Edward Hibberd Johnson, ‘The Father of Christmas Lights’

Thanks to some clever advertising, the electrical age ushered in a whimsical decoration many of us may take for granted: multicolored string lights.

Today, a Christmas tree is considered incomplete without festive strands of string lights. That tradition is almost 150 years old. Public Domain

Thomas Edison’s 1879 invention of the lightbulb may have been the impetus behind a longstanding Christmas tradition, but it was actually a marketing ploy by his company vice-president that started it all.

Edison’s lightbulb was patented in 1880. Edison, Edward Hibberd Johnson, and others invested $35,000 to create the Edison Lamp Company to sell the bulbs, though no one yet knew the value of lightbulbs because homes had yet to be equipped with electricity. Edison named Johnson the company’s vice-president and that turned out to be a genius move by the brilliant inventor.