Article ID: CBB847774032

"A Light Bulb in Every House": The Istanbul General Electric Factory and American Technology Transfer to Turkey (July 2022)

unapi

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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Authors & Contributors
O'Reagan, Douglas Michael
Lorenzo Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla
Ali Erken
Tinn, Honghong
Nicholas Anthony Autiello
Melanie Brand
Concepts
Cold War
International relations
Technology transfer
Cross-national interaction
Science and politics
Geopolitics
Time Periods
20th century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Germany
France
Great Britain
China
Institutions
World Bank
Ford Foundation
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Rockefeller Foundation
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