Thomas Alva Edison’s incandescent lamp was not the first electric light to be invented, but it was the first that was practical, durable, and economical, and for that reason it made possible a world revolution in lighting and energy.
On October 21, 1879, Thomas Alva Edison and five associates at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, passed one of the great milestones of modern science—a demonstration of an incandescent lamp that was at once economical, practical, and durable. The records of that day show that Edison had managed to manufacture an incandescent lamp that burned for thirteen and one-half hours. In the excitement of the discovery, notes were incomplete, and there was some talk of a bulb that burned for the then unimaginable time of more than forty hours. The light from Edison’s first successful lamp gave only a feeble, reddish glow, but Edison had set out not merely to invent a new kind of light but to revolutionize the science of illumination and to bring electricity within the means of everyone.
The secret of Edison’s incandescent lamp is best explained in his subsequent patent application:
I have discovered that even a cotton thread, properly carbonized and placed in a sealed glass
Edison had made an incandescent lamp with a hairlike carbon filament for a burner, having the necessary high resistance and low current, and sealed in a permanent high-vacuum glass to allow the burner to glow without being destroyed by the heat. The importance of Edison’s discovery is not that it was the first electric light or even the first incandescent lamp, but that it was the first electric bulb that had the potential to be universally and economically used for domestic lighting. This was especially true after Edison managed to distribute the great power generated by electrical dynamos to send it to individual users over wires. Nevertheless, when he later threw a switch at New York’s Pearl Street power station in 1882, lighting four hundred lamps for eighty-five customers, few realized that he had replaced the steam age with the electric age.
It may have been only Edison who realized the full implications of his invention. A group of Wall Street
Edison’s friend and informal financial adviser, Grosvenor Lowrey,
The triumph of the incandescent lamp was also a personal triumph for Edison. His previous major success, his invention of the phonograph
Edison’s method for inventing involved delegating authority and supervising gifted associates in a well-equipped laboratory. Most of Edison’s discoveries were collaborative ventures, but most of the imagination and creative impetus were supplied by Edison himself.
Edison’s incandescent lamp.
When Edison invented his incandescent lightbulb, harnessing electrical power was not itself new. Sir Humphry Davy
Edison’s genius was not that of pure science; he was always interested in commercial applications. His aim with electricity was not to compete with the arc-light manufacturers but rather to duplicate the success of the gas-distributing industry by using electricity. At the time, gas lighting
In this endeavor, Edison was, in effect, working from first principles, because most research in electric lighting had been devoted to the arc-light principle. He needed financing, and with confidence and gall in equal proportions, he announced before the fact that he had invented a new and cheap electric light. With W. H. Vanderbilt
The fact that Edison accomplished his immediate goal in little more than one year was astonishing. However, so much publicity had preceded the actual invention that it was some time before it was taken seriously by the public or the financiers, in spite of occasional dramatic interludes, such as the lighting of all of Menlo Park, New Jersey, with the new incandescent lamp.
After actually creating the electrical lightbulb, Edison’s next challenge was demonstrating the ability of his incandescent lamp to light an entire urban area. On December 17, 1880, he founded the Edison Electric Illumination Company of New York, which evolved into Consolidated Edison. The laying of mains, the running of generators, and the convincing of a still dubious public absorbed all the inventor’s energy. However, his discovery won first prize at the 1881 Paris Electrical Exposition, and soon, patches of electrical lighting throughout the world’s cities announced the arrival of “Edison’s lamps.”
Before Edison was done, he had not only invented a successful incandescent light but had also developed an entire system to generate and distribute electric energy. Credit for bringing electricity to the world is also due to the likes of Alessandro Volta, Sir Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, and others who had helped the realization of Edison’s more dependable, durable, and reliable system.
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Baldwin, Neil. Edison: Inventing the Century. New York: Hyperion, 1995. This lightly illustrated account, with assistance from scores of individuals, such as Edison family descendants, is commendable for its vignettes and anecdotes. Includes a hundred pages of notes and bibliography. -
Clark, Ronald W. Edison: The Man Who Made the Future. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1977. Attractively illustrated biography illuminated with fascinating vignettes and little-known facts make this an engaging book to read. Includes an entire chapter on Edison’s invention of the lightbulb. -
Dillon, Maureen. Artificial Sunshine: A Social History of Domestic Lighting. London: National Trust, 2002. Lively narrative of the impact that artificial lighting has made on human history. -
Edison, Thomas A. Menlo Park: The Early Years, April 1876-December 1877. Vol. 3 in The Papers of Thomas A. Edison, edited by Robert A. Rosenberg et al. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. Includes Edison’s own early notes on an electric lighting system. -
Friedel, Robert D. Edison’s Electric Light: Biography of an Invention. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986. History of Edison’s invention that offers a clear explanation of the origins and nature of the electric lightbulb, whose genesis was helped by William Wallace’s dynamo to generate power. -
Israel, Paul. Edison: A Life of Invention. New York: John Wiley & Sons 1998. Israel draws on Edison’s notebooks to describe Edison’s working methods, portraying him as a tireless experimenter who produced his inventions with prodigious amounts of labor. -
Jonnes, Jill. Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World. New York: Random House, 2003. Explains how the three inventors who made the most important contributions to electrical lighting sought to create businesses that would provide safe, reliable electricity. -
Josephson, Matthew. Edison: A Biography. 1959. Reprint. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992. Written in colorful but accessible language, this full biography is nearly encyclopedic in its coverage. -
Millard, Andre. “Edison’s Laboratory and the Electrical Industry.” In Edison and the Business of Innovation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Well-researched and illustrated work that places the invention of Edison’s high-vacuum incandescent bulb in the broader context of the entire electrical system. -
Bazerman, Charles. The Languages of Edison’s Light. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Describes how Edison and his colleagues created a system of symbols and communication to describe the new invention of electric lighting. -
Wachhorst, Wyn. Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981. The few pages devoted to the incandescent lamp, and especially the encyclopedic Edison bibliography, are noteworthy.
Davy Develops the Arc Lamp
Britain Adopts Gas Lighting
Faraday Converts Magnetic Force into Electricity
First U.S. Petroleum Refinery Is Built
Edison Patents the Cylinder Phonograph
London’s Savoy Theatre Opens
Chicago World’s Fair
First Commercial Projection of Motion Pictures
First U.S. Hydroelectric Plant Opens at Niagara Falls
General Electric Opens Research Laboratory
Sir Humphry Davy; Thomas Alva Edison; Michael Faraday; Joseph Wilson Swan; Nikola Tesla; George Westinghouse.