Moe Light Copper Brass Glass Pendant Light Circa 1955 Thomas Industries Inc

Description

Rare Antique Moe Light circa 1955 Thomas Industries Inc. Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Classic sturdy design. Perfect soft down lighting. All original, … more Rare Antique Moe Light circa 1955 Thomas Industries Inc. Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Classic sturdy design. Perfect soft down lighting. All original, great condition, quality classic workmanship, copper light shade, brass top plate, brass bottom piece, original white glass light reflector, original brass chain, hard wired, and works great. It is rare to find a Moe’s Light in this condition with the original glass light reflector. Takes three light bulbs. It works great and look so good. I had an electrician install when I used it in the past. See photos of it lit up.
Measurements of the main body of the light fixture are 14”W x 14”D x 12”H. The entire fixture from the bottom to the top of the brass chain fully extended is 42” H. The chain is 30” long. The brass ceiling plate is 4 5/8” W.
660 W / 250 V
In 1953, Moe Light Inc. and the Electric Sprayit Company merged, under the name of Thomas Industries Inc.
*In 1955, Thomas opened a new 114,000-square foot residential lighting fixture plant in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and moved its corporate headquarters from Wisconsin to Louisville, Kentucky.
Thomas Industries was formed in a 1953 merger of two companies--a lighting fixture manufacturer and the maker of electrical spraying machines--both of which came into being in the late 1920s. The unlikely marriage of these two product lines was the cornerstone of what would become the company's two core businesses: lighting fixtures and air compressors/pumps.
The lighting fixture side of Thomas Industries traces its history back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and two brothers: Henrik and Ole Moe. The Moe Brothers, together with a number of other entrepreneurs, owned the Moe-Bridges Co., a lighting fixture manufacturer formed in 1919. As a result of friction among the Moe-Bridges management, however, the Moe brothers were frozen out of the company in the late 1920s by the majority owners. Deciding to stay with the industry they knew, the Moes formed another lighting fixture company called Moe Brothers Manufacturing. Henrik's two sons joined the business in the early 1930s, and in 1938, the company moved its operations from Milwaukee to Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
While the Moe brothers were building their lighting fixture business, the Electric Sprayit Company--the forerunner to Thomas Industries' compressor and pump division--was also testing its wings. In 1928, the Electric Sprayit Company was formed in Chicago "to manufacture, buy, and sell electrical spraying machines, blowers, air compressors, mechanical, and mercantile devices." In a curious twist of fate, in 1934 the Electric Sprayit Company acquired Moe-Bridges, the company that had forced out the Moe brothers, and moved from Chicago into the Moe-Bridges plant in Milwaukee. In 1939, Electric Sprayit moved its operations again, this time to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
During World War II, both companies stopped making their standard productlines in order to produce materials for the war effort. At the close of the war, in 1946, Moe Brothers received a large contract from Sears to produce household pressure cookers. Although the company had not previously manufactured pressure cookers, the large stamping presses they had obtained for the war gave them the production capabilities for the job. The brothers planned to use sales revenues from the pressure cooker contract to return to the lighting fixture business. Unfortunately, Sears rescinded the company's contract due to a product malfunction. In the aftermath of the contract loss, pressured by the bank to repay existing debt, the Moe brothers decided to sell the company.
Moe Brothers was purchased in 1948 by a Louisville investment group headed by Lee Thomas. Thomas, the former president of Ekco Products in Chicago, had recently purchased a small saw business in Louisville and was looking for further investment opportunities. His new purchase was renamed Moe Light, and a national advertising campaign was launched to promote residential lighting fixtures. Two years later, Moe Light expanded by opening a new residential lighting factory in Kentucky and acquiring the Los Angeles-based Star Lighting Fixture Company. less