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Thanksgiving Is Sylvania’s Lucky Date

From this small factory at Emporium, Pa. the first Sylvania radio tubes were shipped on Thanksgiving Eve, 1924. It was built in 1906, by Sylvania’s parent company, the Novelty Incandescent Lamp Co., and it was here that President B. G. Erskine started his long career of service.

By an odd coincidence, Thanksgiving has turned up three times as an important date in Sylvania tube history. Sylvanians had extra reason for celebration this year, with the fifteenth birthday of Sylvania tubes, the completion of thirty-three years of service for President B. G. Erskine, and the occupation of an imposing new addition to the Emporium plant all falling within a week of Thanksgiving Day.

The people who make Sylvania tubes are proud of the growth and continued stability of their company, of the long and loyal service of their president, and of the friendly relations between the company and the distributors and retailers of their products. The best proof of continued Sylvania quality, throughout fifteen years of constantly increasing production, is the fact that the distributors who received the first shipment of Sylvania tubes in 1924 are still selling Sylvania tubes.

On Thanksgiving Eve, November 27, 1906, B. G. Erskine came to Emporium, Pa. to supervise installation of electrical equipment in the new plant of the Novelty Incandescent Lamp Company. That was the beginning of thirty-three years of continuous service and management, through various changes of company name and ownership, for the young electrician who is now president of Hygrade Sylvania Corporation.

The “Novelty” passed to control of General Motors in 1910, and to General Electric in 1920, with B. G. Erskine in continuous charge of operations during this period. In 1922 Mr. Erskine and a group of associates bought the plants at Emporium and St. Marys, Pa. and organized Nilco Lamp Works, Inc.

In 1923 lamp production was transferred to the St. Marys plant, and in 1924 Sylvania Products Co. was organized under the same management as Nilco. Tube manufacturing equipment was installed and tube production started in the Emporium plant—the modest building in the small picture above. On Thanksgiving Eve, November 24, 1924, the first Sylvania tubes, all type 201A, were shipped from Emporium.

By 1929 continuous growth of Sylvania tube sales required the building of a large new plant which increased production capacity to 40,000 tubes per day, and gave employment to more than 1000 people.

In July 1931 Sylvania Products Company, Nilco Lamp Works, and the Hygrade Lamp Company of Salem, Mass. consolidated to form Hygrade Sylvania Corporation. B. G. Erskine was elected president and E. J. Poor chairman of the board of the new organization.

In 1933 a parts building was added to the Emporium plant. This department is equipped for a monthly production of some twenty-five million small mica and metal parts used in making Sylvanian tubes. In 1936 a large new tube plant was built in Salem, almost doubling daily tube production capacity.

Thanksgiving 1939 saw the completion of two imposing new wings which add 50,000 square feet of floor space to the Emporium plant, and an addition to the parts building is now being rushed to completion. Floor space owned and occupied by Hygrade Sylvania Corporation in Emporium and St. Marys, Pa. and Salem, Mass. totals almost eleven acres. The plants have a daily manufacturing capacity of 130,000 lamps and 150,000 radio tubes.

This is the imposing modern plant where Sylvania tubes are manufactured in Emporium, Pa., as it appeared on Thanksgiving Day, 1939. The structure at the right was built in 1929; the parts building in the rear in 1933, and the two wings at the left were completed in November 1939. The original plant is hidden in the rear. An equally modern Sylvania tube plant was built in Salem, Mass. in 1936.

Originally published in “Sylvania News” Volume 8 Number 6 November-December 1939

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