So Now You Know

Before 1882 Christmas trees were displayed in homes with lighted candles - many tragic fires resulted from this custom. An associate and friend of Thomas Edison, Edward Johnson, is recognized as the first person to put electrified lights on a real Christmas tree.

With 80 hand-wired red, white and blue hand-blown bulbs strung around a rotating evergreen tree, Johnson's event took place at his home in support of his belief in the lighting product's safety. In truth, those first bulbs became very hot and were nearly as dangerous as the candles they were replacing.

It would take decades for affordable lighting to become available to most Americans. However, just after President Grover Cleveland commissioned a lighted White House tree in 1895, members of high society started hosting Christmas tree parties. These events became more numerous even as the typical lighted tree of the early 1900s could cost as much as $300, that would be $2000 today.