December 20, 2024
One can hardly imagine anything prettier.
W.A. Croffut, a reporter, after seeing the first illuminated Christmas tree in December 1882.
Over 150 million light sets are sold in America each year, illuminating more than 80 million homes. The history of holiday lights is a bright story beginning outside the laboratory of Thomas Edison.
1879: Thomas Edison perfected the first incandescent lightbulb. In the winter of 1880, strands of bulbs lit up his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Railroad passengers traveling by were the first witnesses of an electrical light display.
1882: Inspired by Edison’s display, his partner, Edward H. Johnson, created the first string of electric holiday lights. A strand of 80 hand-wired red, white and blue lights decorated Johnson’s Christmas tree.
1894: President Grover Cleveland requested that the White House Christmas tree be illuminated with hundreds of colored electric lights. While electricity was still met with skepticism, the White House display helped increase acceptance of the new technology. Electric lights were still very costly and required a wireman to set up.
1903: General Electric started offering preassembled stringed light kits, making holiday lights more accessible to households that could afford them.
1917: After a tragic fire in New York City caused by candles on a Christmas tree, 15-year-old Albert Sadacca suggested his family’s lighting company sell brightly colored string holiday lights to the public. Albert and his brothers founded the National Outfit Manufacturers Association Electric Company and dominated the lighting market until the 1960s.
1930s: Christmas lights became widely available.
Today, it’s estimated that the lights are part of the $269+ average spent by each American on holiday decorations. From the hand-wired strands on Edward Johnson’s tree to long lines of shopping carts full of boxed lights, the invention has continued to illuminate the joy of the season in homes both in America and around the world.
Read More: White House Christmas Traditions (White House)
A Truly Bright Idea: Creating the Electric Christmas Tree Light (The Saturday Evening Post)
A Brief History of Christmas Lights (Popular Mechanics)
Untangling the History of Christmas Lights (Smithsonian Magazine)
Who invented electric Christmas lights? (Library of Congress)
by Jalen Meyerpeter, Based in Arizona.
