The Invention of Christmas Lights and a Laconia Man’s Ingenuity
By Charlene Muscatell
This time of year, many of us are feeling the holiday cheer, diligently planning get-togethers and affixing festive decorations to our homes. One household favorite is the addition of strings of white or colored lights to Christmas trees, banisters, doorways and even sweaters. Have you ever wondered how they became a part of holiday traditions? Let’s delve into the history of “Christmas Lights” and see how one local man helped change how we bring a warm, cozy atmosphere to our homes for the holidays.
First, why do we have “Christmas Trees” in our homes? Long before Christianity, many civilizations decorated their homes with evergreens throughout the winter months as they believed it protected their loved ones from evil spirits and illness. This was especially true in European cultures, where they adorned doors and windowsills with boughs of firs and spruce. In the 16th century, the Welsh folk song “Nos Galan” celebrated Winter Solstice and the New Year and included lyrics of hanging holly. This song was later rewritten as the well-known “Deck The Halls” by Scottish Musician Thomas Oliphant to include more Christmas-specific lyrics. By the early 1600s, devout German Christians had traditions of bringing evergreen trees or wood piles with evergreen boughs decorated with lively candles into their homes, centered around Christmas celebrations.
Around the same time in New England, the newly settled American Puritans believed celebrating Christmas was unholy and frivolous, so much so that in 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law prohibiting decorations and fining those who didn’t abide. This changed over time as significant influxes of German and Irish immigrants settled and influenced the Northeast.
In 1846, English royals were pictured sketched in the Illustrated London News celebrating the holidays in front of their decorated Christmas tree. It was not the first royal Christmas tree, but because Queen Victoria and her German Husband, Prince Albert, were so loved by their people, this scene popularized holiday festivities and the decorating of Christmas trees. It became very fashionable in both England and East Coast American societies by the late 1800s. The first known Christmas tree in the White House was in 1889, requested by President Benjamin Harrison.
There is an interesting story behind when and how candles were replaced with electric lights to illuminate Christmas trees. As it is widely known, Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the first practical working electric light bulb in 1879 in his New Jersey laboratory. This was an incandescent bulb made with a carbonized cotton filament that lasted over 14 hours. Only three years later, Edward H. Johnson, the Vice President of Edison’s electric company and personal friend of Edison, strung together 80 egg-sized fragile bulbs of red, white and blue to decorate a Christmas tree in the parlor of his New York home. The bulbs were lit up by a filmy electric wire that hung from the ceiling as the tree slowly rotated, making the tree twinkle. This neighborhood was one of the first in New York to have electricity available in homes, so the sight of his twinkling tree was quite the spectacle.
The New York display attracted a lot of attention as a local news reporter spread the word. Noting the interest in the display, Thomas Edison put up lights of his own in front of his laboratory in Menlo Park, now renamed Edison, New Jersey. The lights were seen by foot traffic and passengers in passing trains, gaining attention in surrounding social circles.
Because there was so much interest in the colorful light displays, Edison and Johnson saw the electric bulbs as a solution to the long-standing fear of Christmas trees catching fire by the traditional wax candles and, at the same time, eliminating the mess caused by the dripping wax. They started to sell strings of green or white lights and even offered rental lights. "Electric trees will prove to be far less dangerous than the wax candle parlor trees,” -Johnson proclaimed. Unfortunately, the Edison bulbs proved to be just as prone to starting fires as they also emitted a lot of heat. In 1895, President Grover Cleveland commissioned a tree with Edison bulbs for the first electrically lit Christmas tree in the White House. The large tree held more than a hundred multicolored lights.
According to Business NH Magazine, One cold Christmas morning, more than two decades later, a local Christmas legend was born. In his home in Laconia, New Hampshire, Ralph E. Morris watched as his toddler son Leavitt accidentally knocked a candle over on the Christmas tree it decorated, setting it ablaze and nearly catching the house on fire. Unaware of Johnson’s lights in New York, as news did not travel fast in many circles then, Ralph thought up his own solution to this problem.
At the time, Ralph worked at The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. The telephone switchboards were built with small flashlight bulbs that lit up when a line was activated. He set his idea in motion, repurposing old bulbs from the switchboards. He spent hours soldering and wiring them together before adding crepe paper to create yellow, orange and green colors and then attached them to an artificial feather tree he had purchased. The design included small filament bulbs with wiring hidden under plastic candle sticks, making them appear like candles. He presented the new tree to his family and friends on Christmas morning of the following year.
From 1933 to 1965, Ralph was also the Executive Theater Manager of The Colonial Theater in Laconia. His time working at the theater allowed for many connections and conversations, including the Christmas lights story. Over time, he surely inspired others to seek less flammable decorating options.
Until the late 1930s, the Morris family, along with many friends and colleagues, believed Ralph to be the original inventor of the electric Christmas string lights, still unaware of the Edison and Johnson lights, which, by then, were becoming more commercially available. Many in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire still to this day believe that Ralph was the first. Although not the case, he may have been the first, especially in the Lakes Region, to come up with a less flammable solution with the use of the smaller bulbs on his setup. The smaller lights were also more manageable and easier to decorate with.
The Morris tree was most recently seen in a collection of Christmas Lights displayed on bulbcollector.com. The Morris family had discovered that the collector purchased it from a family friend on eBay with no noteworthy description, not realizing the potential significance. The collector, through research, had uncovered that the tree was likely originally purchased from a Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalog, popular at the time. The stem had been painted green and a stronger stand was built to support the newly added lights.
Over time, string lights have gone through mass production by different manufacturers with many improvements along the way. In the 1920s, a thermostat with a strip of metal was added to the bulb of the commercially available lights. When the metal strip heated up, it bent and broke the electrical circuit, turning off the light. When it cooled, the metal bent back, reconnecting the light and turning it back on. This was the development of the twinkle light without the rotating tree.
After World War II, Christmas lights became so popular and widely available that by the late 1940s, outdoor Christmas lights were added to homes and businesses as well. Many incorrectly believed the outdoor bulbs burned brighter and longer if pointed upright and wasted a lot of time decorating. Some early bulbs were molded into shapes of fruit or holiday figures and painted by toy makers. These tended to peel and flake over time from expansion. For decades, string lights were made with incandescent bulbs and you better hope one bulb didn’t fail or the whole string went out!
To increase the sales of string lights, General Electric and Edison's Electric Company encouraged neighborhood contests for the best light displays. Now, there are many string light options including LEDs with shunts to prevent entire strings from failing. They have become an affordable, easily attained product. An estimated 150 million sets of lights are sold yearly in the U.S. alone. They are very much a staple of our holiday season and are used for any occasion from Christmas to weddings and even lighting your patio on summer evenings.
Every year, all across the country, there are innumerable holiday light displays from enthusiastic homeowners to businesses. In central New Hampshire alone, there is an abundance of displays to experience, from “The Gift of Lights” at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway to “The Winter Lights” display at Waterville Valley. The facts included in the above article can be found on history.com, oldchristmastreelights.com and the aforementioned sources. Take a look at our “What’s Up” column for upcoming holiday events. Happy Holidays!