Let There be Light
I’m fascinated by lamps, lanterns, light bulbs, any man-made light source, and especially if it’s old. I have been known to take photos of light fixtures on restaurant walls and ceilings while waiting for a meal. When I tour a historic building, one of the first things I notice is the light fixtures. Over the centuries, we have moved from whale oil lamps to kerosene, to arc lighting, tungsten bulbs and LED lights with a few others in between. Kerosene lanterns are still widely used overseas in rural areas where electricity is too expensive or scarce. In about 1806, an Englishman named Humphry Davy invented arc lighting, which created a glowing electric arc through a gas. Tungsten incandescent light bulbs became pretty common around the 1880s. The bulb photo you see here is a reproduction of an Edison light bulb that you would see in a house or business when electricity first became common in the urban areas. Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan virtually invented a working tungsten light