"A Light Bulb in Every House": The Istanbul General Electric Factory and American Technology Transfer to Turkey (July 2022)
Tunc, Tanfer Emin (Author)
Gokhan Tunc (Author)
Technology and Culture
Volume: 63
Issue: 3
Pages: 749-774
In 1946, Turkish entrepreneur Vehbi Koç signed an agreement with the U.S. firm General Electric to build and operate its first light bulb factory in the Near/Middle East, in Istanbul. This private joint venture introduced new manufacturing techniques, business practices, and consumer habits to Turkey, opening channels of postwar technological exchange. Closer examination of the GE-Koç partnership reveals that during the early Cold War, the transfer and embedding of American technologies in Turkey was a politically complicated process of innovation that required constant adaptation. Fraught with unforeseeable obstacles, it also required cautious negotiation with multiple transnational actors. The story of the GE-Koç partnership thus adds a new dimension to historical understandings of the Turkish Cold War experience and the Americanization of the region. It illustrates how transferring a nonmilitary, soft-power, domestic technology—the light bulb—played a significant role in Turkish-American relations and therefore contributes to studies of U.S. Cold War diplomacy through transnational investment in innovation.
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