The illuminating idea came after a visit to William Wallace’s workshop in Ansonia, Connecticut. Wallace had created an electrical generator that he called the “Telemachon” in November of 1875. It had been on display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. When Edison had arrived at Ansonia in 1878, he witnessed the “lately-perfected dynamo-electric machine,” which had the power to “divide the light of the electricity produced into but ten separate lights. These being equal in power to 4,000 candles.”
A Grand Proclamation
Wallace was among a number of inventors in the 1870s who had become focused on electric output by motor. He, along with the likes of Zénobe Gramme, Belgian inventor of the Gramme dynamo (a direct-current dynamo), and Werner von Semiens, German inventor of the double-T armature, were pushing the world ahead by means of electricity. Edison, though wildly impressed with Wallace’s work, suggested the reason why the proliferation of electric lighting along streets and inside houses was so slow going was because all the inventors had “been working in the same groove.”Edison proclaimed to the press that he would be able to produce a far more practicable lamp “through an entirely different process” and that “everybody will wonder why they have never thought of it, it is so simple.” He reflected on how people considered the 10 separate lights from one machine to be a “great triumph of scientific skill,” but made the bold claim that he would be able to “produce 1,000―ay, 10,000―from one machine.” He claimed his improvement would come within only a few weeks’ time and that once finished, and with coordination with “fifteen or twenty of these dynamo-electric machines recently perfected by Mr. Wallace, I can light the entire lower part of New York City, using a 500 horse-power engine.”
A Burning Problem
The problem for Edison, as it was for many other scientists, was creating a lamp that would burn for an extended period of time. The inventor believed he had certainly found the solution; its application, however, was another issue. Nonetheless, this did not stop him from presenting his new improvement to reporters. The sly self-promoter ensured that each reporter visited his New Jersey laboratory at Menlo Park separately. Reporters were amazed at the brightness of his lamp, but before their amazement turned into fixation, they were ushered out of the room before the lamp burned out. Regardless, Edison had bought himself time and publicity.
There may have been some fear, though. Charles Brush, the Cleveland inventor, had been working hard on his arc lighting system, and by April of 1879, he had demonstrated to a large crowd gathered at Monumental Park (now Public Square) the power and applicability of his lighting system. The city’s newspaper scoffed at Edison after Brush’s success: “He is all the time talking about what he is going to do, but he has never done anything.” (The local paper obviously chose to ignore Edison’s other inventions, including his phonograph of 1877.)
A Boston Theater
Several hundred miles as the crow flies from Menlo Park, a city block in Boston had continually witnessed changes to its façade. A short walk from the historic Old South Meeting House on 545 Washington Street was the Gaiety Theatre. But this was hardly its first name. The block had originally housed side-by-side the Lamb Tavern and the Lion Tavern. The Lion Tavern was changed to accommodate theater performances in 1835 and was renamed Lion Theatre. In 1839, it became a lecture and concert hall called the Mechanics Institute. By December of 1839 it was renamed to Melodeon, then Melodeon Varieties (1857), New Melodeon (1859), and then back to Melodeon until 1878, when it was changed to Gaiety Theatre. Three years later, another change would arrive, and far more than just a name.The British Connection
Across the Atlantic Ocean in Britain, while the Bijou was still the Gaiety Theatre, the librettist W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan began working as a duo. Their first collaboration was in 1871 for a Christmas extravaganza at the behest of John Hollingshead, the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre―in London. Four years later the duo wrote the operetta “Trial by Jury.” It was the start of a successful creative partnership. In 1882, the duo wrote “Iolanthe,” an opera comedy that is still performed today. The operetta was performed on Nov. 25 at the Savoy Theatre and was a rousing success.
At this time back in Boston, the renovations to the Bijou Theatre were complete and the theater was preparing for its opening night. It would be an experience unlike any other in America.
Edison’s creation had taken the world by storm, including the entertainment world. A year after extending the lightbulb’s electric life to 14.5 hours, Paris Opéra installed the new lighting system, followed by a small theater in Munich (as part of the Electrotechnical Exposition in 1882), then the Savoy Theatre in London. Boston would be next. During the reconstruction process of the Bijou Theatre, Edison supervised the installation of more than 600 lights, with more than half installed behind the theater’s proscenium.
It was during this week in history, on Dec. 11, 1882, the Bijou Theatre opened with the performance of the new hit operetta “Iolanthe”; but far more importantly it became the first American theater lit by electricity.
