To build public support for his grand project and demonstrate it was safe, Edison organized an “Electric Torch Light Parade,” in which four hundred men wore lightbulbs on their heads—connected via wires that ran up their shirts to a steam generator that rolled behind them. Through the vehicle of the parade, Edison invented an idea that people could rally around: safe, reliable, 24/7 electric light. Once he created that idea, the lightbulb quickly became one of the most disruptive technologies the world had ever seen.
