The first electrically lit Christmas tree glowed in New York
On this day · 22 December 1882
An Edison associate wired a tree with tiny bulbs and set it spinning, replacing the open flame of holiday candles.
Before electricity, a Christmas tree meant clipping lit candles to dry pine — beautiful and quietly terrifying. The fix came from inside Thomas Edison’s circle.
On 22 December 1882, Edward H. Johnson, a vice president of the Edison Illuminating Company and a long-time Edison associate, displayed a hand-wired tree at his home in New York City. Its small electric bulbs, in red, white and blue, drew current from Edison’s nearby Pearl Street station, which had opened only that September.
The little tree even rotated on a powered base, its lights flashing in a “continuous twinkling of dancing colors.”
A skeptical public took years to warm to the idea — early strings were costly and required a wireman to install. But Johnson, later dubbed the “father of electric Christmas tree lights,” had lit the path. Within a few decades, factory-made light strings would make the candle-lit tree a museum curiosity.
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