“G-E Equipment Helped Turn Tide in Normandy,” declared an August 1944 headline from General Electric News, the River Works edition. GE made the turbosupercharger, the ignition system and many other flying instruments on the Thunderbolt P-47 fighter planes that had repulsed the enemy above western France. The news was dramatic but hardly surprising.
For more than a century GE workers have made the machines that power, move, build and cure the world. It’s how GE works. It’s part of GE’s industrial DNA.
GE’s innovative spirit has delivered a medley of pioneering products like the electric locomotive, the first U.S. jet engine, the television, the magnetic resonance scanner, the world’s first toaster oven, the electric carving knife and, of course, the light bulb. They were developed and manufactured at the various factories of the General Electric Works: River Works, Schenectady Works, Erie Works, Lynn Works, Fort Wayne Works and elsewhere. In the first part of the 20th century “Works” described an industrial park, a plant making a number of products.
The Works also published their own newspapers. Like the Normandy story in River Works News, the papers chronicled success, achievements, and the daily life at the plants.
One ubiquitous topic was innovation. For example, in January 1944 the front page of Erie Works News reported that repairman J.A. Finn found a better way to fix his cutting and grinding machines and received $315 for the effort. In November 1943, Pittsfield Works paid out $1,517 in innovation rewards, that’s nearly $20,000 in today’s dollars.
The proof of these deeds is in the archives. The Schenectady Museum preserved hundreds of old images and GE Works newspapers chronicling GE’s rich history. For good measure, there is even a picture of the Schenectady Works General Electric 28-piece brass and reed band. Take a look at how GE works.
