Recently I posted a “then & now” photo comparison of 1601 Perkiomen Avenue in 1905 and today that went fairly viral on nearly every social platform. A viewer on tiktok wondered if electric poles would have been present at that time. It’s a valid question…we know Thomas Edison patented his incandescent light bulb in 1879, but this technology that we now take for granted took quite a bit of time to roll out to the public. This led me to wonder – what exactly did this process look like in Berks County?

Over the course of 1879 the Reading Eagle, like the rest of the country’s newspapers, were following Edison’s progress with bated breath; the world wasn’t quite sure that this new technology was going to stick. One hurdle Edison faced was getting the technology to work, obviously, but perhaps the even larger hurdle was getting it to be more cost efficient and brighter than the gas lamp; the prominent lighting method of the time.

In August 1881 the Eagle reported that Philadelphia had commenced putting up electric light posts on Chestnut Street between Broad and the Delaware River by Christmas. One would expect the more major metropolitan areas to gain technology first, but by February 1882 it was reported that Lancaster City merchants were way ahead of Reading’s and had their principal stores and businesses lit by electricity.

I suppose that report kicked Reading into gear as only a month later in March Reading’s City Council finally asked for proposals from Philadelphia companies to both light the main streets and government buildings. Things actually didn’t work out that year due to it being too costly, and council awarded another years contract to the Reading Gas Company.

It is also important to remember that while the technology was there, the infrastructure was not. Initially, there was no central power company to supply the electricity. When these early lights were established in businesses that could afford them, they also came with their own generator to produce the power.

Finally on January 1st, 1883 it was reported that an ordinance had been passed by City Council allowing light poles to be erected on any street in the City. In March Council again asked for proposals to light Penn, Franklin and Washington Streets between front and 12th, and 5th and 6th Streets between Spruce and Buttonwood. The contract was awarded to the Reading Electric Light Company, which had just been chartered days before. They quickly leased a building at 6th and Cherry to install dynamo generators to fulfill their needs. On the evening of August 30th, the lamps went on and lit Reading’s streets by electricity for the very first time.

By 1886 the Reading Electric Light Co. were constructing their own plant, which consisted of four tubular boilers. Edison’s incandescent light system was implemented that October and by this point coverage had extended to Perkiomen Avenue along City Park.

Municipalities, hotels, mills and stores would have been the first to implement this new technology, but when did it become available in the household? You probably wont find it all that shocking that the wealthy had first dibs, but it also depended heavily on distance. The more wealthier neighborhoods like Centre Park and around Hill Road were further away from the power generators housed by the Electric Light companies closer to the center of town. In 1887 is was reported that Edward Brooke’s new mansion in Birdsboro was fitted with a dynamo generator for electric lights. So it is likely the largest mansions in Reading’s affluent areas were electrically lit the same way around this same time.

I actually found a March 27th, 1888 Reading Times article about City Council voting to put an electric light at 16th and Perkiomen Avenue, exactly the one in question to kick off this article.

The home at 1601 Perkiomen was built in 1894 for a German immigrants George and Emma Schuler. George owned a produce market and was a butcher by trade; this family was upper-middle class for the time. Due to the light post pre-dating their house by six years, I think its fairly safe to assume their home was furnished with electricity when it was built. At least the infrastructure was already there.

The further outskirts of the city or the lower class may have waited a few more years, but I think its safe to say most of the city’s homes were electrically powered by the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Even communities like Sinking Spring, Wyomissing, Shillington and West Lawn had access to electric lighting by about 1905. Some of Berks County’s more rural communities waited until the 1920s through the 1940s to finally catch up. Which is kind of incredible to think that our rural communities were technologically about a half century behind our urban center.

So there you have it – ask me a question and you may just get a ridiculously detailed answered.