A Heritage of Light: Lamps and Lighting in the Early Canadian Home (RICH: Reprints in Canadian History)

## Foreword Loris S. Russell (1904-98) had a distinguished career as a geologist and paleontologist. Every summer his studies of geological formations, stratigraphy, and fossils from earlier geological eras took him with his wife, Grace, to explore the Badlands of southern Saskatchewan and Alberta. He continued this work in his retirement until 1992. The result was over one hundred scientific papers and his book Dinosaur Hunting in Western Canada (1966). His discoveries about dinosaurs and early mammals from formations in Alberta and Saskatchewan are especially important, and he was the first to suggest that dinosaurs might have been warmblooded. His scholarly contributions to the field of paleontology were recognized in 1976 by the publication of Athlon: Essays on Palaeontology in Honour of Loris Shano Russell, edited by C.S. Churcher. While he was acting director of Human History at the National Museum of Canada from 1958 to 1963, Dr Russell became familiar with the collections formed by ethnologist Marius Barbeau. From 1911 to 1948, Barbeau specialized in West Coast Indian ethnology and the folklore and material culture of French Canada. The lighting collection in particular caught Dr Russell's interest. He extended his lifelong interest in geology, fossils, and fossil FOREWORD x generators and gas machines for public buildings, and patents for vapour lamps. E.I. Woodhead, C. Sullivan, and G. Gusset wrote Lighting Devices in the National Reference Collection, Parks Canada (1984), based on material drawn from Parks Canada archaeological sites. Nadja Maril, in American Lighting, 1840-1940 (1995) has produced a survey of lighting, including the story of the American manufacture of fuels and lamps, and the rate at which the new lighting methods became accepted in American homes. Introductory chapters cover whale oil, lard, and burning fluid lamps. Maril focuses on kerosene, gas, electric, and combination gas and electric lamps, including art glass fixtures. There are additional chapters on glass shades. Full-colour illustrations of lamps, many contemporary advertisements, and a price guide add to this book's usefulness. John J. Wolfe's Brandy, Balloons, and Lamps: Ami Argand, 1750-1803 (1999) is a biography of the inventor of the Argand lamp. Argand's invention was the first scientific improvement in the quality of light, an oil lamp 'with an illuminating power increased by a factor of ten.' Over the years, several journals have included or specialized in articles on lighting. Antiques Magazine Library, edited by Lawrence S. Cooke, in 1975 published Lighting in America: From Colonial Rushlights to Victorian Chandeliers (1975), reprints of articles from the magazine Antiques, 1927-72. Since 1934 the Rushlight Club, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to the study of early lighting, has published articles on lighting in its journal, Rushlight. It has also published several useful books:

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.

"The nineteenth century opened in the flickering 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. Lois Russell records with scientific attention to detail - backed up by more than two hundred 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 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 the lighting revolution in North America. 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 reprinted edition of Russell's classic 1968 study has a new foreword by Janet Holmes."--Résumé de l'éditeur "The nineteenth century opened in the flickering 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. Lois Russell records with scientific attention to detail - backed up by more than two hundred 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 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 the lighting revolution in North America. 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 reprinted edition of Russell's classic 1968 study has a new foreword by Janet Holmes."--Jacket Contents 5 Foreword 7 Introduction 15 1. From splint to candle 25 2. Lighting the lamp 49 3. Grease in the pan 63 4. When whale oil was king 69 5. Those deadly burning fluids 107 6. Lard becomes respectable 125 7. The coming of kerosene 1854 to 1860 145 8. Those new-fangled lamps 1861 to 1869 167 9. Everybody used kerosene 1870 to 1885 201 10. Swan song of the kerosene lamp 1886 to 1900 245 11. Light the gas 301 12. Thank you, Mr, Edison 319 Epilogue 331 Glossary 333 Notes 341 Bibliography 348 Index 353