Mazda (light bulb)
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Ad for the Mazda service mark, 1917.
Mazda was a trademarked name registered by General Electric in 1909 for incandescent light bulbs. The name was used from 1909 through 1945 in the United States by General Electric and Westinghouse. Mazda brand light bulbs were made for decades after 1945 outside the USA. The company chose the name due to its association with Ahura Mazda, the transcendental and universal God of Zoroastrianism whose name means "[Wise] Lord " in the Avestan language.
In 1909 the Mazda name was created for the tungsten filament light bulb. General Electric sold bulbs under this trademark starting in 1909. General Electric promoted the mark as identifying tungsten filament bulbs with predictable performance and life expectancy. General Electric also licensed the Mazda name, socket sizes, and tungsten filament technology to other manufacturers to establish a standard for lighting. Bulbs were soon sold by many manufacturers with the Mazda name attached, including their chief competitor Westinghouse. The company advertised their bulbs with paintings by Maxfield Parrish.
Tungsten-filament bulbs of the Mazda type were initially more costly than carbon filamaent bulbs, but used less electricity. Often electrical utilities would trade new lamps for consumers' burnt-out bulbs. In at least one case the authority regulating energy rates required the utility to use only tungsten bulbs so as not to inflate customer's energy use. [1]
The company dropped the campaign in 1945. General Electric's patents on the tungsten filament lamp expired in the late 1930's and other forms of lighting were becoming more important than incandescent bulbs. General Electric stopped licensing the trademark to other manfacturers, although it continued to renew the trademark registration up to 1990. The registration on trademark no. 77,779 expired in 2000. [1] Today, the Mazda name is mostly associated with the Mazda automobile manufacturer of Japan. The Mazda trademark is now split between the Japanese manufacturer where it applies to automobiles (including automobile lights and batteries) and General Electric for non-automotive uses.
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[edit] Popular culture
The Mazda light bulb is improbably mentioned in the Johnny Mercer song "Glow Worm": "You got a cute vest-pocket Mazda/Which you can make both slow and fazda.[2] It is also mentioned in Here is New York, by E.B. White; in his 1949 essay about New York City, White says the following when describing the ease with which a citizen can carry out a number of errands en route home from work: "...he buys a bunch of pussy willows, a Mazda bulb, a drink, a shine – all between the corner where he steps off the bus and his apartment."In her essay A Photographer In Moscow ( March 1942) Margaret Bourke-White writes " ...It could be held up to the Mazda lamp on the radiator, to expose the prints, but I must conjure up a red-safe-light to develop them."
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[edit] References
- ^ a b Carl Sulzberger A Bright and Profitable Idea in "IEEE Power&Energy Magazine, May/June 2006, pages 70-78
- ^ Web Archive of "The Glow-Worm" lyrics. Retrieved 12 August 2010
- "The Mazda Lamp Story". http://www.oldchristmastreelights.com/bills_site/The+Mazda+Lamp+Story.htm. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
[edit] External links
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