NOMA (company)
Encyclopedia
NOMA was an American company best known for making Christmas lights. It was once the largest manufacturer of holiday lighting in the world, but since 1967 has existed only as a licensed trademark. It is currently held by Inliten, LLC, of Glenview
, Illinois
.
NOMA was formed in 1925 as the National Outfit Manufacturer's Association, a trade group made up of 13–15 smaller manufacturers hoping to gain competitive advantage by combining their marketing and purchasing power. In 1926, the association’s members officially incorporated as the NOMA Electric Corporation and began selling NOMA-branded light sets.
NOMA introduced a number innovations to holiday lighting, including:
A little-known fact is that the NOMA Electic Company, when it was located in NY, NY, may have produced the first commercial printed circuit board in 1946 with its Party Quiz Game. It was an electrical board game with replaceable question cards and two electrodes which, when placed in the proper positions to answer a question correctly, cause a bulb to light. Initially hard-wired, the game was made thinner by hot pressing aluminum foil onto cardboard, with the electrical contacts made into the board.
In 1953, NOMA incorporated its Christmas light manufacturing operations into NOMA Lites, Inc. and enjoyed considerable success. But by the early 1960s, the company faced increasing competition from cheaper, imported light sets, and it filed for bankruptcy in 1965.
There is a company in the UK called NOMA Lites, founded by Fred Capel and now in the hands of his son, Clive Capel.
There was a NOMA CORPORATION in Canada.
According to: http://www.ecintl.com/110/about-us/eci-and-noma-corporation.php ... in February 2007, Electrical Components International (ECI) purchased GenTek’s wire and cable assembly business known as NOMA Corporation. While you may find the NOMA brand-name prevalent on many consumer items, ECI only owns the copyright license for the brand-name rights to “NOMA” and does not have responsibility or involvement in the design, sourcing or manufacture of these products.
Glenview, Cook County, Illinois
Glenview is a suburban village located approximately north of downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 41,847...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
.
NOMA was formed in 1925 as the National Outfit Manufacturer's Association, a trade group made up of 13–15 smaller manufacturers hoping to gain competitive advantage by combining their marketing and purchasing power. In 1926, the association’s members officially incorporated as the NOMA Electric Corporation and began selling NOMA-branded light sets.
NOMA introduced a number innovations to holiday lighting, including:
- the use of E17 intermediate base lamps for outdoor decorating (1928),
- parallelSeries and parallel circuitsComponents of an electrical circuit or electronic circuit can be connected in many different ways. The two simplest of these are called series and parallel and occur very frequently. Components connected in series are connected along a single path, so the same current flows through all of the...
-wired light sets for indoor use (1934), - all-rubber cords (1940),
- Bubble LitesBubble lightA bubble light is a decorative device consisting of a liquid-filled vial that is heated and lighted by an incandescent light bulb. Because of the liquid's low boiling point, the modest heat generated by the lamp causes the liquid to boil and bubble up from the vial's base. The liquid is almost...
(1946), and - fused safety plugs (1951).
A little-known fact is that the NOMA Electic Company, when it was located in NY, NY, may have produced the first commercial printed circuit board in 1946 with its Party Quiz Game. It was an electrical board game with replaceable question cards and two electrodes which, when placed in the proper positions to answer a question correctly, cause a bulb to light. Initially hard-wired, the game was made thinner by hot pressing aluminum foil onto cardboard, with the electrical contacts made into the board.
In 1953, NOMA incorporated its Christmas light manufacturing operations into NOMA Lites, Inc. and enjoyed considerable success. But by the early 1960s, the company faced increasing competition from cheaper, imported light sets, and it filed for bankruptcy in 1965.
There is a company in the UK called NOMA Lites, founded by Fred Capel and now in the hands of his son, Clive Capel.
There was a NOMA CORPORATION in Canada.
According to: http://www.ecintl.com/110/about-us/eci-and-noma-corporation.php ... in February 2007, Electrical Components International (ECI) purchased GenTek’s wire and cable assembly business known as NOMA Corporation. While you may find the NOMA brand-name prevalent on many consumer items, ECI only owns the copyright license for the brand-name rights to “NOMA” and does not have responsibility or involvement in the design, sourcing or manufacture of these products.