Asking because I need to know is Osram Sylvania era Sylvania lamps were made in the USA.

Pennsylvania (Emporium, Wellsboro, Williamsport, Brookville), Massachusetts (Danvers, Salem), Maine (Waldoboro), Virginia (Spotsylvania County), and Rhode Island (Central Falls)

@RyanF40T12 Thank you.

Can't forget Versailles, KY, St Marys, PA, Maybrook, NY, and Manchester, NH....

Virginia (Spotsylvania County)

LOL that's really apt

I could go on but the list would be very long, there were well over 70 Sylvania and OsramSylvania factories in USA!  The main ones from most recent times have been named though.

Sylvania was unusual in that its management firmly believed in decentralisation of its operations, and avoidance of big cities wherever possible.  It quickly learned that employees were happier and delivered better work when they lived in the countryside, and were part of small communities where everyone knew everyone and showed better mutual respect.  Whenever a factory grew to a particular size, it was capped and they would open another factory elsewhere so as to maintain that small-world community spirit.

Big business owners frequently criticised this approach, claiming that bigger factories were more efficient - and indeed that may be true in terms of pure machine efficiency.  However, salaries are lower outside the big cities, and employees tended to stay longer on the job, allowing them to build up more experience and make better quality products.  Whereas the average seniority at many factories is only a few years before the workers leave and find something else nearby with better pay or conditions, Sylvania always enjoyed employee seniorities measured in the decades by treating its workers unusually well and ensuring that they had good lives in their local communities outside work, where substantial investments were made.  It had one of the biggest half-century clubs in the country, was one of the first companies in USA to introduce an employee health care program, and as such even today I know many colleagues who have clocked up 40 and even 50-year careers with Sylvania.  The company always found that despite the slightly lower efficacy of running multiple smaller plants, its total costs and quality were in fact better.  So much so that many management articles were written about this unusual approach, for instance the series "Big Business in Small Towns" that ran in Forbes, Time and Readers Digest - and whose popularity made even more people want to come and work for Sylvania.

Another cause was Sylvania's monstrously huge and fast expansion during WW2, which suddenly gave it a very large number of factories.  It's not well known that Sylvania was allocated the second most important project of WW2 after the atomic bomb, to develop and mass-produce a radio-controlled electronic bomb whose glass vacuum tubes were strong enough to survive being shot through the barrel of a gun.  These were manufactured in almost unimaginably vast quantities, over a million being turned out every 2.5 days.  More than 27,000 extra employees had to be taken on, and dozens of new plants were built, always in small communities, to produce the demands of the US and British armies for this top secret new weapon.  Just these 5 types of tubes made in the Sylvania factories accounted for more than 60% of the entire USA's industrial output of electronic radio tubes.  After the war, demand of course suddenly plummeted, and Sylvania was left with a lot of factories that would have had to be closed down - which greatly pained the company's founders since they had gone to such lengths to care for their workers.  So there followed an enormous expansion into the new areas of photoflash lamps, television, radar, photography, electronics, precision materials and atomic energy, as well as a massive push to build an export business that could keep people in work.  Of course not all of the plants survived, but most did, and most people could keep their jobs.

As such the list of Sylvania USA plants I am aware of are Altoona 1 & 2 PA, Bangor ME, Batavia NY, Bedford MA, Beverly MA, Bloomington, Brooklyn NY, Brookville PA, Buffalo NY, Burlington IO, Camillus NY, Central Falls RI, Cherry Hill MA, Cleveland OH, Clifton NJ, Danvers Hobart Street, Danvers Sylvan Street, Danvers Endicott Street, Dover, Dyerburg TN, Emporium PA, Exeter NH, Flushing NY, Fullerton CA, Gloucester MA, Hampton VA, Hicksville NY, Hillosboro NH, Huntington 1 & 2 WV, Ipsich MA, Jamestown, Johnstown, Kew Gardens NY, Kingston, Jackson MI, Lexington 1 & 2, Long Island NY, Lowell PA, Marietta, Manchester NH, Middleton MA, Mill Hall 1 PA, Montoursville PA, Mountain View CA, Muncy PA, Nelsonville, Ottawa OH, Point Pleasant, Reidsville NC, Riverside CA, Salem MA Boston Street, Salem MA Loring Avenue, Seneca Falls NY, Shawnee OK, Smithfield NC, Stamford CT, Standish ME, St.Marys PA, Towanda PA, Titusville, Versailles KY, Wakefield, Waldoboro ME, Waltham MA, Warren 1 & 2 PA, Watertown CT, Wellsboro PA, West Seneca NY, Wheeling WV, Williamsport PA, Williamsville NC, Winchester KY, Woburn MA, York PA.  It was a similar story in other countries around the world, once international exports really took off during the 1950s and 60s and required the construction of overseas factories - again according to the company policy, always in small towns.

@James — Thank you! Interesting to see their company philosophy compared to a company like GE who built their factories in somewhat larger towns, and thus built them to a larger scale. In my opinion, from the 1970s onward, I would say GTE had the better finished product. Lamps made in Ravenna, OH, were DECENT, but had nothing on Sylvania's Manchester, NH-made lamps. And I assume different parts of each lamp were made in different places? And did Sylvania make their bases in house, or source from someone like GE?

In fairness GE also made some excellent lamps in their big plants.  No one manufacturer could claim to make the best lamps of every type, but each had their own specialities.

Manchester was indeed rather good, a fact which was reminded to every employee and visitor when entering the manufacturing area.  In huge letters was printed for years “Through these doors walk the best lampmakers in the world”

Most components for Sylvania lamps were made internally, including the bases.  But they were quite late, in the earlier years those were sourced from the competitors, basically any supplier except GE.  There was never a good relationship between Sylvania and GE because the latter never forgave them for copying its fluorescent lamps, and doing a better job which ultimately gave Sylvania a far greater market share.  GE retaliated by blocking all supplies of raw materials and even insisted the return of lampmaking machinery it had earlier built for Sylvania.  Normally that should have killed Sylvania outright, but the US Government stepped in because it was WW2 at the time.  Fluorescent lamps were an essential war product, and GE + Westinghouse had far too little capacity.  So GE was ordered that it had to continue supplying its raw materials to Sylvania.  Of course when the war ended that stopped immediately - but it gave Sylvania enough time to build its own tungsten, wire and phosphor plants so as to survive independently.  Also its own plants to build lampmaking machines, whose fundamental concept was quite different than GE and turned out to be faster and cheaper to run.  This all created an even stronger competitor against GE, and cause it to change strategy again - better to sell its machines and components to as many competitors as possible, to stop them looking elsewhere and potentially coming up with something better than GE had.  Of course Sylvania also then did the same, and built or licensed its own machine designs to countless other competitors around the world - many of which were then taken over later.

@James - Another incredible piece of information! And it's funny how all in all, the mega-conglomerate failed before the "scrappy upstart". And even though GTE owned Sylvania from ~1949 to 1993, I feel they maintained a better quality standard until the very end, contrary to GE who had varying production runs / focused on other aspects of their company. And it's funny to me that both of the "suffocators" suffocated in an environment of their own creation, albeit 40 years apart.

@James, thank you for that info! It's nice to see why Sylvania decided to go with so many factories. I would have never thought GE and Sylvania were direct competitors with each other.

@NeXe Lights — from what I recall, and from what James said above, GE attempted to suffocate Sylvania in every way possible. GE was content with a duopoly (them and Westinghouse at that time) but certainly NOT okay with a small company developing a better version of the fluorescent lamp they invented!

If you notice, the practice of sticking fingers into other people's pies stuck around until the very end of GE's tenure. Notably: GE-Thorn, GE-Tungsram. And when the empire collapsed, all of the houses in it collapsed.