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The day the lights went out

Do a Google Images search of "innovation" and you'll probably find something like this. The last American plant that makes these things will soon be shutting down.
Kipp Baker
/
via Flickr
Do a Google Images search of "innovation" and you'll probably find something like this. The last American plant that makes these things will soon be shutting down.

The Washington Post has a comprehensive story on the last General Electric factory in America that makes incandescent light bulbs. Later this month it's shutting its doors for good.

The headline: "How innovation killed the lights."

It's true. When it comes to jobs, innovation can both giveth and taketh away.

Now, it seems, the contributions of the GE Lighting Lamp Plant in Winchester, Va. will become footnotes in the Schenectady Museum's Hall of Electrical History.

They'll have plenty of company with other once-mighty innovations. There's a new exhibit at the museum on Thomas Edison -- the man who birthed the incandescent bulb. It's called Thomas Edison: A Life Time of Innovation.

WXXI/Finger Lakes reporter for the Innovation Trail.