A Hart of Light
The GE Engineer that Illuminated the National Christmas Tree
Library of Congress
THE ANNUAL TRADITION of
lighting a Christmas tree on the
lawn of the White House began
nearly a century ago when President
Calvin Coolidge lit a 60-foot Balsam
Fir on Christmas Eve 1923. It was the
brain child of a former technical journalist
for General Electric, Frederick M. Feiker. As
an assistant to then Secretary of Commerce
Herbert Hoover, Feiker thought it would be a
great way to popularize the use of electric lights
at Christmas and encourage the lighting of
outdoor trees. Keep in mind this was the 1920s
and the use of electricity was encouraged as
much as possible to boost the growth of our
national electric grid. Forty years later, GE
began donating the design and lighting of the
National Christmas Tree—
a service they still provide.
top , left to right
1923, Coolidge lighting tree;
Al Hart, 1971;
GE’s First National Tree, 1963
All photos courtesy GE Lighting Archives
unless otherwise noted
1962 The Christmas Pageant
of Peace program
28 |
by Jeff Carter
T
HE “CHRISTMAS PAGEANT OF PEACE”
committee assumed responsibility for the
National Christmas Tree and the surrounding
displays on the White House Ellipse in 1954. In 1962
GE aided in the general display, and in 1963 they
began to design and light the main tree and the
57 smaller trees that represent each state and US
territory. 1963 was also the first year GE manufactured
strings sets and about three miles of those new strings
were used to festoon the trees.
The first designer for GE was Alvin L. Hart, an
illuminating engineer at GE Lighting Headquarters
at NELA Park in Cleveland, Ohio. His specialty was
product planning and application for commercial
outdoor lighting, building floodlighting, service
station lighting, and advertising lighting. One of Al’s
more notable projects was the lighting of the Gateway
Arch in St. Louis. Like many of the illuminating
and application engineers at NELA Park, when the
holidays rolled around he focused his expertise on
Christmas lighting.
I recently had the opportunity to talk to Al and
his daughter Sue. He’s now 94 and lives near Sue in
suburban Washington, D.C. He shared his experiences
with the National Tree and Sue shared what it was like
growing up with a dad who was responsible
for lighting America’s Christmas tree.
GE S11 LEXAN bulbs
 D URING AL’S tenure the trees
were cut trees so the dimensions
of the tree could drastically vary from
year to year. Often times he wouldn’t
know what he was working with until
about three or four weeks before it was
scheduled to be lit. Al would meet with
the Pageant of Peace committee during
the summer and they would agree on
a basic design to coordinate with their
annual theme. Would he need 3,000 red
C9 lamps or 5,000? He wouldn’t know
that until the final measurements came
in from the loggers who fell the tree.

1968 tOPPER sketch

O NCE THOSE numbers came in

it was all hands on deck. Now A LONG WITH designing the tree came the job
of designing the tree topper. He commented,
“the tree topper was something original.” Sue
the design could be finalized based on
the actual tree size, and all the lights remembers one night he put up a card table in their
and decorations procured and shipped living room as a makeshift drafting table to design
to Washington. Upon their arrival that year’s topper. When she came downstairs
a local display company, Hargrove in the morning there was design after design he
Displays, would install the lights and sketched out. “He’s a very artistic man,” she said.
decorations according to Al’s design. Once he finalized his design and got the topper
fabricated, he would bring it home for the family to see.
GE Lamp news
Dec. 1, 1967

1965 tree topper

1968 nat’l
tree sketch

1969 tOPPER sketch

S UE REMEMBERED, “They were

1969 nat’l tree sketch
huge and bright. One year he
plugged it in and it lit up the whole
house!” She added, “It was exciting to
know that ‘thing’ sitting on our table
would soon be on the National Tree.” December 2019 | 29
 What does one
use to light a
National
Christmas
Tree?
W
HEN IT CAME TO lighting the
National Christmas Tree in the old
days, not only were “Christmas lamps”
used on the tree, but other decorative
lamps were used as well.  You will
notice in the picture above of the Calvin
Coolidge Tree that large, standard base
lights were used. These were the most
popular for lighting outdoor buildings
and trees for Christmas. We are fortunate
that one of our longtime Glow members
and lighting experts, Greg Olson, had a
complete case of the same type of light
strings used on the Coolidge White House
Christmas Tree.
The Coolidge Tree was lit with Pass &
Seymour sets. Pass & Seymour (P&S)
was incorporated in 1901 by James Pass
and Albert Seymour. P&S was known for
above top-quality lighting and light cords in the
Al Hart with 1965 early 20th century. As you can see on the
National Christmas inside lid of the P&S set (above right), it
advertises it as being the same lights used
Tree decor
on the White House Tree.
top of page
When General Electric began designing
A tradition begins:
the tree, the choice of lamps was made by
Calvin Coolidge
Illuminating Engineers who used precise
lighting a tree on
scientific methods for determining the
the White House
most effective means to light the tree.
lawn, Christmas
Eve 1923 During Al Hart’s tenure, he used a variety
Library of Congress of lamps, not just Christmas lamps.
30
GE S11 LEXAN
An amazing find:
a complete case
of Pass & Seymour
outdoor decorative
He mainly used intermediate-based S11 outfits, circa early
sign lamps with a LEXAN color coating. 1900s
LEXAN color lamps had a transparent
polycarbonate plastic resin coating that
offered more sparkle, greater brightness
and more color saturation. He did use
off-the-shelf GE C9 Merry Brights and
Twinkle Brights for accent colors. GE
C9 strings were used for the S11 and C9
lamps. Many of the lighted decorations on
the trees used standard-based 25-watt
lamps. See the photo of Al with the
lighting used for the 1965 tree. Notice the S11s
in the GE string sets. The star he's holding is
not the topper, it’s a decoration for the tree.
The more I research the GE Lighting
engineers, the more I'm impressed by
their pure genius; and, as a lover of
Christmas lighting, I'm amazed at their
dedication to apply their knowledge
and expertise to Christmas lighting.
With all the product lines of lamps Special thanks
GE developed and manufactured you to Greg Olson for
photographs of his
would think Christmas lighting would be Pass & Seymour sets
an afterthought (pretty much was for and Edison Mazda
Westinghouse), but it was not. The NELA lamps.
Park Christmas display and the National
Christmas Tree were opportunities
to showcase their expertise.
 AL HART DID CAPTURE some national attention in 1970 when he was interviewed on the TODAY
show by Joe Garagiola. They talked about his years lighting the tree and he gave viewers Christmas lighting tips.

1964 1965
MOSTLY AL stayed out of the spotlight 1963
and quietly did his work behind the scenes.
He would travel to Washington to oversee
the installation but during the decade
he designed the tree he never went to
the actual lighting ceremony or met
any of the Presidents whose back
yard he lit. Al would watch the
lighting on TV with his family like
the rest of America, except they
would be on pins and needles.
“Please let it light, please let it
light, please let it light,” was 1966 1967 1968
often chanted by his family as
the President would begin the
countdown to flip the switch.
“If it didn’t fire up, there would
be hell to pay,” Al half-jokingly
said. He took great pride in
all of his work but this
particular project was
on a national stage
with millions of people
watching live on TV—
the reputation of GE was
on the line. The 1972 1969 1970 1971
tree (left) was the last
tree Al designed for
the Pageant of Peace.

1972

T
HERE WAS one final question I had to ask Sue,
“So how was your house lit for Christmas?”
“That was the big joke at the time— we had zero Christmas
lights outside our house! Absolutely no time!” Al did have
time at Halloween. He would put a light bulb on the inside
of an inflated weather balloon and paint a jack o’lantern
face on the front. The six foot “Great Pumpkin” was a traffic
stopper in their neighborhood. I guess he had some time to
kill waiting for the final tree measurements.
1967 tree in daylight
above
A gallery of National Christmas Trees designed by Al Hart
About the Author GLOW MEMBER
JEFF CARTER is a frequent
contributor to The GLOW. His
fascination with Christmas lights goes
back as far as he can remember. His GE
brand preference began in 1969 when
his dad brought home three sets of GE
C9s and two sets of GE Merry Midgets.
Jeff lives in the suburbs of Atlanta and
is currently producing a documentary
on the history of GE Christmas lighting—
working title "The Wizards of NELA Park."
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