© Mark Ollig
Up until the late 19th century, Christmas trees were decorated with garlands of popcorn, homemade ornaments, and edible treats like berries, nuts, cookies, and fruits.
Lighted candles were also used on Christmas trees, but due to fire hazards, a bucket of water was often kept nearby.
In 1879, Thomas Edison developed a practical incandescent light bulb at his Menlo Park, NJ, laboratory.
By the Christmas season of 1880, he was demonstrating his electric lighting system, stringing bulbs outside his lab for the nearby railroad passengers to see.
The New York Times reported Dec. 21, 1880, that New York City officials visited Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory, where they were impressed by his electric lighting. The article noted a walkway illuminated with 290 electric lamps, “which cast a soft and mellow light on all sides.”
In December of 1882, Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison and the vice president of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company, created the first electrically illuminated Christmas tree.
He hand-wired a string of 80 red, white, and blue electric light bulbs on the tree in the parlor room of his home.
Johnson placed the illuminated Christmas tree on a slowly rotating platform (powered by a direct-current electric dynamo generator) next to a window so the tree was visible from the street.
After visiting Johnson’s home on West 12th Street and seeing his electrically lit Christmas tree, William Augustus Croffut, a journalist for the Detroit Post and Tribune, wrote a Dec. 22, 1882, newspaper article saying, “Last evening, I walked over beyond Fifth Avenue and called at the residence of Edward H. Johnson, vice-president of Edison’s electric company. There, at the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree, presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect.”
He went on to describe the electrical lights on the Christmas tree, “It was brilliantly lighted with many colored globes about as large as an English walnut and was turning some six times a minute on a little pine box. There were 80 lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between white, red, and blue.”
In the following years, Johnson continued to refine his Christmas tree display, increasing the number of lights.
An 1884 New York Times article said of his Christmas tree, “It stood about six feet high, in an upper room, and dazzled persons entering the room. There were 120 lights on the tree, with globes of different colors.”
Despite the public’s fascination with Johnson’s colorful bulbs, the transition from traditional candles on Christmas trees was gradual, slowed by high costs and limited access to electricity in smaller cities and rural areas.
In 1895, during President Grover Cleveland’s presidency, electric lights were placed on the indoor White House tree, which helped popularize the practice of decorating Christmas trees with electricity.
The Dec. 6, 1901, issue of the Brooklyn Daily Times featured an advertisement from the Edison Electric Illuminating Co. of Brooklyn offering miniature electric lamps for Christmas tree lighting, available for purchase or rental. The ad states wiring could be easily arranged if there was electric service in the building.
In 1903, General Electric, which had purchased Edison’s lightbulb factory in 1890, began selling the first Christmas tree lighting kits. These kits included a string of eight varied-colored glass bulbs and a connector for an electrical socket.
The kit cost $12 (about $430 today) and was marketed as a safer, easier way to light a Christmas tree, though the bulbs still posed some fire risk due to their heat.
In 1917, 15-year-old Albert Sadacca, along with his 22-year-old brother Leon and younger brother Henri, began marketing affordable electrically-powered Christmas lights through their family’s Ever-Ready Light Company.
The Nov. 28, 1920, Minneapolis Journal newspaper featured a Peerless Electrical Company advertisement, which advertised a “new kind of tree lighting set” from General Electric called the GE Christmas Arborlux, featuring smaller translucent lamp bulbs.
President Calvin Coolidge turned on the switch of the first officially recognized outdoor national Christmas tree Dec. 24, 1923.
The 48-foot balsam fir, trimmed with 2,500 red, white, and green bulbs, was lit on the Ellipse located south of the White House.
The ceremony drew more than 6,000 visitors and featured Christmas carols and a performance by the US Marine Band.
The lighting of the first national Christmas tree marked the beginning of a tradition that continues to this day.
Today’s Christmas lights mainly feature LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which are safer and more energy-efficient than older incandescent bulbs, like the cone-shaped glass ones I remember from my youth.
In the future, “smart” Christmas trees may feature lights enhanced by nanotechnology, bioluminescence, holographic projections, and immersive AI-augmented reality powered by excess heat in a room using energy-harvesting technology.
They will no doubt provide a unique and immersive Christmas experience.
Stay tuned.
