"Illumination"

"ILLUMINATION." As early as 1702, the term "illuminate" meant "to decorate profusely with lights, as a sign of festivity or in honour of some person or some event" (sixth definition in the Oxford English Dictionary). A notable instance of such a display occurred on 24 October 1781. Colonel Tench Tilghman had reached Philadelphia at 3:00 a.m. on 22 October with news of the Yorktown surrender. A Committee of Safety handbill, headed "Illumination," announced that "those Citizens who chuse to illuminate on the glorious occasion, will do it this evening at Six, and extinguish their lights at Nine o'clock. Decorum and harmony are earnestly recommended to every citizen, and a general discountenance to the least appearance of riot."

In her account of the Brunswick general Baron Friedrich Riedesel's service in Canada, Louise Hall Tharp related the following anecdote about an illumination at Quebec City:

The next day [4 June 1776] was the birthday of George III. The city of Quebec was "illuminated" in the evening by means of lighted candles set in every window. It was well known that a good many French people living in Quebec had hoped that the Americans would win. Yet it seemed that in all of Quebec's fifteen hundred houses, everyone was joyously burning candles in honor of the King of England. The reason for this was soon apparent, however. Soldiers were going about heaving rocks through any unlighted windows. (Tharp, pp. 42-43)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lancaster, Bruce. American Heritage History of the American Revolution. New York: ibooks, 2003. (Contains a reproduction of the handbill).

Tharp, Louise Hall. The Baroness and the General. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962.

                              revised by Harold E. Selesky