December 1, 2016
Lighting up the Holidays: How Electricity Changed Holiday Decor
Written by Heather Roberts, Research Historian
The first person to electrically light their Christmas tree was Edward H. Johnson, Vice President of Thomas Edison’s Electric Light Company, in 1882. He used 80 red, white and blue lights he hand-wired in a string and put around the tree. The tree was then put on a rotating platform, and both the platform and lights ran on generator power. Not quite up to our Clark Griswold standards today, but when you think of what else was available to people at that time – candles with open flame, like in the photo here – truly innovative in both creativeness and safety.
By 1895 – the year Rosson House was built – President Grover Cleveland had the first electrically lit tree at the White House, and the practice of using electric lights on your Christmas tree started taking off, at least for people who could afford them.
Electricity wasn’t regularly available or even always reliable at that time, and the lights were pretty expensive – a string of 16 lights sold for $12 in 1900, which translates to approximately $350 when this article was written. Doing a little searching around the internet, coupled with a little math, that would mean that at the turn-of-the-century, it would have cost the Griswolds over $18,000 dollars to buy their estimated 25,000 Christmas lights! For reference, that’s more than twice what the Rossons spent to build their house in 1895. (Update: In 2025, that 1900 cost of $12 per string of Christmas lights jumps to $462.)
We’re not sure when people in Arizona first used electric Christmas tree lights, but the Arizona Republican newspaper shared the Phoenix Light & Fuel Co. ad pictured here for “Christmas tree illumination” on December 23, 1903.
In 1908, the Sears & Roebuck Catalog sold the individual lights, or “lamps” pictured below, either plain or, strangely enough, in fruit shapes, along with a battery to power them.
By the 1920s, newspapers were filled with ads for Christmas lights, mostly sold by electric companies like this Bertrom’s ad from the December 23, 1921 Arizona Republican.
Whether your lights are more like Edward Johnson’s, or Clark Griswold’s, or somewhere in between, we hope they serve to bring fun and joy to your heart.
Happy Holidays!
Find Out More
Learn more about the history of Christmas lights on these websites, including a first person-account of the lights on Edward Johnson’s Christmas tree in 1882: Smithsonian Magazine, Popular Mechanics, the Old Christmas Tree Lights website, and the Jim on Light website.
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