We live in an era in which we are accustomed to having homes and offices that are well lit by simply hitting a switch. But it hasn’t always been that way. For much of human existence light was provided by lamps fueled by such things as whale oil, kerosene, fat, by candles, or by torches. The idea of the electric light begins in the nineteenth century. While the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison is generally credited with created the first commercially successful electric light bulb, there were over 20 other earlier inventors who experimented with this idea.
Humphry Davy is generally credited with the invention of the first electric light. Using a battery and a piece of carbon, he produced the Electric Arc lamp in 1802. While it produced light, it didn’t produce it for very long and it was too bright for practical use.
In 1840, British scientist Warren de la Rue designed an electric light bulb using a coiled platinum filament in a vacuum tube. While the light worked, the high cost of platinum meant that it was not commercially feasible.
Joseph Wilson Swan, an English physicist, began working with carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb in 1850. A decade later, he had a working prototype which had a short lifetime. By 1878, he had developed a longer lasting light bulb using a treated cotton thread.
A Canadian patent for the light bulb was issued to Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans in 1874. They tried to market their invention, but were unsuccessful. Thomas Edison purchased their patent in 1879.
In 1878, Thomas Edison began to develop a practical incandescent light and filed for his first patent in that same year. By 1880, the Edison Electric Light Company was marketing its new product.
The Deschutes Historical Museum, located in the historic Reid School in Bend, Oregon, has a small display featuring early light bulbs.
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