Christmas Fan Favorite – Colored Lights

Voted on by YOU…

Colored Christmas Lights

Edward Hibberd Johnson might not be a name that you recall frequently, but Thomas Edison sure is! Most of us remember from school that Thomas Edison created the lightbulb, but Edward Johnson was there, too!

The lightbulb was patented in 1880 and in 1882, Johnson had a brilliant idea to monetize Edison’s impossible feat by putting lights on trees. Because Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert boosted the popularity of the Christmas tree (we’ll learn more about that another week!), Johnson jumped on the idea of adding lights to their green, full branches. He, Edison, and a group of others invested $35,000, which would be just shy of one million dollars today, into creating a version of Christmas lights that are the predecessors to the ones you hung on your tree this year!

Johnson hand-placed and wired 80 bulbs that were blue, white, and red into a shop window tree and then attracted attention to it from the press. Here’s what the Smithsonian Museum recorded from that day:

“’At the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect,’ wrote W.A. Croffut, a veteran writer for the Detroit Post and Tribune. ‘It was brilliantly lighted with…eighty lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between white, red and blue….One can hardly imagine anything prettier.’ The lights drew a crowd as passers-by stopped to peer at the glowing marvel. Johnson turned his stunt into a tradition; he also pioneered the practice of doing more each year: An 1884 New York Times article counted 120 bulbs on his dazzling tree.” (Source)

Isn’t that amazing?! Who knew there was a story behind the lights we string on our tree today. We’ve definitely come a long way! We would love to hear why you prefer colored or traditional white lights below!