in
more abstract forms often bristle at the
association with identity politics. In 1989
Anish Kapoor refused to take part in The
Other Story, a landmark exhibition of
black and Asian artists at the Hayward
Gallery, reasoning, “I believe that being
an artist is more than being an Indian
artist. I feel supportive to that kind of
endeavour… it needs to happen once; I
hope that show is never necessary again.”
Ten years later, public galleries still
seem out of step with such artists. Art
historian Niru Ratnam panned an
exhibition showcasing young Asian
artists in 1999, saying “We simply do not
need insulting patronising shows like
zerozerozero ever again.”
Alex Proud, a private gallery owner
specialising in music photography, finds
the idea of defining work through the
ethnicity of the artist baffling. He says
diversity sells and black photographers
may be best positioned to capitalise
because, “skin colour stopped being a
barrier in photography a long time ago”.
A recent exhibition of Bob Marley pictures
by black photographer Dennis Morris was
a commercial success and Proud is now
talking to KFC about sponsoring an
exhibition of soul photographs.
Sara Wajidis project director
(development) of SALIDAA, South Asian
Diasporic Literature and Arts Archive
(www.salidaa.org.uk). She curated Our
Man in India: Cecil Beaton’s Propaganda
Photographs 1944, at The National
Archives, Kew, to Mar 13
B
What’s in a
name?
Above, Self portrait
with jewellery-feet;
Red Nude [also on
cover]. Right, Sydney.
All by Baljit Balrow
Baljit Balrow; Graham Turner; Aquarius
Is racial and cultural identity
important to visual artists?
Or are we just one happy
multicultural family now?
Is this the job of the commercial
gallery? Mr Aftab cites the film and music
industries where he believes there is a
more progressive attitude towards
encouraging young black and Asian
people. Public bodies are all very well, but
it is the big commercial galleries with the
cash. If they want to be seen as a globalised
community perhaps they should be
proactive in providing opportunities for
those who feel alienated from entering it.
Jessica Lack
ART IS BLACK 03
Steve McQueen. Top,
Isaac Julien’s film
Looking for Langston
Spend, spend,
spend
At a time when famousname
artists get big bucks,
does race still affect your
selling power?
IT WAS A VERY DIFFERENT LONDON
when the GLC Leader Ken Livingston
was mocked for spending public money
on tabloid-unfriendly groups such as
black and Asian artists. It was an act
that caused derision from Middle
Englanders and added to his
description as a loony lefty.
Today the idea of describing artists like
Anish Kapoor, Chris Ofili, and Steve
McQueen as part of a marginalised
artistic community would seem
laughable. They have not only received
the highest art accolades Britain has to
offer, but their paintings, sculptures and
films fetch the kind of prices most mere
mortals could retire on.
Has their race effected their selling
power? Niru Ratnam, co-director of the
Store Gallery in Hoxton doesn’t think so
and is mildly amused to think of
exhibitions by artists such as Lubaina
Himid or David Adjaye, as needing the
support of a decibel initiative.
“At the beginning of the 1990s it did
feel like the only artist of colour who had
gained public recognition was Anish
Kapoor, but things have changed
dramatically since then. There is a kind of
multicultural romanticism in the London
art world now. Gallery owners don’t have
a racial agenda to selling art. There are a
small few who choose to show only
works with a post-colonial slant, but
essentially dealers are interested in the
international appeal of their artists. In a
strange way”, says Ratnam,“you could
argue the market has become an
enabler of globalised peace in the art
world. It may be a cut-throat profession
but race doesn’t come into it.”
Film and art critic Kaleem Aftab is less
sure, “IThe gatekeepers are still white,
and although you can mention artists like
Kapoor, Isaac Julien and Runa Islam, I
still think there’s a kind of tokenism to the
way these artists are seen. You can argue
it’s a class thing, but that’s just sidestepping
the issue. Dealers might be
keen to attract black and Asian artists but
I don’t see them going into schools in the
East End or setting up scholarships.”
Is there racism in the visual arts? Join the debate, at
www.spiked-online.com/artsandracism/’
BCA Gallery
33 Castle Lane, Bedford (01234 273580)
www.bedfordcreativearts.org
Window on the World: Nilu Izadi
A solo exhibition of contemporary pinhole
and camera obscura photography by Nilu
Izadi, London-based photographer of
Iranian origin.
Tues-Sat 11am-5pm, ends Apr 17, free
Bonnington Gallery
Dryden Street, Nottingham (0115 848
6131) www.future-factory.com
Performance People: Harjeet Kaur
This work is preoccupied with action and
duration, which enthralls and draws the
audience in closer.
Mon-Thur 10am-5pm, Fri 10am-4pm, Sat
1pm-5pm, Apr 5 to May 14, free
Central Art Gallery
Old Street, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Greater
Manchester (0161-342 2650)
www.tameside.gov.uk
Parampara Portraits: J Chuhan
New perceptions of the British South
Asian experience through a series of
portraits of British South Asians in the
public eye.
Tues, Wed, Fri 10am-5pm, Thu 1pm-
7.30pm, Sat 9am-4pm, ends today, free
The City Gallery
90 Granby Street, Leicester LE1 (0116 254
0595)
Roshini Kempadoo: Works 1990-2004
Mapping colonial history, stories and
locations, Roshini Kempadoo uses new
technologies to explore connections
between past and present. Includes
Ghosting, commissioned to celebrate the
new Peepul Centre.
Tue-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat 10am-5pm ends
Apr 3, free
Crescent Arts, The Crescent,
Scarborough, North Yorks (01723 351461)
www.crescentarts.co.uk
Sculpture
Sculpture exhibition of local and national
artists from wire sculpture to 3D collage,
found objects and everything in between.
Ends today
Kids Art
An exhibition of diverse art produced by
children aged 5 to 15.
Mon-Sun 10am-1pm, 2pm-5pm, Mar 16
to Apr 24, free
Listings
All around England: where to see
culturally diverse artists on show
between now and July
04 ART IS BLACK
There is humour and pathos in the
paintings of Lubaina Himid, the
Tanzanian-born artist who, after
leaving the Royal College of Art.
formed the Black Women’s Art
Movement and became director of the
alternative art space, The Elbow
Room between 1986 and 1990. Himid
uses her pictures to introduce
dialogues about art and illusion,
guilefully rewriting history to include
depictions of black women and
lament the injustices of slavery and
oppression. Her new exhibition
features theatrically dressed cut-out
figures, withthe accompaniment of a
thumping operatic soundtrack that
challenges the relationship between
Europe’s colonial past and today’s
cultural politics. JL
The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle,
to Mar 13, free
FOCUS: Lubaina Himid
Cousins today, pictured at his home in Minorc apictured at
ART IS BLACK 05
exploring issues of forgotten histories,
race and identity.
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, to Mar 13, free
John Hansard Gallery
University of Southampton, Highfield,
Southampton (023 8059 2158)
www.hansardgallery.org.uk
New British Painting: Part II
Exhibition of contemporary British
painters including Pearl Hsuing, Andrea
Medjesi-Jones, Miho Sato and others.
Tues-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm,
ends Apr 7, free
Minories Art Gallery
74 High Street, Colchester, Essex (01206
577067) www.firstsite.uk.net
Gambiarra
A multi-ethnic, multimedia exhibition of
young Brazilian artists combining a
political voice with the methodology of
“gambiarra” or “making do”.
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Mar 5 to June 5, free
The New Art Gallery Walsall
Gallery Square, Walsall, West Midlands
(01922 654 400) www.artatwalsall.org.uk
Double Vision
Students curating their own exhibition,
drawing on the works from the Arts
Council Collection.
Strangers
Strangers gathers together works by 19
Cube
82 Wood Street, Liverpool, L1 (0161-237
5525) www.cube.org.uk
Asymmetrical Chamber: David Adjaye
Cube is committed to exploring
architecture in all its diversity and how it
interconnects with other visual arts
disciplines. Mon-Fri, 12noon-5.30pm, Sat
10am-5pm, to Mar 8, free
EMACA (East Midlands African
and Caribbean Arts)
Art Exchange, 39 Gregory Boulevard,
Nottingham (0115 924 4611)
Keisha Castello
Miniature painting and installation from
Jamaican artist. Mar 10 to Apr 2
My Other Life: Donovan Pennant
Installation and photography on the
artist’s reincarnation. Apr 9 to May 2
Urban Spirituals: Samson Kambalu
Ground-breaking retrospective of Malawiborn
artist, Samson Kambalu. Best
known for his Holy Ball exercises. July 5 to
Aug 24
Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 1pm-5pm, free
The Hatton Gallery
The Quadrangle, University of Newcastle,
Newcastle (0191-222 6059)
www.ncl.ac.uk/hatton
Naming the Money: Lubaina Himid
Installation of 100 life-sized cut-outs
Ian Teh spent the last four years
photographing the creation of the
largest dam in the world which will
force 2 million Chinese people to
leave their homes by the Yangtze
River. One of the most striking shots
depicts a barber cutting hair in his
shop, which is mid-demolition. Teh
deftly captures intimate domestic
details brutally exposed by
demolition. Technically perfect
compositions of natural beauty by the
award-winning press photographer
are mixed with blurry ones hinting at
a hovering bulldozer. SW
Photofusion, London SW9,
to Mar 27, free
FOCUS: Ian Teh
06 ART IS BLACK
modern and contemporary artists from
the Tate Collections whose practice
involves meeting or observing strangers.
Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12noon-5pm,
ends Apr 18, free
Nottingham Castle
Off Maid Marian Way, Nottingham (0115
915 3700) www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk
Horace Ove
Landmark exhibition of 100 selected
images from the work of pioneering black
film-maker, documenting the emergent
black political scene in the 60s.
Mon-Sun 10am-5pm, May 1 to June 27,
free
Photofusion
17a Electric Lane, Brixton, London, SW9
(020-7738 5774) www.photofusion.org
The Vanishing: Ian Teh
A documentation of the recent
transformation to China’s Yangtze river
made by the construction of the giant
Three Gorges Dam. To Mar 27
Buena Memoria: Marcelo Brodsky
An impressive and moving memorial to
the thousands who went missing during
Argentina’s dictatorship. Apr 2 to May 15
Masquerade
Five contemporary women
photographers address the complexities
surrounding portraiture. May 28 to July 10
Tues, Thur, Fri 10am-5pm, Wed 10am-
8pm, Sat 11am-6pm, free
Photographers’ Gallery
Newport Street, WC2 (020-7831 1772)
Red-Colour News Soldier: Li Zhensheng
Photographs of the cultural revolution in
the city of Harbin, scene of mass witchhunts
by Red Guards.
Mao’s Photographers:
Hou Bo & Xu Xiaobing
In contrast to Li Zhengsheng’s frank and
courageous depiction of the real events of
the Cultural Revolution, this exhibition
focuses on how Mao Zedong recruited
photography for propagandist ends.
Mon-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun 12noon-6pm,
Apr 9 to May 30, free
PM Gallery & House
Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, Ealing, W5
(020-8567 1227)
www.ealing.gov.uk/pitshanger
Roshini Kempadoo
A retrospective exhibition of photographic
and web-based work including a new
commission referencing the gallery house
owned by John Soane.
Tues-Fri 1pm-5pm, Sat 11am-5pm, June
2004, free
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
Bethesda Street, Stoke on Trent, (01782
232323) www.stoke.gov.uk/museums
An artist who has been consistently
making engaging and thoughtprovoking
artworks for the last 14
years, it is only now that Roshini
Kempadoo is finally being
recognised for these investigative
pieces. Her new installation
Ghosting is unveiled this week and it
is a critical look at the history of the
slave trade using information
gleaned on the internet. Using the
arbitrary nature of cyberspace, she
creates links between countries and
people, exploring the impact
colonialisation has had on popular
culture, the way in which we
construct history, both personal and
national, and our aspirations.
She also has another show at PM
Gallery & House, Ealing, in June. JL
The City Gallery, Leicester,
to Apr 3, free
FOCUS: Roshini Kempadoo
Cousins today, pictured at his home in Minorc apictured at
ART IS BLACK 07
Diverse Designs
Twelve schools work with artists inspired by
the museum’s foreign collection.
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2pm-5pm, Apr
3-Apr 20, free
Q Arts
35/36 Queen Street, Derby (01332 295858)
www.g-arts.co.uk
Illustration of Life: Max Kandhola
A profound and moving photographic
narrative that challenges exiting ideas and
representation of death.
Mon-Sun 12noon-4pm, ends today, free
Royal Over-Seas League Arts
Over-Seas House, Park Place, St James’s
Street, London, SW1 www.rosl.org.uk
Hybrid: Chila Burman and Godfried
Donkor
New works by two highly acclaimed
artists working with pattern and detail.
Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, to Mar 5, free
The Showroom
44 Bonner Road, London, London E2 (020-
8983 4115) www.theshowroom.org
Subodh Gupta
Newly commissioned work by Delhibased
artist, elevating the status of found
objects from everyday items to artworks.
Mon-Sun 1pm to 6pm, Mar 31 to May 9, free
To Change an Opinion
One day conference on aesthetical forms
and political contents. Speakers include
Subodh Gupta and Michael Hirsch.
Apr 3, £20/ £10 (concessions). Tickets
from The Showroom, as above
Spacex Gallery
45 Preston Street, Exeter (01392 431 786)
www.spacex.co.uk
Homeland
A multi-site project — encompassing
shops, the cathedral, outdoor spaces and
the local newspaper — posing the
question “What is Middle England?”
Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Apr 17 to May 15,
free
Usher Gallery
Lindum Road, Lincoln (0152 252 7980)
www.lincolnshire.gov.uk
Serendipity
Exhibition of some of Sri Lanka’s finest
contemporary artists. Work ranges from
sculpture to photography, painting to
printing.
Tues-Sat 10am-5.30pm, Sun 2.30pm-
5pm, ends Apr 16, free
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
West Bretton, Wakefield, West Yorks
(01924 832631) www.ysp.co.uk
Eduodo Chillida
Monumental and medium-sized
sculptures complemented by carvings,
ceramics, graphics and works on paper.
Mon-Sun 11am-5pm, Mar, free
New Delhi-based Subodh Gupta is fast
becoming an established name on the
international art scene. His quirky
figurative work uses globally
recognised brands like the big Mac,
Nike’s ubiquitous tick and the London
underground logo as much as it does
familiar Indian domestic objects like
cooking pots and scooters. The form
varies from a 10-minute video
installation of his naked slimecovered
body utilising the latest in hitech
gadgetry, to simple metal casts
of bamboo sticks. Gupta was featured
in the prestigious First Fukuoka Asian
Art Triennale which heralded a cool
new dawn in the appreciation of
contemporary art from the
subcontinent and is now opening his
first solo show in London. SW
The Showroom, London E2,
Mar 31 to May 9, free
FOCUS: Subodh Gupta
ublic architecture may be a profession not
to be entered lightly by young upstarts, but
it appears David Adjaye never read the
rulebook. Over the past 10 years, the 36-
year-old Royal College of Art graduate has
made his mark on London’s landscape
with some extraordinary structures.
These range from the effortlessly cool
Social Bar, to a black box house for art duo
Tim Noble and Sue Webster.
But it was his design for a house in
Whitechapel, in which no roof, bricks or
windows were visible, that brought Adjaye
serious critical recognition. A brooding
dark shroud, this simple structure was a
striking alternative to terrace living.
More recently Adjaye has been
collaborating with the artist Chris Ofili and
designed INIVA, the first national centre
for culturally diverse visual arts. He is set
to conquer Boston and New York with a
Performing Arts Centre and a Museum of
Contemporary Art and will also be
designing Oslo’s Nobel Peace Centre.
However, in an interview in the Guardian,
Adjaye described the architectural world as
“the most closed, middle-class, middleaged,
trust-fund profession you could ever
be in”. He also voiced concerns over the
way people have a tendency to see
architecture purely as a functional
medium.“Buildings are deeply emotive
structures which form our psyche.”
His new retrospective, Asymmetrical
Chamber, contains photographs and
drawings outlining his approach to
celebrating the confusion of city living. JL
Cube, Liverpool, to Mar 8, free
P
FOCUS:David Adjaye
Above, Asymetric
chamber, work by
David Adjaye at Cube,
Liverpool
The world-acclaimed architect reveals his fascination with stark
modernism, and the power of buildings, in his first retrospective
Lyndon Douglas

Changing the Light Bulb: Fast Growth in Once-Staid Industry: By EVAN RAMSTAD and KATHRYN KRANHOLD

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1 of 3 6/12/2006 9:51 AM
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Coke’s ad in Times Square.
June 8, 2006
Changing the Light Bulb
Changing the Light Bulb
Fast Growth in Once-Staid Industry
By EVAN RAMSTAD and KATHRYN KRANHOLD
June 8, 2006; Page B1
The future of lighting is in chips.
Light-emitting diodes — those tiny, chip-based lights that for years have
served as the power indicator on stereos and coffee-makers — are
shaking up the global lighting industry like nothing since fluorescent bulbs emerged just after World War
II.
The spread of LEDs into a wider array of products poses new challenges for Philips Electronics NV,
of Amsterdam; Siemens AG’s Osram unit, based in Munich, Germany; and General Electric Co., of
Fairfield, Conn. The three have dominated every step of making a light bulb, from tungsten mining to retail
promotions, for more than a century. But the LED arena is wide open, with the big multinationals going
up against start-up manufacturers in core chip technology and against niche producers of finished
products — far more competition than they faced in traditional lighting.
A traditional light bulb uses an electrified wire filament in a vacuum tube. An
LED, on the other hand, is a semiconductor chip that, when zapped with
electricity, emits light. The color of the light depends on the material at the
base of the chip. Like computer chips, LEDs can be very small — several
could fit on fingernail — and they can be programmed by software to light
up, for example, a stadium scoreboard.
Such flexibility first pushed LEDs into applications where traditional bulbs
wouldn’t work. Now, high-power LEDs are taking the place of bulbs,
showing up in cellphones, cars, televisions and elsewhere in homes, the light
bulb’s stronghold.
LEDs consume less electricity than many other types of lights and last longer
than most — around 10 years or so. Like other types of chips, their cost is
falling and performance is improving as manufacturers make advances in
materials and factory processes. “It’s going to open up and revolutionize the
way we use and think about lighting,” says Robert Steele, an analyst with Strategies Unlimited, a U.S.
market-research firm that specializes in LEDs.
WSJ.com – Changing the Light Bulb http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114973417663874578.html
2 of 3 6/12/2006 9:51 AM
Miami Dolphins’ end-zone screen
Cellphones are the biggest new LED market, lighting up keypads and liquid crystal displays. (Computer
screens, in contrast, rely on fluorescent bulbs for light.) Sales of high-brightness LEDs, the kind used in
the new products, are estimated to be $4 billion to $5 billion this year. Sales are expected to hit $10
billion by the end of the decade.
Among the new applications fueling LED growth: Drivers of the new Ford Motor Co. Mustang can use
the “MyColor” feature to change the color of the lighting on their LED-laden dashboard. (A small line of
red, green and blue LEDs can, in varying combinations, produce 125 colors.) Boeing Corp. plans to use
LEDs throughout the interior of its new 787 Dreamliner commercial jet, creating lighting environments that
are supposed to help international travelers adjust to time-zone changes. Owners of a Louisville, Ky.,
restaurant, Proof On Main, eliminated dangling light bulbs and replaced them with LED lighting that
changes from amber in the morning to violet late at night. Already, some traffic signals in cities in the U.S.
and China use LED fixtures that switch between red, yellow and green, instead of separate colored
bulbs.
Philips is selling flameless candles, with LEDs providing the
“flickering” light source. It also is experimenting with LED-based lights
in the shape of bulbs that fit into existing lamps and offer a twist:
Squeezing or tapping the bulb turns it on or off, or makes it change
color. (LEDs don’t get hot because they use so little energy.) And
Philips is developing a remote-controlled LED room-lighting system.
LEDs’ rising influence is most visible in the growth of companies
working on the basic technology. Philips Electronics’ Lumileds, Nichia
Chemical Corp. and Toyoda Gosei Co., of Japan, and Cree Inc., of Durham, N.C., produce LED chips
and sell them to firms that build finished lights. In Asia, some packages for LED flashlights made by
Energizer Holdings Inc. are marked “LED by Nichia” — a marketing ploy similar to the “Intel Inside”
sticker on a computer.
Some start-ups are establishing early leads in market niches. Canada’s Carmanah Technologies Corp.
married LEDs with solar panels for marine buoys. It later expanded into aviation, selling easy-installation
runway lights to the U.S. military in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The technology has driven Daktronics Inc. of Brookings, S.D., the largest U.S. maker of scoreboards,
into other types of outdoor signs, including some in New York’s Times Square and London’s Piccadilly
Circus. And LEDs have replaced incandescent light bulbs on many high school scoreboards. “It’s a much
more cost-effective and much better energy source,” says Chief Executive Jim Morgan.
Daktronics has edged ahead of an Asian rival, Lighthouse Technologies, of Hong Kong, in a race to
make the biggest LED screen. Two months ago, Daktronics unveiled a 50-foot-high by 140-foot-wide
screen for Dolphin Stadium in Miami, beating Lighthouse’s 132-foot screen, which sits above touristy
Nathan Road in Hong Kong.
A GE engineer, Nick Holonyak Jr., built the first LED in 1962, and the company patented the discovery.
Among the first big uses for LEDs were calculators, and manufacturer Hewlett-Packard Co. eventually
bought GE’s patent.
WSJ.com – Changing the Light Bulb http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114973417663874578.html
3 of 3 6/12/2006 9:51 AM
Philips Electronics’ LED light ‘bulbs’ change color when squeezed.
But the technology remained on the
fringes of industry for decades.
Nichia and Cree changed that in the
1990s by broadening the LED color
palette, which previously had been
limited to red, yellow and green. The
breakthrough came in 1993, when Nichia, Toyoda Gosei (part-owned by Toyota Motor Co.) and,
soon afterward, Cree conquered blue, marking the final step to creating combinations that would fill out
the color spectrum, including white.
Major manufacturers took notice. In 1999, GE formed GELcore, a venture with chip maker Emcore
Corp., to get back into the LED business. The joint venture is looking to develop the perfect-white
lighting system, which could be used as general illumination in retail stores, industrial buildings and, some
day, homes.
“The game for us is white,” says Michael Petras, vice president of GE’s commercial- and
industrial-lighting sales. “It’s the lighting market.”
Nichia remains the biggest force in overall production of LED chips. Leading in the production of
high-powered chips are Osram Opto Semiconductors and Lumileds, a former joint venture of Philips
Electronics and the Hewlett-Packard spinoff Agilent Technologies Inc. and now 100% owned by
Philips. Gerard Kleisterlee, Philips’s CEO, says one need only look at the history of other electronics
markets to know how varied the future may get.
“We were founded around the manufacture of incandescent light, and that vacuum tube produced other
vacuum tubes for radios and picture tubes for TVs,” Mr. Kleisterlee says. Radio tubes gave way to
transistors, and TV tubes to liquid-crystal displays. “Now,” he says, “finally that same thing starts to
happen to lighting.”
Write to Evan Ramstad at evan.ramstad@wsj.com1 and Kathryn Kranhold at
kathryn.kranhold@wsj.com2
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114973417663874578.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:
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A Narrative History of the Light Bulb: S T E P H E N WI R T Z G A L L E R Y

S T E P H E N WI R T Z G A L L E R Y
STEPHEN WIRTZ GALLERY, INC. 49 GEARY STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94108
TELEPHONE (415) 433-6879 FAX (415) 433-1608 EMAIL SWG@WIRTZGALLERY.COM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Julie Casemore, (415) 433-6879, julie@wirtzgallery.com
CATHERINE WAGNER
A Narrative History of the Light Bulb
Exhibition dates: March 28 – April 28, 2007
Opening reception for the artist, Thursday, April 5, 2007, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Stephen Wirtz Gallery presents A Narrative History of the Light Bulb, a new series of photographs by Catherine Wagner.
While in residence at the Baltimore Museum of Industry during the last two years, Catherine Wagner was given access to
their 50,000+ collection of historic light bulbs, one of the premier collections of vintage and antique light bulbs in the United
States, with lights dating from the early 19th century. The resulting series of photographs titled A Narrative History of the
Light Bulb embodies both sculptural installation and photography. Wagner creates arrangements of bulbs that she then
photographs with an 8 by 10 view camera in order to record the glass enclosures and the delicate filaments in stunning detail.
Wagner’s work has long been noted for its investigation of the dissemination of knowledge and the construction of culture
and these new works follow in her trajectory of providing access to the close scrutiny of scientific objects.
These works are records of historical light bulb classification as well as narrative landscapes of metaphor rich objects that
borrow from the history of the still life. With a keen eye toward Morandi, Wagner utilizes similar strategies of grouping
familiar objects in beautiful, compelling installations. Some are based on scientific indexes, such as Early Tungsten or
Carbon Filaments 1900- 1910; others are constructed more lyrically, with sensitivity to the implied stories in the groupings
of bulbs. Wagner employs an intuitive approach, cataloging them by color, form, or aesthetic with examples that include an
installation of varying blue bulbs entitled, Homage to Yves Klein, and the architecturally based collection entitled Utopia,
which invokes ideal cityscapes. Green Energy involves a double entendre: the topical need for our technology to become
more sustainable, and also a metaphor our landscape.
Wagner focus on the invention and history of the light bulb and its place as a cultural indicator follows from her long-term
interest in the phenomenon of light as evidenced by past projects such as Cross Sections, Pomegranate Wall (San Jose
Museum of Art, 2001,) the installation of Home and Other Stories (a constructed light and photographic installation at
LACMA, 1993,) as well as her over thirty year career in photography, a medium inherently dependant on light.
Wagner was named one of Time magazine’s Fine Arts Innovators of the Year for 2001. Her work is represented in numerous
public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; among others. Monographs include
Cross Sections (2002), Art & Science: Investigating Matter (1996), Home and Other Stories (1993), and American
Classroom (1988).
Stephen Wirtz Gallery is located at 49 Geary St., 3rd Fl., San Francisco, CA 94108, (415) 433-6879, Gallery hours are
Tuesday-Friday, 9:30-5:30, Saturday 10:30-5:30.

Seeing the Light: The Physics and Materials Science of the Incandescent Light Bulb

Seeing the Light: The Physics and Materials Science of the Incandescent Light Bulb
This unit consists of an interlinked series of 6 multi-part experiments using inexpensive materials such as lights bulbs, heater wire, and an ohmmeter. In the first experiment, students discover that Ohm’s law doesn’t appear to be valid for the filament resistance of the light bulb. They then develop the understanding that this arises from the change in filament resistance with temperature. This experiment connects commonly used technology – the light bulb – with the mathematics of Ohm’s law as well as with the dependence of the electrical properties of materials on their composition, length, and diameter. In a subsequent series of experiments, students investigate a 3-way bulb, a 3-way switch, and then a 3-way bulb in a 3-way switch socket. They develop the understanding – using observation, logical reasoning, and mathematical modeling – that a 3-way bulb consists of 2 filaments which are connected in parallel at the highest wattage setting. In the third experiment, students design a light bulb and describe the fabrication steps necessary to construct it; students are given some basic engineering information before attempting the experiment. They then dissect a light bulb and determine how close their earlier design resembles a real bulb. Finally, they must design and construct a light bulb that operates in air using materials that are similar to those found in a light bulb, but are oxidation resistant. These materials are available as a kit from the General Atomics Sciences Education Foundation as GASEF #013. GASEF #013 contains 10 20-cm long pieces of 0.003 inch diameter Kanthal AF wire, 2 20-cm long pieces of 0.010 inch diameter Kanthal AF wire, and 2 20-cm long pieces of 0.020 inch diameter copper wire.

This unit also consists of an extensive introduction with background information into advanced topics such as oxidation resistant materials, blackbody radiation, filament materials, filament environments, and a microscopic view of incandescence. Also explored are a brief history of the development of the light bulb and Edison’s critical role in the methodology of experimental science, which set the subsequent standard for industrial research. A teacher’s guide to all experiments, related mathematical problem sets, and solutions is included the module. This unit provides a natural tie to studies in economics and US history that involve the electrification of society, the industrial revolution, the rivalry between AC and DC distribution systems, and the growth of industrial laboratories. Students require a previous introduction to Ohm’s Law and series and parallel circuits before beginning this unit. These experiments are aimed at grades 7-12, but would also be appropriate for an introductory university physics or materials science course.

This unit relates to the NSES physical science content standards in grades 5-8: “Energy is a property of many substances and is associated with heat, light, electricity … Energy is transferred in many ways. Electrical circuits provide a means of transferring electrical energy when heat. light, sound, and chemical changes are produced;” and in grades 9-12: “Energy can be transferred … in many ways. In some materials, such as metals, electrons flow easily, whereas in insulating material they can hardly flow at all.”

Download Entire Unit (1.1MB PDF)

Section Page
Table of Contents… 2
Correspondence to the National Science Education Standards… 3
Correspondence to the Benchmarks for Science Literacy… 5
Logical Construction of Module… 8
Introduction and Basic Physics… 9
Introduction to Filament Design Parameters… 12
Experiment 1: The Room Temperature Filament Resistance of Different Wattage Bulbs… 14
Experiment 2: The Temperature Dependence of the Resistance of a 100 W Light Bulb… 17
Experiment 3: The Electrical Properties of 3-Way Bulbs… 19
Experiment 4: Light Bulb Design… 24
Experiment 5: Light Bulb Dissection… 26
Experiment 6: Light Bulb Fabrication… 28
Advanced Topic: Oxidation Resistant Materials… 30
Advanced Topic: Blackbody Radiation… 32
Advanced Topic: Filament Material… 33
Advanced Topic: Filament Environment… 35
Advanced Topic: Microscopic View of Incandescence… 36
Advanced Topic: A Brief History: The Edisonian Approach… 37
Problems… 38
Solutions… 39
Reference 44
Materials Required… 45
Appendix… 46
Response to a question about developing the cooling curve (Experiment 2, page 18)

This unit was developed by Dr. Lawrence D. Woolf

webmaster@ga.com

©General Atomics

The Corning Ribbon Machine For Incandescent Light Bulb Blanks

The Corning Ribbon Machine
For Incandescent Light Bulb Blanks
International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark
1983
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Will Woods And His
Fabulous Machine When William J. Woods first came to work at Corning Glass Works in
1898, there was little — except for his shock of auburn hair — that would have
indicated he was anything out of the ordinary.
Of medium height and weight, 19-year-old Woods — everyone called him Will —
was a newcomer to Corning, N.Y., from the Pittsburgh area where he had been
born in the town of Martinsburg to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. As a
boy, he had learned to blow glass in the Westinghouse Glass Works, one of
many such enterprises which flourished off the abundant coal that underlay the
wooded ridges of western Pennsylvania.
Will Woods had come to Corning to pursue his calling as a glassblower. And
despite his appearance, Will Woods was anything but ordinary.
He was a man with an instinctive fascination for the inner workings of
machinery. Although Woods had little formal education and no training
whatsoever in the mechanical arts, his “open and independent mind,” in the
words of one Corning Glass historian, enabled him to see possibilities hidden to
others of his trade.
It was a time for invention, one of those rare periods in human history when the
activity of man’s mind resulted in technological achievement that forever
changed the face of the earth and man’s outlook upon it.
One of these triumphs was the invention, in 1879 (the year of Will Woods’
birth), of a successful incandescent electric light bulb by Thomas Alva Edison,
the “Wizard of Menlo Park” whose keen intellect and driving spirit also
produced the phonograph, the motion picture and countless other inventions
and improvements.
A BOYISH WILL WOODS DEMONSTRATES
THE GLASSBLOWING
TECHNIQUE THAT
BROUGHT HIM SUCCESS.
1
‘Let There Be
Light Bulbs’
A CORNING INVOICE DATED
1880 SHOWS THE PURCHASE
OF VARIOUS KINDS OF GLASS
TUBING BY THOMAS EDISON
“FOR ELECTRIC LIGHT.”
Aware of the company’s dedication to science and engineering,
Edison had chosen Corning Glass to manufacture the glass envelope for his first
bulbs. The carbon filament that first glowed brightly in his New Jersey
laboratories was enclosed by a bulb produced by Corning glassblowers to
Edison’s specifications.
That first bulb sparked a dream in the minds of many: a world where the sunset
would no longer limit man’s activities, a world where inexpensive electricity
could illuminate even the darkest and most farflung of regions.
Electric light certainly was no myth, but in the years following Edison’s
invention, it proved more difficult to achieve than had been at first anticipated.
Although its possibilities were immediately foreseen, production was difficult
and expensive.
While filaments and bases could be manufactured, glass bulb envelopes could
be made only by hand, or by mouth as it were, by glassblowers skilled in an
ancient trade. These master craftsmen, called gaffers, learned their trade during
a long apprenticeship and were few in number.
2
Towards Automation
AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY,
A TEAM OF TWO MEN
COULD PRODUCE THREE
GLASS BULBS PER MINUTE.
Working at top speed in the red-orange radiance of a glass-melting tank, a team
of two men, gaffer and assistant, could produce two bulbs per minute in the
glass works of the 1890s. It was clear that, at this speed, Edison’s Age of
Universal Light would be a long time dawning. To complicate matters further,
the hand-blown bulbs were expensive by the standards of the time, so that,
even if large enough quantities could be produced, they would be beyond the
means of most people even in nations that were rapidly developing their
industrial base.
Nevertheless, the concept of the electric light fired the imagination, and people
embraced it eagerly. News of Edison’s remarkable success spread over the globe
with only slightly less speed than that of light itself.
Into this climate stepped young Will Woods, glassblower. In 1907,
eight years after Woods had come to Corning Glass, the company began work
on what was to become known as the “E” Machine, the world’s first automated
process for glass light bulb envelope production.
Automated, but hardly automatic, the Empire “E” Machine (Empire was a
Corning Glass subsidiary founded to design and produce automated glass-making
and finishing machinery) still required workers to “gather” the molten glass by
hand for blowing into bulbs.
By 1913, the “E” Machine was producing glass bulbs at the then- rapid rate of
seven per minute. Corning installed numbers of these machines at its newly
purchased plant in nearby Wellsboro, Pa. — where Will Woods had been
transferred — and the race for automatic light bulb envelope production began
in earnest.
It had indeed become a race. In 1912, even before the “E” Machine began
producing bulbs, Empire engineers had in 1912 begun work on its successor,
appropriately named the “F” Machine. And even earlier, General Electric had
3
A Shovel, A Gob
And A Brainstorm
AN EARLY ATTEMPT AT AUTOMATING
THE BULB-BLOWING
PROCESS RESULTED IN
THIS ODD-LOOKING MACHINE.
THE AIR WAS STILL
SUPPLIED BY LUNG POWER
begun work on its “Westlake” machine, which promised to eclipse the hardworking
“E” types.
The “Westlake” and “F” machines were rotary-type machines, capable of
producing 12, 24 or 48 bulb envelopes during each revolution. Glass was
delivered to the machines as they operated, eliminating the cumbersome and
time-consuming hand-gather system that slowed the operation of the “E”
Machine to a relative crawl. Corning began installing the “F” Machines in its
Wellsboro plant in 1923.
Will Woods was not idle during these years of machine development.
First in Corning and then in Wellsboro, he actively studied the crafthe had
chosen until he had become a master gaffer himself.
Greatly intrigued by the possibilities of electric light and the application of
mechanical technology to the production of light bulbs, Woods had become
instrumental to the success of the slow but effective “E” Machine at Wellsboro.
rising to the post of production superintendent by 1917.
Woods’s production efforts quickly became the stuff of legend. Corning Glass
historian George Buell Hollister records that “With the help of a few bulb
gatherers brought from the Corning plant he manned his battery of machines
with boys from the neighboring farms, taught them to handle the equipment
and in a surprisingly short time transformed them into a body of efficient
workmen.”
Then, in the spring of 1921, Woods conceived the idea that would, if not bring
him fame, at least secure him the enviable reputation of a man of mechanical
genius.
Otto Hilbert, a companion of Woods, wrote in 1979 that Woods saw a shovel
which had been used to collect glass. On that shovel was a still-molten gob of
4
THE “E” MACHINE WAS A
DIRECT ANCESTOR OF THE
RIBBON MACHINE. WILLIAM J
WOODS APPEARS (IN BOW TIE)
IN RIGHT CENTER BACKGROUND.
glass which looked like a light bulb blank.
Another account has it that the shovel had a hole in it, a hole through which the
semi-molten glass had sagged in the shape of a bulb blank.
Whatever the truth, in the spring of 1921, Will Woods suddenly conceived the
revolutionary idea of automatically blowing light bulb blanks through a hole in a
metal plate.
It was a simple idea; simple, but elgant in its simplicity. Woods had gone to
the heart of the matter, and his idea was to change radically the way in which
bulb blanks were – and are – manufactured.
And like all ideas which promise radical change, it was greeted with skepticism
on the part of Woods’s fellow glassblowers, who preferred traditional methods of
making bulb blanks to the newfangled machines that already were taking their
places in the nation’s glass plants. (In Europe, nearly all bulbs still were being
blown by hand.)
5
From Brainstorm To
Bulb Blanks
Nevertheless, an undaunted Woods persevered with his conception and won
the minds of Corning’s engineering staff; the company authorized construction
of a prototype – if indeed one could be constructed – to test Woods’s theory.
That theory, basically, was this: If a gather of molten glass were flattened and
then placed on a plate with a hole of the proper size, the glass might sag through
the hole to form a globular bag. If air were then forced into this bag, it might be
expanded to form the basic shape of a bulb blank. To perfect this shape, a mold
could be closed around it and the air pressure continued.
Then carne the piece de resistance: If a series of such plates were hinged
together to form an “endless chain” or belt, and a flat stream of molten glass
were to be laid on the belt while in motion, perfect blanks might be made in
continuous succession.
Historian Hollister continues: “With this basic idea in mind, Woods started to
experiment with a single plate and a plunger or blowhead by which he could
introduce air into the bag formed by the molten glass sagging through the hole
or orifice in the plate, and after many attempts succeeded in forming bags which
had all the earmarks of the beginnings of good bulb blanks . . .
“The full solution of the problem then resolved itself into the designing of a
mechanism which would first form the desired blanks and, second, conduct
them with properly maintained temperatures and predetermined speed through
the elongating and blowing operations and, finally, to the finished bulb.”
Will Woods had conceived the fabulous Ribbon Machine. The problem of
building one remained.
The building known as Building 9 on Corning’s Pine Street already was
old when Will Woods moved in with his development crew of one person,
6
IN LATER YEARS, WOODS ENJOYED
AN OFFICE – AND A
STRAW BOATER – OF HIS OWN.
David E. Gray. But Gray was no ordinary developer, just as Woods was no
ordinary inventor.
Gray had been trained in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Experienced and competent, Gray was in 1922 Corning Glass
Works’ chief engineer and a man with a special interest in the development of
machines to manufacture glass products.
It was Gray who, intrigued with Woods’ idea for a bulb blank machine, had
studied the possibilities and concluded such a machine was practical. Astonished
at the results of his own study, Gray decided to produce the prototype and
found the funds to proceed.
Woods and Gray didn’t know they were working on the Ribbon Machine. On
the origina1 books for the project, the machine was called, in code, the “399
Machine.” Later, it became known, as if there were no other machine in the
world, as “The Corning Machine.”
7
The Ribbon Machine:
A Runaway Success
Indeed, there was no other machine in the world like the one Woods and Gray
were constructing in Building 9.
Woods’s conception proved remarkably adaptable to design and construction,
and the older machines had provided a wealth of experience that guided the
Ribbon Machine’s developers to a successful conclusion.
By 1925, it had become clear to Woods and Gray – and to others at Corning –
that the Ribbon Machine had become a reality. By 1926 the ungainly creature
began to produce bulb blanks, slowly at first, but with increasing rapidity. The
derisive hoots which had greeted Woods’s idea gave way to awe.
As it emerged from its creative metamorphosis in the cocoon of
Building 9, the first Ribbon Machine presented an awesome sight.
A glass melting tank sat above one end of the machine, feeding a stream of
molten glass from its forehearth down between two metal drums, which
flattened the glass into a thick, glowing ribbon. This yellow-orange ribbon was
laid onto a series of square plates, each with a small hole in its center, which
were linked together in the manner of a bicycle chain and driven by sprockets at
either end of the oval.
As soon as the glass ribbon was laid on the chain, the glass began to sink through
the holes, giving nascent form to the future bulb blanks. A chained series of
moving plungers above the chain descended on the hot ribbon, pushing
compressed air into the sagging glass. And a third chain, below and inside the
first, thrust up a series of split molds which snapped together around the
forming glass to give final shape to the bulb blanks before unsnapping just as
quickly to revea1 the familiar light bulb configuration.
For each bulb blank, the entire forming operation lasted but a few seconds,
resulting in what one observer termed “a veritable shower” of finished bulbs as
8
Bulbs For The Lamps
Of The World
THE CORNING RIBBON MACHINE:
DELIVERS FINISHED
BULBS AT DIZZYING RATES UP
TO 2000 PER MINITE.
the blanks were tapped off a fraction of a second apart.
The first production runs of the prototype Ribbon Machine were astonishing,
especially to those used to the slower “E” and “F” machines. Actual records
show runs of around 400,000 blanks in 24 hours, almost five times the output of
the earlier machines.
In the 1890s only 20 to 30 years before the advent of the Ribbon
Machine, the slogan of American merchants seeking to participate in the
Chinese market had been “Oil for the lamps of China.”
By 1926, when the first Ribbon Machines were installed in Corning’s Wellsboro
plant, that slogan was irrevocably dated. The new machine would provide bulbs
for the lamps of the world. And it was becoming more and more apparent that it
wouldn’t take very many Ribbon Machines to provide those bulbs, either.
The Ribbon Machine was a marvel of efficiency. The astonishing figures of the
early production runs were, by 1930, almost ancient history as the Ribbon
Machine reached, and then surpassed, 1 million bulb blanks in 24 hours. This
figure, in turn, receded as the Ribbon Machine was fine-tuned to its capacity of
some 2,000 bulb blanks per minute, or nearly 3 million blanks in 24 hours, for
smaller-sized bulbs.
With few mechanical changes, the Corning Ribbon Machine remains the
highest state of the technology today, more than 50 years after its conception
and construction in the old building, long since vanished, on Corning’s Pine
Street. Fewer than 15 Ribbon Machines now supply the entire world’s
consumption of glass blanks for incandescent light bulbs, with the exception of
some small blanks that are hand-made for specialty lamps.
9
Ribbon Machines Today
ROLLERS SQUEEZE HOT
GLASS FROM MELTING ‘IANK
INTO THE CHARACTERISTIC
“RIBBON” OF ‘IHE CORNING
RIBBON MACHINE.
HOT GLASS RIBBON SAGS
‘IHROUGH HOLES IN PLATES
BEFORE COMPRESSED AIR
JETS COMPLETE THE BLOWING
PROCESS.
Ribbon Machines are flourishing in England, Belgium, Hungary, the Soviet
Union, Japan and Iraq, providing inexpensive light bulb components for the
light which now illuminates homes from the grandest of manors to the meanest
of hovels.
Today, there are two different types of Ribbon Machine, the lowervolume
Model 100 and the faster Model 400. Both have chain pitches of three
inches and manufacture bulb envelopes in weights from eight to 45 grams, with
maximum and minimum outer diameters of 67 and 19 millimeters respectively
and maximum and minimum bulb lengths of 171.5 millimeters and 50
millimeters.
Both machines have the ability to produce irregular shapes, and, by using a
process known as the nonrotating-mold hot-iron process, both may manufacture
nonsymmetrical shapes.
The 25foot-long Model 100 Ribbon Machine, operating at a standard speed of
275-300 pieces per minute (ED 60/A-type bulb blanks) can produce 100 million
perfect bulb envelopes per year. Operating at a standard speed of 1000-1100
pieces per minute (ED 60/A blanks), the Model 400 can manufacture 400
million bulb envelopes per year.
These Ribbon Machines are little changed from the prototype model built by
Woods and Gray. On the original, the holed plates were split, but on the
modern versions, these plates are in one piece.
The single problem encountered by Woods and Gray – breakage of the blanks
as they were separated from the plates – was solved before 1930 with a tap-off
system that delivers a quick blow to the blank at the point where it joins the
orifice plate, allowing a clean break with minimum breakage.
10
MOLDS CLOSE AROUND SAGGING
GLASS TO GIVE FINAL
FORM TO BULB BLANKS.
Coda
Today’s Ribbon Machines manufacture not only light bulb blanks, but a wide
variety of other glass components, including such seemingly divergent items as
vacuum bottles and clock domes.
After 1930, it quickly was recognized that the Ribbon Machine would become
the standard manufacturing technology for light bulb blanks. Corning retired its
almost-new “F” Machines in favor of the quicker technology. General Electric
did the same with its once-formidable “Westlake” machines, licensing the
Ribbon Machine technology in its stead. By the decade’s end, the Ribbon
Machine had assumed its rightful place as the sole machine for production of
incandescent light bulb blanks.
Even though Corning kept its “E” Machines in use into the 1940s for the
production of items unrelated to lighting, an era that had begun with Edison had
ended in the ultimate triumph of Will Woods and his marvelous machine.
Will Woods wasn’t quite finished, however. Before his death on
Christmas Eve, 1937, he also perfected what became known as the Woods
Updraw Tubing Machine for the fully automatic production of thermometer
tubing. But that’s another story.
Corning Glass Works slowly is leaving the once-profitable business of
manufacturing glass light bulb blanks. The famed specialty glass firm continues
to license the Ribbon Machine technology worldwide, however, through its
subsidiary company, Corning Engineering. And Corning has not forgotten its
involvement with light – among its newer products are optical waveguides, hairthin
strands of glass that permit the long-distance transmittance of thousands of
simultaneous telephone calls using pulsed light.
11
The company was proud to learn that the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers had designated the Ribbon Machine as the tenth International
Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, a ranking which places it on a scale
with the first operational steam engine in considering mechanical devices that
have changed the face of history.
Will Woods, the unassuming and unsung hero of the Age of Universal Light,
would surely have been gratified.
SCHEMATIC RENDERING
SHOWS AN ENGINEERING IMPROVEMENT.
PLATES NOW
MOVE ON CHAIN AROUND RIBBON
MACHINE.
12
International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark
1983
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
H081
CORNING

THOMAS EDISON IS REMEMBERED

76 IEEE power & energy magazine january/february 2005

more as an inventive genius than as a
businessman. Some may know he was
granted more patents by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office than any
other person, 1,093 patents to be
exact. Fewer know that he also started
over 100 businesses and partnerships,
some of which survive to this day.
Edison is known around the world for
inventing a practical and commercially
successful incandescent electric
light bulb. However, Edison also
invented (or helped invent) entire
industries, including the electric,
music, motion picture, and battery
industries. We will look at how Edison
succeeded as an inventor primarily
because he was better than his competitors
at marshaling the forces and
institutions of business.
Myth Versus the Real
Thomas Edison
Myths about Edison abound, with one
of the most popular being that he was
a terrible businessman more likely to
hit a “lucky streak” than to intentionally
manage the innovation process.
Compounding this misconception, the
1940 film Edison, the Man, starring
Spencer Tracy, portrayed Edison as
uninterested in and confused by the
financial side of invention. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Edison
(see Figure 1) was keenly aware
of the economic considerations of his
inventions and could even be critical
of his contemporaries for ignoring
business realities.
Edison’s business story began
before he was a teenager and extended
almost until the day of his death. By
the age of 12, he had begun selling
newspapers and candy on the Grand
Trunk Railroad that connected Detroit
to his hometown of Port Huron,
Michigan. Apparently discontented
with selling other people’s newspapers,
he began printing his own publication,
The Weekly Herald, and selling
it on the train as well. At the same
time, he managed a vegetable stand
and transported some of the produce
to Detroit for resale where it brought a
higher price. Edison exhibited such
entrepreneurial ability throughout his
life, and it proved crucial to his many
achievements. We will sift through
Edison’s life and highlight a few of
the factors that contributed to his business
success. Put simply, Edison succeeded
more than other inventors of
his day primarily because he was a
better businessman.
Invention Is a
Commercial Process
Edison had little desire to become a
“business tycoon” and spend all his
time overseeing a sprawling industrial
empire. He preferred to remain in the
laboratory, and his true business was
the innovation of new products, at
which he was highly successful.
Although he was often involved in key
management decisions of the companies
established to capitalize on his
inventions, Edison saw his role primarily
as that of inventor. Furthermore,
the roots of his inventive practices can
be traced to the time he spent in the
emerging telegraph industry.
Edison began studying telegraphy
in the autumn of 1862, when he was
15 years old. Within a few years, he
had begun working for the Western
Union Company and inventing
improved telegraph equipment. In
1868, he settled in Boston and began
creating a name for himself within the
telegraph industry. Edison filed his
first telegraph patent in 1869 and by
1871 was referred to as “the best electro-
mechanician in the country” by
Western Union President William
Orton. Over the course of his life, Edison
would file only slightly fewer telegraph
patents (186 patents) than he
Blaine McCormick and Paul Israel
history
underrated entrepreneur
Thomas Edison’s overlooked business story
1540-7977/05/$20.00©2005 IEEE
figure 1. Thomas Edison in 1881 at
34 years of age. (Photo courtesy of
the Edison National Historic Site.)
january/february 2005 IEEE power & energy magazine
filed in the field of recorded sound
(199 patents). This is ironic given that
few people acknowledge Edison as a
major force in the early telegraph
industry. In part, this perception arises
from Edison’s role as a contract inventor
who relied on others to introduce
his inventions.
Edison’s life revolved almost solely
around the telegraph industry from his
introduction to telegraphy in 1862
until he conceived the idea for the
electric pen in June
1875. His work in the
telegraph industry contributed
greatly to his
entrepreneurial success
in other industries later
in his life. Furthermore,
Edison’s experience
in the telegraph
industry gave him a
deep well of business
experience from which
he could draw and
which other inventors
of his day lacked.
An important moment
in Edison’s life
accompanied the receipt
of his first patent
in 1869. The patent
was for an electric vote
recorder that allowed
members of legislative
bodies to tally votes
using electricity rather than through
the slow process of roll call. Edison
hoped to get some money for the
invention but was firmly rejected on
his first sales call to the Massachusetts
state legislature. He tried next to sell
the invention to the federal government
in Washington, DC, but was told,
“Young man, that is just what we do
not want.” The business-minded Edison
had overestimated the importance
of speed in the slow world of legislative
filibustering. On his way home,
Edison resolved never to invent anything
that did not have what he called
“commercial demand.”
For the most part, this proved to be
a highly successful strategy ensuring
that Edison’s goal was not just invention
but innovation. During the
research and development work on a
new technology, he paid close attention
to ways to lower operating and
manufacturing costs and methods of
adapting the technology to the needs
of users. And once he began commercial
introduction of a new technology,
Edison devoted a great deal of attention
to improving the manufacturing
processes to reduce the cost of the
new technology. Also, he continued
research and development so that he
could better adapt his products to the
needs of users. Figure 2 shows Edison’s
first lamp factory, where he
manufactured his incandescent lighting
system.
Attention to these market-driven
issues enabled Edison to successfully
innovate new technologies and establish
highly successful companies in
the phonograph, motion picture,
cement, and storage battery industries.
His only notable failure was an effort
to refine low-grade iron ore, on which
he spent millions of dollars of his own
money. Yet, Edison could absorb the
cost of this failure because he was
highly successful in other endeavors.
And in each instance, Edison relied on
highly competent managers to oversee
these businesses.
Superior Understanding
of the Patent and
Legal System
Edison filed his first patent application
in 1868 at the age of 21. Furthermore,
he filed well over 100 patents prior to
achieving international fame with the
invention of the phonograph in 1878.
These ten years of patent activity in
the telegraph industry
taught Edison how to
navigate the patent and
legal system in America.
By the time he
invented the phonograph
and the practical
incandescent electric
light bulb, Edison was
better prepared than his
competitors to capture
the gains associated
with his new inventions.
Figure 3 shows Edison’s
U.S. patents by
execution date. Readers
will note that although
he invented the practical
electric light bulb in
1879, there’s a spike in
patent activity in the
four years that follow.
Other spikes occur during
his telegraphy years
in the early 1870s and again in the late
1880s and early 1890s. Rather than
remaining flat, Edison’s patent activity
experienced peaks and valleys depending
on his efforts to improve the commercial
viability of an invention. One
of his basic strategies is captured in
this statement about some of his electrical
patents. Edison noted, “The
patents I am now taking are more valuable
than those already taken. Those
already taken were to secure if possible
the science of the thing. Those I am
now taking are commercial.”
Edison learned very early during
his work in the telegraph industry that
there’s more than one way to solve a
problem. Working as a contract inventor
for competing companies, Edison
77
figure 2. Edison established his first lamp factory near his laboratory
in Menlo Park, New Jersey, so that he could refine the manufacturing
process and improve the lamps as he moved to commercial
introduction of his lighting system. (Photo courtesy of the Edison
National Historic Site.)
found it necessary to take some care in
juggling both his own interests and the
interests of those paying for his inventive
work. Yet, working on multiple
projects also stimulated him. This
became a hallmark of his inventive
style, as ideas and devices from one
experiment or design influenced
another. In Edison’s words, if he
reached a dead end on one project, he
would “just put it aside and go at
something else; and the first thing I
know the very idea I wanted will come
to me. Then I drop the other and go
back to it and work it out.”
In fact, Edison frequently used
experiments in one direction to suggest
ideas for other lines of research
and often drew on elements of one
technology to improve another. Sometimes,
he did no more than note ideas
that emerged from such explorations
in his notebooks or patent caveats, but
at other times they became the basis
for a new research project. A related
characteristic was Edison’s tendency
to conceive seemingly endless variations
in the design for a particular
device. His early notebooks often contain
the statement “I do not wish to
confine myself to any particular
device.” These words represented not
only a legalistic phrase associated
with the patent system but also corresponded
to Edison’s pattern of sketching
numerous alternative solutions to a
particular problem.
Edison’s sophisticated understanding
of the patent system grew out of
his experience as a contract inventor in
the telegraph industry. As an inventor
for the Gold and Stock Telegraph
Company, Edison learned from its
president, Marshall Lefferts, that by
acquiring all of the key patents on
printing telegraph technology, the
company was able to control the field
of market reporting. Soon after Edison
told William Orton, president of Western
Union, that he could readily invent
around the patented system of duplex
telegraphy (for sending two messages
simultaneously over a single wire) that
the company had recently put on its
lines. Boasting that “the business of
making a duplex [w]as a very trifling
affair,” Edison showed Orton a variety
of alternative designs. Edison was
hired to invent duplexes “as an insurance
against other parties using them.”
Edison’s work on duplexes led to his
most important telegraph invention,
the quadruplex telegraph, which
enabled four messages to be sent
simultaneously over one wire.
Superior Exploitation
of Capital Markets
It was previously mentioned that Edison
had much greater resources for
research and development than any
other inventor of his time. He had
established his name as a telegraph
inventor, and this earned him access to
financial support from Western Union
financiers such as J.P. Morgan and
William Vanderbilt and company officials
such as Norvin Green. Green was
also the first president of the Edison
Electric Light Company, which was
established to support Edison’s work.
Among those who established the
company were directors of Western
Union and partners in Morgan’s firm.
These men were willing to back Edison’s
venture in electric lighting
because of his previous work for Western
Union and due to his enhanced
reputation as an inventive “wizard”
following his invention of the phonograph.
Edison’s reputation was a product
of both his creative technical feats
and his facility for self-promotion.
One good example of Edison’s talent
for exploiting capital markets
occurred during the invention of the
practical electric light. Contrary to
popular perception, Edison was not
the first person to have a working
electric light bulb. In fact, historians
have documented the fact that more
than 20 people preceded Edison with a
working electric light bulb, some
being his contemporaries. Edison
began experimenting with electric
light in August 1878, long after competitors
like Joseph Swan, Moses
Farmer, and William Sawyer (to name
a few) began their work.
So what enabled Edison to start
later, yet leapfrog his competitors to
become known as the inventor of the
electric light bulb? One explanation is
that Edison was better positioned to
exploit the capital markets at the time.
First, Edison had a solid understanding
of the entire system of electricity that
was necessary to support an electric
light bulb. His work in the telegraph
industry greatly contributed to his
understanding of various electrical
apparatus and electrical systems. Second,
Edison was fresh from the invention
of the phonograph the previous
year, a time at which the New York
Daily Graphic dubbed him the “Wizard
of Menlo Park,” as shown in Figure 4.
He had toured the country, met President
Rutherford B. Hayes, and received
overwhelming amounts of press for his
admittedly unprecedented invention.
78 IEEE power & energy magazine january/february 2005
figure 3. Edison’s U.S. patents by execution date.
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1868 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930
january/february 2005 IEEE power & energy magazine
Finally, Edison possessed better
facilities than anybody else and was
supported by a team of workers
ready to tackle the invention of the
practical electric light bulb and the
development of a comprehensive
electric power system. No other
inventor had anything approaching
the scope of Edison’s well-equipped
Menlo Park lab, shown in Figure 5,
and no other business leader in the
country had a more experienced team
of inventors. These three things,
knowledge, reputation, and facilities,
allowed Edison to corner the existing
capital market for research and
development funds for the electric
light bulb. Records indicate that Edison
received about US$130,000 of
venture capital in the two and a half
years of active research and development
between September 1878 and
March 1881. None of his competitors
received anything remotely close to
this amount. Using these funds, Edison
purchased new equipment for his
laboratory, built a new and larger
experimental machine shop, and
added a combined office and library
building that he stocked with books
and journals that had previously been
beyond his means to purchase. Given
that many of his competitors were
self-financed, relatively unknown in
comparison, and poorly equipped,
it’s no wonder that Edison outmaneuvered
them.
Conclusion
A recent poll of business historians
published in Business History Review
ranked Edison fifth in a list of the ten
greatest entrepreneurs and business
people in American history. In this
poll, Edison’s name appeared with
giants of enterprise such as Henry
Ford, Bill Gates, Sam Walton, and
Alfred Sloan. A broad range of historians
clearly consider Edison’s business
story to have merit, as he not
only placed in the top five but trailed
only Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller
in the number of first place
votes received.
Scholars and historians have most
likely condemned Edison to business
ignominy for the act of creating vast
amounts of wealth and letting much
of it slip through his fingers. Although
there is some truth to this observation,
it would be shortsighted to continue
this trend as it focuses entirely on
what Edison failed to do (i.e., capture
wealth) and almost completely
ignores his many business successes.
Continuing to view Edison as the
great American inventor who paid no
attention to business conforms more
to the conventions of Hollywood than
the historical record. As columnist
Allen Barra warned (with a nod to
George Santayana), “Those who do
not study history are forced to get it
from Hollywood.”
For Further Reading
P. Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention.
New York:Wiley, 1998.
A. Millard, Edison and the Business
of Innovation. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins, 1990.
B. McCormick, At Work with
Thomas Edison. Irvine, CA: Entrepreneur,
2001
The Papers of Thomas A. Edison
(vol. 1-5). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
[Online]. Available: http://edison.
rutgers.edu
79
figure 4. Following the introduction
of the phonograph, Edison was
dubbed the “Wizard of Menlo Park”
in July 1878 by New York Daily
Graphic reporter William Croffut.
figure 5. With funds from the Edison Electric Light Company, Edison expanded
the original Menlo Park laboratory (center) by adding a larger machine shop
(rear) and a library-office. This painting also depicts the experimental electric
railroad (right) that he was working on as part of his plan to sell power as well
as light. (Photo courtesy of the Edison National Historic Site.) p&e

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