Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

136 ELECTRICITY, RAILROADS, AND RADIO (1911-16)
succeeding chapters. explained how to use these in household operations and
in planning and buying for the house.
Although no firm names, no trademarks or brand names appeared
in the circular, in many instances the Bureau left little doubt of the product
involved. A notable example appeared in the section on causes of high
bills for electricity wherein the Bureau questioned the quality of some of
the electrical lamps then on the market. There was reason to raise
question.
It had come as no surprise to the Bureau when in 1911 General Elec-
tric and 33 other companies manufacturing and marketing lamps under GE
patents were accused in a Federal antitrust suit of price fixing. The Federal
courts ordered General Electric's National Electric Lamp Association
(NELA) dissolved, but were less successful in restraining General Electric
from "bringing pressure to bear in order to market types of lamps lacking
any legitimate demand." This referred particularly to the GE-metalized
(GEM) lamp which Genera1 Electric, supplying both the lamp and, in-
directly, its electric power, continued to manufacture profitably by the
millions.71 The Bureau circular on lamp specifications had drawn attention
to the inferiority of this old-fashioned carbon-filament lamp over tungsten,
especially after Coolidge's development of ductile tungsten in 1911 and
Langmuir's use of a gas-filled bulb in 1913 resulted in lamps with 14 times
the efficiency and 13 times the light per watt of the early carbon lamps.
Though the name "GEM" did not appear in "Measurements for the
household," what this particular lamp meant to the consumer was clearly
spelled out: "The tungsten lamp has been improved in quality and reduced
in price to such an extent that no customer can afford to use carbon lamps,
even if he were paid a bonus on each lamp for so doing. Many householders
cling to the use of carbon lamps because they are usually supplied free." 72
It was true. Anyone could get GEM lamps for nothing, and for a good
reason: the GEM lamp used almost three times as much electric current as
the tungsten Mazda lamp for equal light values.
As Rosa explained, when tungsten lamps were first introduced, the
electric power companies, fearing loss of revenue, began the practice of giving
away or exchanging burned out GEM carbon lamps and even tungsten lamps
of 100 watts or more in order to maintain high power consumption. The
public gladly accepted them. Neither Federal frowns nor Bureau exposure
of these lamps won the public away from them or reduced their high rate
of manufacture. As late as 1917, Secretary of Commerce Redfield told Dr.
71 John W. Hammond, Men and Volts: The Story of General Electric (New York:
Lippincott, 1941), pp. 335—336, 342, 388—389.
72 NBS C55, p. 84. The warning was repeated in NBS C56, "Standards for electric
service" (1916), p. 157.