Who Invented Electric Christmas Tree lights?

Every Month Historifly will share some of the greatest, most unique and important days in American history. We hope you enjoy, learn and listen to history's "Mystic Chords of Memory."

Thomas Edison (1880)

Menlo Park, New Jersey

During the Christmas season of 1880, light strands were strung around the outside of the Menlo Park, New Jersey Laboratory. Railroad passengers traveling by the laboratory got their first look at an electrical light display. 

Edward H. Johnson (1882)

Edward H. Johnson put the very first string of electric Christmas tree lights together in 1882

Edward Johnson, Edison’s friend and partner in the Edison’s Illumination Company, hand-wired 80 red, white and blue light bulbs and wound them around his Christmas tree

President Cleveland (1895)

White House Family Christmas Tree

In 1895, President Cleveland requested that the White House family Christmas tree be illuminated by hundreds of multi-colored electric light bulbs.

President Calvin Coolidge (1923)

National Christmas Tree

On Christmas Eve 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the country’s celebration of Christmas by lighting the National Christmas Tree with 3,000 electric lights.

Albert Sadacca and NOMA Electric Co. (1920's)

The Sadacca family owned a novelty lighting company and in 1917. Albert, a teenager at the time, suggested that its store offer brightly colored strands of Christmas lights to the public. By the 1920’s Albert and his brothers organized the National Outfit Manufacturers Association (NOMA), a trade association. NOMA soon became NOMA Electric Co., with its members cornering the Christmas light market until the 1960’s.

All of this history and more can be found in the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress.

Historifly Presents This Month in History: December 2016

Wreckage of USS Arizona, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

December 2, 1942

Atomic Age Begins

Enrico Fermi, engineered a nuclear fission chain reaction.

December 3, 1818

Illinois Statehood

Illinois entered the Union as the 21st state.

December 6, 1884

Washington Monument Completed

Workers placed the 3,300 pound marble capstone on the Washington Monument, completing construction of the 555-foot Egyptian obelisk.

December 7, 1941

Pearl Harbor Attacked

Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory killing more than 2,300 Americans.

December 14, 1799
George Washington Passes Away

George Washington died at his Mt. Vernon home

December 17, 1903
Wright Brothers Flight

Wilbur and Orville Wright completed the first flight of their flying machine in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina

December 17, 1932
Radio City Music Hall Opens

All of this history and more can be found in the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress.

Historifly Presents This Month in History: November 2016

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published in the United States in February 1885

November 1, 1897

Library of Congress building opened its doors to the public

The Library had been housed in the Congressional Reading Room in the U.S. Capitol. In the twentieth century, two additional buildings were added to the Library of Congress complex on Capitol Hill.

November 11, 1918

World War One Ends

The Allied powers signed a ceasefire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France, at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918, bringing the war, later known as World War I, to a close.

November 19, 1863

Gettysburg Address

President Abraham Lincoln delivered a short speech at the close of ceremonies dedicating the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

November 21, 1789
North Carolina becomes a U.S. State

North Carolina ratified the Constitution to become the twelfth state in the Union. The vote came approximately two hundred years after the first white settlers arrived on the fertile Atlantic coastal plain.

November 22, 1963

John F. Kennedy Assassinated

President John F. Kennedy was shot as he rode in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas, TX.

November 28, 1895 
The First American Automobile Race

Six "motocycles" left Chicago's Jackson Park for a 54-mile race to Evanston, Illinois, and back—through the snow. Number 5, piloted by inventor J. Frank Duryea, won the race in just over 10 hours at an average speed of about 7.3 miles per hour! The winner earned $2,000; the enthusiast who named the horseless vehicles "motocycles" won $500.

November 30, 1835
Mark Twain Born

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, popularly known as Mark Twain, was born in Florida, Missouri.

November 11, 1889
Washington becomes a U.S. State

President Benjamin Harrison declared Washington the forty-second state.

All of this history and more can be found in the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress.

Historifly Presents This Month in History: October 2016

October 1, 1903 - Sports - Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Americans Play First Modern World Series Game

October 1, 1903

Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Americans Play First Modern World Series Game

The Boston Americans (soon to become the Red Sox) of the American League played the National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. Pittsburgh won the game by a score of seven to three, but lost the best of the nine-game series to Boston, five games to three.

October 1, 1961

Roger Maris Breaks Home Run Record

In the last game of the regular season Roger Maris hits his 61st home run breaking the long-standing 1927 record of baseball legend Babe Ruth for the most home runs in a single season.

October 12, 1492

Exploration

Christopher Columbus Discovers America

October 19, 1781

American Revolution - General Cornwallis Surrenders at Yorktown

British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his army of some 8,000 soldiers to General George Washington at Yorktown, basically ending the Revolutionary War. Cornwallis had marched his army into the Virginia port town earlier that summer expecting to meet British ships sent from New York. The ships never arrived.

October 20, 1803

Louisiana Purchase Ratified

The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty by a vote of twenty-four to seven. The agreement, which provided for the purchase of the western half of the Mississippi River basin from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents per acre, doubled the size of the country and paved the way for westward expansion beyond the Mississippi.

October 10, 1845
U.S. Naval Academy Opens

Fifty midshipmen and seven faculty members (three civilians and four officers) inaugurated the first term of the United States Naval School at a ten-acre Army post, Fort Severn, in Annapolis, Maryland.

October 16, 1859
John Brown Raids Harper's Ferry

Late on the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown and twenty-one armed followers stole into the town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, (now West Virginia) as most of its residents slept. The men among them - three free blacks, one freed slave, and one fugitive slave - hoped to spark a rebellion of freed slaves and to lead an "army of emancipation" to overturn the institution of slavery by force.

October 6, 1866
First American Train Robbery

Thieves boarded an eastbound Ohio & Mississippi Railroad passenger train near Seymour, Indiana, and entered an Adams Express Company car. The bandits emptied safes and tossed others off the train intending to open it later. Signaling the engineer to stop the train, the robbers, later identified as the infamous Reno brothers, made an easy get away.

October 18, 1898
Spanish American War - American Forces Capture Puerto Rico

American troops fighting in the Spanish-American War raised the United States flag in Puerto Rico formalizing U.S. control of the former Spanish colony.

October 28, 1919
Volstead Act

Congress passes the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, known as the Prohibition Amendment.  The amendment prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States.

October 28, 1919
Volstead Act

Congress passes the Volstead Act providing for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, known as the Prohibition Amendment.  The amendment prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" in the United States.

October 31
Halloween

On the night of October 31, many Americans celebrate the traditions of Halloween by dressing in costumes and telling tales of witches and ghosts. Children go from house to house—to “trick or treat”—collecting candy along the way. Communities also hold parades and parties. Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve, originated as the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, meaning “summer’s end.” The autumnal holiday, rooted in Christian and pagan festivals—with elements of magic and mystery, celebrated the link between seasonal and life cycles (winter was then a time associated with death). Halloween is now celebrated worldwide and reflects the assimilation of various cultures. In the twenty-first century, it has become a secular, and hugely commercial holiday.

All of this history and more can be found in the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress.

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