Before the advent of Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb, people everywhere relied on comparatively dangerous methods to light up their homes, businesses, and cities. One form or another of fueling a flame for light was used for thousands of years, be it burning gas, oil, simply some sort of flammable material such as wood or candles (Freeburg 5). No matter the region in the world, the flame’s universal prevalence as the chief means of illumination by the 1800’s meant its replacement would have to contend with the commercial viability of whale oil, kerosene, and gas. Right up until Edison’s time of the late 1800’s, gas lamps were prevalent all over America to provide light in cities, a major fire hazard if a gas leak were to be present and set off by even the smallest spark. This age of open flame would come to be extinguished by the turn of the 20th century with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the years, various attempts were made to conceive of a practical alternative means of lighting for society. One prominent invention finally developed in the late 1800s by Elihu Thomson, Edward Weston, and Charles Brush to create a more efficient system of lighting was the arc lighting system, consisting of two pencil-like carbon rods separated by an insulating layer of gypsum that glowed when lit by a flame (Baldwin 104). Around the time that Edison was setting up his own system of electric lighting along Pearl Street in New York with light bulbs in 1882, the Brush Electric Company was implementing an arc lighting system on Broadway as his direct competitor, threatening to brutally stymie his business (Baxter 87). However, this system had its own host of problems, most notably the sparks they sometimes gave off that were a fire hazard to the structures around them after burning for just one to two hours, as well as the fact that they could only be used outdoors as their 4000 candlepower brightness was unfeasible for household use as compared to the eight candlepower brightness of an ordinary gaslamp (Evans 158). While Edison is widely remembered in history as the creator of the incandescent light bulb, he was not the first person to have experimented with its conception. In England, Joseph Swan had been tinkering with the design of the light bulb for decades before Edison, and had already done pioneering work in the development of the incandescent lamp. As early as 1860, he was the first to settle upon the inverted bell jar design, covering a carbon arc filament that was heated by a primary battery as early as 1860 (Baldwin 123). Most of his light bulbs didn’t last very long though, at very best burning for no more that around fifteen minutes, and so Joseph Swan didn’t believe that the feat of creating a long-lasting light bulb could ever be done, remarking about its impossibility. However, Thomas Edison saw the potential implications of this new invention, jumping at this opportunity to succeed with this device where Swan had failed. Thomas Edison’s work with the incandescent light bulb and his eventual development of the power grid to bring cheap, plentiful light to the masses commenced a rapid and complete change of lifestyle, ushering the United States into the modern era. In the pursuit of the creation of a long-lasting incandescent light bulb, Edison heavily devoted many resources towards its development in his laboratory. Edison originally began by testing various types of metal filaments for use in his electric lamp, working with common and exotic metals that included that likes of platinum and steel (Israel 168). Conceding that the carbon-based filaments that Swan used in his development couldn’t be as durable as metal, Edison poured all his effort into trying to find the correct one that would be economical, practical, and relatively durable for everyday use. Soon, he returned to testing out carbon-based filaments after finding that none were satisfactory since almost all of the metals he attempted to use at the time provided little to no resistance to current to generate the necessary light. Along with his staff, he eventually examined over 6,000 organic materials to be used as filaments before finally settling on using Japanese bamboo, the most efficient filament he found would actually light (“Thomas” Encyclopedia). Edison’s unprecedented dedication to his work reflected in the fact that he scoured the world in order to perfect his invention so that it would be just right when he finally released it for mass use. The ultimate brainchild of Edison’s laboratory sweat and toil finally materialized on October 21, 1879 in the form the introduction of his incandescent light bulb made with carbon-based filament, sealed in a vacuum that could burn for hours (Freeburg 34). The public was thus given of the first taste of the future Edison hoped to create, knowing his hours spent making the light bulb would be incredibly influential in shaping the wo