Today’s Almanac-December 22, 2010
Edward Johnson’s first electrically illuminated Christmas Tree.
On December 22, 1882 the first electrically illuminated Christmas tree was lit in New York City. As usual Thomas Edison got the credit. As was often the case, an associate was responsible. Edward H. Johnson was an early backer of Edison and in 1881 became one of the founding partners of the Edison Electric Lamp Company. In 1882 Johnson was Vice President of the company.
He thought it might be good publicity to erect a tree in his home lit by Edison bulbs. At the time, candles routinely used to illuminate Christmas trees annually caused hundreds of fires and often took lives. Trees were generally only set up on Christmas Eve and lit only for that one night with buckets of water and sand at the ready for emergencies. Then the tinder dry trees were taken down by Christmas night.
Johnson had craftsmen at the new Edison Electric Lamp factory in East Newark, New Jersey hand create of 80 special red, white and blue bulbs each about the size of a walnut. Technicians came to his home and meticulously hand wired the lamps to a tree on a rotating base in Johnson’s parlor. Members of the press were among those invited to cast their eyes upon the marvel.
Although there was interest, electrified trees were not yet practical. Johnson had the company manufacturing hand blown colored bulbs for commercial sale by the early 1890’s, but consumers had to hire wire men to come and hand wire the bulbs to the tree at a cost of more than $300-the equivalent of $2,000 today. Obviously only the ultra wealthy could enjoy the spectacle.
The lights got a big boost in 1895 when President Grover Cleveland put up a tree festooned with 100 lamps in the White House.
In 1901 the Edison Company came out with its fist string of lights, with sockets for 8 screw-in two candlepower bulbs. An improvement, but 8 bulbs didn’t go very far and adding extra strings tended to burn out fuses. Two years later another company, American Eveready, came out with an improved string with more bulbs and a plug to go in a wall socket instead of requiring the string to be hand wired to a power source.
The first to really take advantage of the new technology were the flag-ship down town Department Stores in major cities who began erecting large lit trees to attract shoppers.
But the lights were still too expensive for average homes. In 1917 15 year old Albert Sadacca was appalled by news of yet another tragic deadly fire caused by a candle lit Christmas tree. The young Spanish immigrant began making strings of lights using bulbs his family used to make novelty illuminated bird cages. The first year he made and sold about 100 strings of clear lights. The following year he began to paint the bulbs multi-colors and sales began to sky rocket. Sadacca and his two brothers formed a company that became NOMA Electric Company in 1925, for forty years the leading producer of holiday light sets.
By the 1930’s even with the economic stress of the Great Depression, electric lit Christmas trees were becoming standard in American homes. They were put up earlier and taken down later, extending the Christmas feel and excitement in homes. But the lights were not perfect. They were still wired in series which meant that when one light burned out, the whole string went black. The sight and sound of Dad fussing and cussing as he tried replacing each bulb in a string until he found the bad one also became a part of Christmas tradition and lore.
Over the years NOMA introduced many innovations to holiday lighting including using intermediate base bulbs for heavy-duty outdoor display in 1928; the first strings wired in parallel in 1934 (although they did not become standard for decades); rubber rather than cloth wound cords in 1940; bubble lights in which the heat of the lamps boiled colored liquid in a closed tube in 1946; and a safety plug with a fuse in 1949.
In the 1950’s miniature lights, variously called fairy lights or Italian lights began to replace traditional colored bulbs in popularity. By the mid 1960’s these were being cheaply produced in Japan driving American producers to the wall. NOMA declared bankruptcy in 1965 and exists today only as a licensed brand name on lights made in China and Third World countries.
Christmas lights are now a major feature of the season on streets, in stores, on homes, and often in multiple trees in homes. Each season seems to introduce some new innovation or fad light twinkling or strobing lights; icicle strings for home display; light blankets for shrubbery; and cool LED lights instead of incandescent. Energy conservationists wring their hands at the waste. But many of us take some real joy from sitting in a dark living room with the Christmas tree ablaze with lights and corny old songs playing on the device of the moment