GE engineers started lighting the National Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C. in 1963, one year after their colleague Nick Holonyak invented the world’s first visible light-emitting diode (LED).
Today, GE LEDs illuminate not only the First Spruce outside the White House, but also streets in San Diego and Jacksonville. Those cities that have started testing the latest generation of an “intelligent” LED lighting system developed by Current, a new energy startup that GE launched last fall. GE scientists also found a way to make LEDs shine in more vivid colors.
The streetlights are equipped with cameras, microphones and other sensors. They stream sound, images and data over the Industrial Internet to Predix, GE’s cloud-based software platform. Apps built on Predix can help cities optimize traffic, improve parking and even fight crime.
The light bulb and electrical lighting, of course, were been the seminal breakthrough that allowed Thomas Edison and his partners grow GE into a global industrial powerhouse. Take a look at the history through the holiday lens.
Early GE Christmas tree lights advertisements. The history of Edison’s Christmas lights goes back to the winter of 1880, when Edison strung a line of electric lights outside his Menlo Park laboratory in New Jersey, enchanting travelers on passing trains. Just two years later, Edward H. Johnson, his partner in the Edison Illumination Company, hung the first string of 80 red, white and blue electric Christmas lights from a revolving tree in the parlor of his New York City home. All images credit: The Schenectady Museum of Innovation and Science.
Electric lights ceased being a novelty item and became more mainstream in 1895, when President Grover Cleveland had the White House family Christmas tree decorated with hundreds of multi-colored electric light bulbs, for the first time. However, it wasn’t until 1903 that GE began selling pre-assembled kits of Christmas lights to the general public. By then, electricity got cheaper and more ubiquitous and the market for electric lighting took off. Above, President Coolidge at the first National Christmas Tree in 1923. Image credit: Library of Congress
A box of Christmas tree lights from 1905. Image credit: The Schenectady Museum of Innovation and Science.
Christmas tree lights soon came in many shapes and colors. The selection above in from 1910. Image credit: The Schenectady Museum of Innovation and Science.
Christmas in 1919. Image credit: Museum of Innovation and Science Schenectady
GE illuminated the National Christmas Tree for 53 consecutive seasons. There are more than 60,000 LEDs on the tree, which stands at President’s Park in Washington, D.C. LEDs use 80 percent less energy than traditional bulbs and can last 20,000 hours. Photo credit: Paul Morigi for the National Park Foundation