BC in Carpinteria owns an ornate lamp. In the late 19th century people considered it an exquisite newel post gaslighting fixture, beautiful yet deadly.
First let’s talk about the symbolism of the design. Lighting in the late 19th century was novel and figural. A lamp evoked a classical, artistic feeling. The owner of this lamp wanted to impress. Installing gas lines needed to produce light through this kind of lamp became expensive. Owners wanted to show off, especially if a lamp held a place of honor, as did this newel post lamp. It rose magnificently from a stairway’s central post, seen directly on the entrance to a grand house, as typically stairs faced opposite a front entryway.
BC’s lamp shows iconography in the design. The central figure is a Classical Greek style maiden holding a handled urn from which sprouts a bouquet of lilies. The maiden, the ‘classy’ element, references high taste in Classical (Greek or Roman) art discovered in the 19th century. The lilies represent sleep and death. Think of darkness, and of course a lamp overcomes darkness. On the base of the lamp, in relief in the metal, called Spelter metal, we see a motif of a vine of ivy, symbolizing tenacious love (ivy clings!) and strong family relationships. All these elements “speak” within the symbol of an object that creates light.
We considered beauty.
Now let’s consider the deadly nature of the gas lamp of the mid to late 19th century. Edison’s bulb, invented in 1879, slowly put gas lights out of business, but not before gaslighting became a universal light source. BC’s lamp once sported on and off levers formed in the shape of a flower stem. Those manual handles for the gas were hand ignited and then, hopefully at bedtime, quelled. The technical term for these levers is stopcocks. When someone “electrified” BC’s lamp they wired it so one inserted lightbulbs in the uplifted lilies. Before that “modernization’’ the lamp’s original “mantle,” where the bulb is now, the fuel (such as propane, white gas, coal gas, wood gas, natural gas) produced heat. The mantel, ceramic mesh, encased the flame.
Now here’s how this lamp killed. When lit in a poorly ventilated room, this lamp, likely lit by natural gas, created carbon monoxide, serious heat, not to mention the nasty hiss of the gas (noise), and soot. Carbon monoxide caused deaths in the worst cases, but also resulted in hallucinations!
Miners deep in the earth came across pockets of coal gas, and stored it in bladders, which led to lighting through the means of gas. Inventors in the late 18th century experimented with this oddity in England. Gas by “gasification” of coal became the choice for Great Britain in the 19th century. In the US we chose natural gas.
Late 19th century theater became one of the famous arenas for gaslight. From this we get terms like, “The Great White Way,” “In the Limelight,” and by the “Footlights.” The most famous theater to use gaslight was the Paris Opera House, completed in 1875, requiring 28 miles of gas piping. This changed the experience of both the actor and the spectator. Not the least of concerns was the flammability of the costumes when exposed to the footlights!
Gaslighting Firsts
Hundreds of theaters burnt down until they meshed over footlights. Gas boys ran back and forth to adjust them for safety’s sake. But by the late 19th century, the Savoy Theatre in London saw enough of actors on fire, and installed, as a first, incandescent lighting.
Other famous firsts for gaslight in a city was New Orleans’ French Quarter. Many cities became famous for their gas lit streets: Chapel Street in Lancaster became the first street (1806), followed by Baltimore’s streets in the US, as well as a famous artist’s museum in Baltimore, also a first, gaslighting the walls of the Rembrandt Peale Museum. Imagine seeing art LIT for the first time (1816).
BC’s old and now electrified newel post lamp isn’t in the current taste and is worth $400. She should sell it to someone in the South restoring a vintage Plantation.