1936-1937: In July, 1936 machinery to produce fluorescent lamps is beginning development with Philip J. Pritchard in charge. Meanwhile other departments of GE aided in construction of ballasts, starters (incorporated in the same case as the ballast at first), and lamp sockets for F lamps. The Transformer Engineering Department in Fort Wayne, Indiana develops ballasts.
On November 23, 1936, a dinner held in Washington DC celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Patent Office was doubly historic. The guests attending the dinner were seeing for the first time a practical public application of fluorescent lighting. The new lamps, furnished by GE, provided much of the lighting in the large banquet hall.
More than a year passed, it was late 1937, and P.J. Pritchard and his colleagues were making progress, but no factory could take on fluorescent lamp production yet. Very soon this would change!