Albert Sadacca

Albert Sadacca is credited with popularizing electric Christmas tree lights for private use. According to the legend, in 1917, at the age of 15, after a fire in New York City started by candles suspended in a tree, Sadacca adapted the novelty lighting that his parents sold for use in Christmas trees. A similar story is told about Ralph E. Morris, who created an electric light set using a telephone switchboard in 1908. Earlier electric Christmas tree lights had been used in 1885 in Grover Cleveland's White House, and in 1882 at the home of Edward H. Johnson, a vice-president of the Edison Electric Light Company.

Other sources indicate that Albert and his brothers, Henri and Leon, founded their business in 1914 (three years before the fire, when Albert would presumably have been only 12 years old). Nevertheless, in 1925, Sadacca's company, enjoying success in the new Christmas light business, proposed that several companies then competing for the market join together as a trade organization. The name of the organization was The National Outfit Manufacturer's Association. The association merged into a single company the following year, and began several decades of dominance in the rapidly-growing Christmas lighting market as the NOMA Electric Company.

References

* [http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/Xmas_Lights.htm The History of Christmas Lights] at About.com
* [http://www.oldchristmaslights.com/noma_story.htm The NOMA Story] at The Antique Christmas Light Site