The nineteenth century opened in the flicker of tallow candles and closed in the glare of Edison's electric lamp. Between those two events inventors and manufacturers developed a wonderful assortment of progressively more efficient lighting devices, burning a variety of fuels. Loris Russell records with scientific attention to detail - backed up by more than 200 illustrations - how these lamps were made and used. His text is interspersed with accounts of his own experiments with the fuels and mechanisms of earlier generations.
Russell drew on his own large collection of lighting devices and on the collections of museums and of other individuals for his study, and documented his research with Canadian and United States patent papers, trade catalogues, newspapers, magazines, memoirs, and books. This is the first detailed story of that technological revolution in North America, and while told in the setting of the Canadian home, the developing technology of lighting was common to both sides of the border. A Heritage of Light is of equal importance to collectors and historians in the United States and Canada. This newly reprinted edition of Russell's classic 1968 study has a new introduction by Janet Holmes.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 621.32/0971/09034
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn---
- ISBN
- 9781442670365 0802037658
- LCCN
- TP746
- LCCN Item number
- R84 2003eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xiii, 344 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00600394 (OCoLC)752411687 (CaOOCEL)418350
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 6
- Foreword 8
- Introduction 16
- 1 From Splint to Candle 26
- 2 Lighting the Lamp 50
- 3 Grease in the Pan 64
- 4 When Whale Oil Was King 70
- 5 Those Deadly Burning Fluids 108
- 6 Lard Becomes Respectable 126
- 7 The Coming of Kerosene 146
- 8 Those New-Fangled Lamps 168
- 9 Everybody Used Kerosene 202
- 10 Swan Song of the Kerosene Lamp 246
- 11 Light the Gas 302
- 12 Thank You, Mr. Edison 320
- Epilogue 332
- Glossary 334
- Notes 342
- Bibliography 349
- Index 354
- A 354
- B 354
- C 355
- D 355
- E 355
- F 355
- G 356
- H 356
- I 356
- J 356
- K 356
- L 356
- M 356
- N 357
- O 357
- P 357
- Q 357
- R 357
- S 358
- T 358
- U 358
- V 358
- W 358
- Y 359
