Lighting

LIGHTING

LIGHTING in America prior to about 1815 was provided by a variety of devices, including lamps fueled by oil derived from animal or vegetable sources, tallow or bayberry candles, and pinewood torches. The late eighteenth-century chemical revolution associated with Antoine Lavoisier included a theory of oxidation that soon stimulated dramatic improvements in both lamp design and candle composition. These included a lamp with a tubular wick and shaped glass chimney invented in the early 1780s by Aimé Argand, a student of Lavoisier, and introduced into the United States during the administration of George Washington. The Argand lamp was approximately ten times as efficient as previous oil lamps and was widely used in lighthouses, public buildings, and homes of the more affluent citizens. European chemists also isolated stearine, which was used in "snuffless candles," so called because they had self-consuming wicks. The candles became available during the 1820s and were produced on a mass scale in candle factories.

After European scientists discovered an efficient means of producing inflammable gas from coal, a new era of lighting began during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Baltimore became the first American city to employ gas streetlights in 1816, but the gaslight industry did not enter its rapid-growth phase until after 1850. Capital investment increased from less than $7 million in 1850 to approximately $150 million in 1880. The central generating station and distribution system that became standard in the gaslight industry served as a model for the electric light industry, which emerged during the last two decades of the century. Improvements such as the Welsbach mantle kept gas lighting competitive until World War I. Rural residents continued to rely on candles or oil lamps throughout most of the nineteenth century because coal gas could not be economically distributed in areas of low population density. The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania in 1859 soon led to the development of the simple and comparatively safe kerosine lamp, which continued as the most popular domestic light source in isolated areas in the United States until the mid-twentieth century.

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Certain deficiencies of the gaslight, such as imperfect combustion and the danger of fire or explosion, made it seem vulnerable to such late nineteenth-century electric inventors as Thomas A. Edison. Two competing systems of electric lighting developed rapidly after the invention of large self-excited electric generators capable of producing great quantities of inexpensive electrical energy. The American engineer-entrepreneur Charles F. Brush developed an effective street-lighting system using electric arc lamps beginning in 1876. One of Brush's most important inventions was a device that prevented an entire series circuit of arc lamps from being disabled by the failure of a single lamp. Brush installed the first commercial central arc-light stations in 1879. Because of the early arc light's high intensity, it was primarily useful in street lighting or in large enclosures such as train stations.

Edison became the pioneer innovator of the incandescent-lighting industry, which successfully displaced the arc-light industry. Beginning in 1878, Edison intensively studied the gaslight industry and determined that he could develop an electric system that would provide equivalent illumination without some of the defects and at a competitive cost. His reputation attracted the financial backing needed to support research and development. Crucial to his success was the development of an efficient and long-lived high-resistance lamp, a lamp that would allow for the same necessary subdivision of light that had been achieved in gas lighting but not in arc lighting. Edison and his assistants at his Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory solved this problem by means of a carbon filament lamp in 1879.

Edison also proved skillful as a marketer. By 1882 his incandescent lamp system was in use on a commercial scale at the Pearl Street (New York City) generating station. All the components—not only the lamp but also the generator, distribution system, fuses, and meters—needed for an effective light-and-power system were in place.

The thirty-year period after 1880 was a time of intense market competition between the gaslight, arc light, and incandescent light industries and between the direct-current distribution system of Edison and the alternating-current system introduced by George Westinghouse. Each of the competing lighting systems made significant improvements during this period, but incandescent lighting with alternating-current distribution ultimately emerged as the leader. The General Electric Company, organized in 1892 by a consolidation of the Edison Company and the Thomson-Houston Company, became the dominant lamp manufacturer, followed by Westinghouse.

The formation of the General Electric Research Laboratory under Willis R. Whitney in 1900 proved to be an important event in the history of electric lighting. In this laboratory in 1910, William D. Coolidge invented a process for making ductile tungsten wire. The more durable and efficient tungsten filaments quickly supplanted the carbon filament lamp. Irving Langmuir, also a General Electric scientist, completed development of a gas-filled tungsten lamp in 1912. This lamp, which was less susceptible to blackening of the bulb than the older high-vacuum lamp, became available commercially in 1913 and was the last major improvement in the design of incandescent lamps.

Development of a new type of electric light began at General Electric in 1935. This was the low-voltage fluorescent lamp, which reached the market in 1938. The fluorescent lamp had several advantages over the incandescent lamp, including higher efficiency—early fluorescent bulbs produced more than twice as much light per watt as incandescent bulbs—and a larger surface area, which provided a more uniform source of illumination with less glare. It also required special fixtures and auxiliary elements. This lamp came into wide usage, especially in war factories during World War II, and then spread quickly into office buildings, schools, and stores. Homes proved much more reluctant to adopt fluorescent lighting, however, in part due to the more complicated fixtures they required and in part because incandescent bulbs produced much warmer colors. Following the energy crisis that began in 1973, designers made a number of breakthroughs that boosted the efficiency of fluorescent lamps, primarily by improving the "ballasts," which regulated the flow of energy through the bulb, and by developing new, even more efficient, compact fluorescent bulbs. Many businesses also used dimmers, timers, and motion detectors to reduce energy costs.

The energy crisis beginning in 1973 little affected the lighting habits of American homeowners, unlike its effects on American business. (Household energy costs account for only about 6 percent of the lighting energy used in the United States as compared to the roughly 50 percent used by commercial establishments.) Although some installed dimmers and timers and others paid closer attention to turning off unused lights, home consumption of energy for lighting remained relatively stable. Indeed, though energy-efficient lamps became increasingly available in the 1980s and 1990s, their gains were offset by new uses for lighting, particularly with the growth of out-door lighting in the 1990s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bright, Arthur A. The Electric-Lamp Industry: Technological Change and Economic Development from 1800 to 1947. New York: Macmillan, 1949; New York: Arnco Press, 1972.

Nye, David E. Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.

Tobey, Ronald C. Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

James E. Brittain / a. r; c. w.

See also Electric Power and Light Industry ; Electrification, Household ; Kerosine Oil ; Lamp, Incandescent ; Natural Gas Industry .