On this day in 1882 Thomas Edison was granted the patent for ELECTRIC LAMP AND HOLDER FOR THE SAME. U.S. Patent No. 265,311.
In order to adopt a system of electric lighting for ordinary and domestic uses, it seems essential that a lamp should be devised complete in itself, so that it may be supplied as a separate article ready for attachment to a suitable support, and with conductors so arranged that when the lamp is placed in position the circuit-connections are completed without further adjustment, and the holder or socket for receiving the lamp should be arranged to sub-serve this purpose, this that there may be no difficulty encountered, no skilled care or attention needed in placing the lamps in position or in replacing one which from breakage or any cause whatever should become disabled.
The object of this invention is to attain this; and to that end it consists in an electric lamp as a separate article adapted to be readily placed upon or within or removed from a suitable holder, and in a socket or holder as a separate article adapted to receive and support upon or within it an electric lamp, and in the combination of these two separate articles and proper contacts for completing the electric circuit.
