Electric light
Videos
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical device that produces light from electricity. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal
Incandescent, compact fluorescent, and LED lamps
Sign with instructions on the use of light bulbs
A tablet at St John the Baptist Church, Hagley commemorates the installation of electric light in 1934.
Top, two compact fluorescent lamps. Bottom, two fluorescent tube lamps. A matchstick, left, is shown for scale.
Thomas Edison
Videos
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman known for his work on the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, electric power distribution and early motion pictures. The merger of the
Electric light
…as those by Thomas Edison. The late 1870s and 1880s were marked by intense competition and innovation, with inventors like Joseph Swan in the UK and Thomas Edison in the US independently developing functional incandescent lamps. Swan's bulbs, based on designs by William Staite, were successful, but the filaments…
Edison, c. 1922
Edison in 1861
Group photo taken as a postcard of the employees in front of the factory at Edison's Newark Factory on Ward St in 1873. Edison is visible peeking out of the fourth floor window; he wrote that he was too busy working to come downstairs.
Edison with the second model of his phonograph in Mathew Brady's studio in Washington, D.C. in April 1878