Signs are a fixture of the American landscape.
Two developments brought about a fundamental change in signage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The first was the invention of the electric light by Thomas Edison in 1879. As early as the 1880s, electrically-lit signs were appearing at a few establishments in big cities. The second important development was the advent of the automobile, which has had a sweeping impact on the modern landscape. The management of traffic, of course, demanded the now familiar Stop and Yield signs, but it is in advertising where changes were the most notable.