East Boston

The East Boston facility was opened by the Edison Lamp Works of General Electric in 1913, to provide additional manufacturing capacity for the company's recently invented drawn tungsten filament lamps. Construction of the building extended over the period 1913-1918. In later years it became more specialised in the production of miniature decorative Christmas lights. In the early 1960s the plant began to enter financial difficulties, because its products were copied by the Japanese, who at the time were beginning to flood the Americas with cheap imported goods. Boston was one of the most affluent cities of the USA and the high labour rates made continued production impossible - GE's Southern factories were simply more cost-effective, and in 1963 production was relocated with the loss of 450 skilled lampmaking jobs in Boston.