Historical story

The first ones cost as much as half a car. The real story of Christmas lights

Do you remember the times when one burnt light bulb was enough to make the whole set of lights go out? Your blood boils in your veins as you remember the hours you spend looking for an unlucky lamp? This is the story of a man who was to blame for everything. And a story of an obsession that was created together by millionaires, politicians and the tabloid press.

It naturally started with candles. And from the very beginning it was an attraction for the really rich. Only they could afford to decorate the Christmas tree with numerous candles (preferably wax candles, which smelled less and gave a nice smell, as opposed to paraffin ones), giving a bit of magic and festive glow to home interiors.

Attractions for pyromaniacs

However, open fire plus a conifer, as even the youngest know, is a ready recipe for fire. So there were various ideas on how the Christmas health and safety should look like. From a bucket of water or sand near the tree, through unsuccessful patents such as:counterweight for candlesticks on the side of the tree that was invisible, oil or gas lamps. There are even special glass covers in the world - the so-called " fairy lights ”.

Even that was to no avail. Christmas trees were often on fire. It took an invention that was both beautiful and safe.

Thomas Edison was not at all the creator of the first Christmas lights. However, he quickly began to make money on them….

The Forgotten Explorer

On the Internet, you can find information that the father of the Christmas lights is Thomas Alva Edison. The same who invented the light bulb in 1879. It's a lie. The first Christmas tree lights were actually invented in the United States in 1882, but the author of this idea was Edison's colleague - vice president of the Electric Light Company, Edward Johnson.

It was he, in his apartment on 5th Avenue in New York, who installed 80 lamps in the colors of the American flag, the size of a walnut, connected with a cable on the Christmas tree (he had specially ordered them to be manufactured in the company he led). Moreover, the Christmas tree stood on a rotating stand, and the lights were also attached to the ceiling.

We know all this thanks to the reporter William Augustus, who described the peculiar invention in the pages of the local Detroit Post.

Yesterday evening, I was walking down Fifth Avenue and called Edward H. Johnson's mansion (...) There was a large Christmas tree at the back of the beautiful living room, presenting the most picturesque and unusual sight.

Johnson lamps quickly began to be sold as… Edison lamps.

It shone brightly with many colored globes the size of a walnut and it spun six times a minute on a small box (...). When the tree spun, the colors changed, because the lights went out, and then they came on again. This gave the effect of dancing red, white and blue colors throughout the evening.

Needless to say, the sparkling evergreen tree was a wonderful sight - it's hard to really imagine anything more beautiful. There were also two chains of 28 little lights diagonally crossing the ceiling; and all lamps and a fantastic tree were powered by electricity from the main office, flowing through a cable. The Christmas tree was turned by an electrically powered crank hidden in the floor. It was a great exhibition.

Johnson never patented lamps. Only the very way of connecting the lights, i.e. the series circuit, has been patented. Until the end of the 20th century (and sometimes even today!), This method of conducting electricity was a real nightmare for dads who were forced to spend hours decorating a Christmas tree looking for the one and only broken bulb. It had to be replaced or bypassed - otherwise the set was not fit for use.

Frequent Christmas tree fires only fueled customers' lamp manufacturers…

Only later was a system invented that, in the event of a cell burnout, allowed for further current conduction in the base of the bulb. Today we can even find it in the cheapest Chinese lights.

A gadget for the rich

But what made Christmas lights so popular? In 1895, President Grover Cleveland hung electric lights on his Christmas tree in the White House. The picture was taken naturally. And of course other celebrities started taking similar photos of themselves.

President Grover Cleveland in a political caricature. It is thanks to him that a real fashion for Christmas tree lights was born.

The photos found their way to the press and it was thanks to the newspapers that the lamps finally fell under the thatch.

In the early years, it was a very expensive Christmas gadget. In 1900 a set of lamps could cost $ 300 in the US. About half a nice car! At the same time, it was a novelty that traditionalists did not look favorably upon.

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New lamps in the old world

In the 1920s and 1930s, also in Europe, Christmas tree lights became a coveted hit among wealthy families. It happened (and how!) Thanks to the media. Magazines for the ladies of the house, magazines for teenagers and serious magazines for gentlemen who read them in clubs between a cigar and a cognac.

The emigrants from Europe who settled behind the "great water" also made their own. They sent letters to their families and wrote about American customs and the "Christmas hits" there.

The first commercial Christmas card from the mid-19th century. In Poland, such prints had a significant impact on the spread of new Christmas decorations ...

Christmas cards were also becoming fashionable, on which even the illiterate could see lights on Christmas trees. It was no different in Poland.

American novelty on the Polish tree

The first standing Christmas tree with electric lights appeared in a Polish home in Silesia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (although there was no independent Poland yet). Gradually, the richer ones allowed themselves such extravagance.

The lights were known as "electric Christmas tree candles" and were advertised as "American novelty". Gradually, other families, also middle-class families, wanted lamps. This trend was only interrupted by the war.

Lamps could be bought without any problems even in the middle of World War II. Announcement from "Nowy Kurier Warszawski" from 1940.

There were also opponents - some housewives considered the invention German or non-traditional, sticking to cold fires or candles.

Finally, progress did the trick. Mass electrification, a drop in electricity prices and the Christmas tree lights themselves, which were already produced on an industrial scale in the interwar period. These four factors were enough to make the lamps a permanent fixture in Polish homes. Another war was not able to change that. In the 1940s, advertisements about "Christmas tree bulbs" appeared regularly in the press. At least in the cities, basically every middle-class person could buy them.

Want to know more?

You have nothing to do between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on December 24? You can go ahead and turn on the third program of Polish radio and listen to more about Christmas lights in Łukasz Walewski's broadcast.